All I'm reading is that content needs to be scalable to the number of players joining the fight. Other games have handled this over a decade ago. It's time ESO implements it so old/dead content can be played by new players without needing more players that are non-existant in that area or disinterested with a specific zone or fight.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

DeadlySerious wrote: »

What's your explanation for how we were previously able to get groups for just about any content at any time of day prior to U35?

The way I remember it-- and I wasn't actually queuing for groups, myself, so I'm talking about what I was reading in the forums rather than anything I experienced firsthand-- players were always complaining about how long queue times were when they queued for a dungeon, as well as complaining about damage dealers queuing as fake tanks or fake healers just to help speed up their wait times in queues. And that was long before U35.

Personally, I think the playerbase's overall reaction to U35 was, and still is, completely overblown. I don't think it was as bad as certain high-end trial-running influencers were saying-- not for me, anyway, and I did actual before-and-after comparisons on my main characters between the pre-U35 live servers and U35 on the PTS-- but the influencers had everyone convinced and up in arms about it. And then, when U35 went through without a bunch of adjustments (basically, nerfs to the nerfs) that the influencers had been demanding, they got in a huff that their feedback hadn't been treated like the "Very Important and Highly Influential" opinion that they thought it was, so a lot of them left in anger. And yet, the game lives on, despite the apparent attempts of former players to keep doing everything they can to get it shut down. That's how it seems to me, anyway.

If you think the response to U35 is so overblown how to you explain all the recent cut backs ZOS has made to ESO since then? How do you explain the economy collapse since U35? How do you explain the very noticible and undeniable drop in player population since U35 went live?

DeadlySerious wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

DeadlySerious wrote: »

What's your explanation for how we were previously able to get groups for just about any content at any time of day prior to U35?

The way I remember it-- and I wasn't actually queuing for groups, myself, so I'm talking about what I was reading in the forums rather than anything I experienced firsthand-- players were always complaining about how long queue times were when they queued for a dungeon, as well as complaining about damage dealers queuing as fake tanks or fake healers just to help speed up their wait times in queues. And that was long before U35.

Personally, I think the playerbase's overall reaction to U35 was, and still is, completely overblown. I don't think it was as bad as certain high-end trial-running influencers were saying-- not for me, anyway, and I did actual before-and-after comparisons on my main characters between the pre-U35 live servers and U35 on the PTS-- but the influencers had everyone convinced and up in arms about it. And then, when U35 went through without a bunch of adjustments (basically, nerfs to the nerfs) that the influencers had been demanding, they got in a huff that their feedback hadn't been treated like the "Very Important and Highly Influential" opinion that they thought it was, so a lot of them left in anger. And yet, the game lives on, despite the apparent attempts of former players to keep doing everything they can to get it shut down. That's how it seems to me, anyway.

If you think the response to U35 is so overblown how to you explain all the recent cut backs ZOS has made to ESO since then? How do you explain the economy collapse since U35? How do you explain the very noticible and undeniable drop in player population since U35 went live?

What cut backs? What collapse? What population drop?

U35 was TWO YEARS AGO.

Most adapted & continued playing. Those that didn’t want to, didn’t.

It’s just getting a bit tedious. And unhealthy.
Breathe out, relax, and move on. 😘

I don’t really get why people are in so much denial about the fact that ESO is in decline. As I’ve said before the raw numbers (which are declining too) don’t matter as much as the demographic that is playing the game.

If the main types of people playing are the ones who don’t group with others, solo quest in random zones, or sit in their houses to decorate most of the time, the game will feel dead. This population can grow a lot and they don’t really contribute to the game feeling any more lively because they hardly engage with the MMO side of the game.

Endgame isn’t just dying, it’s dead. There was a time when there were many raid teams competing against each other for the best scores. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. There’s kind of just 20 or so people who hold all the records and are nearly uncontested. Maelstrom leaderboards used to be much more competitive as well. I would see many players competing for the top spots especially on sorcerer and nightblade. Now the highest score is significantly higher than the 2nd place score to the point where it’s not really a contest. Outside of the number 1 scores, I have never seen Maelstrom scores as low as they are if you check the boards now. Maybe it’s just old content, but I think it points to a much bigger trend of the types of people leaving.

PvP has been dying a very slow and sad death for a decade. There was a time when Cyrodiil could hold 1800 people and would still need multiple campaigns. I logged on a few weekends ago near prime time and not even Grey Host was full (which probably holds 300 or less people). When dueling came out there were 3 or more lively spots, now it’s down to one spot which is usually dead anyway. Battleground queues are slow and horribly balanced when matches are found because there’s literally no one else near the same MMR bracket as people on the high end.

Outside of the game, many of the major raid community discords have shut down or see way less activity. Most big content creators have quit ESO completely. ESO on Twitch has declining metrics as well.

Theres no way to spin it. The endgame PvErs are gone, the PvPers are gone, the content creators are gone, twitch viewership is down, Steam numbers are down. These are the people who are actually apart of the community and make the game feel more alive.

Maybe ESO is gaining a lot of new players that quit after 100 hours or more seasonal solo players. Sorry, but these people don’t really make the game feel lively cause they aren’t seen and they don’t queue or engage with the MMO stuff.

Stamicka wrote: »

Endgame isn’t just dying, it’s dead. There was a time when there were many raid teams competing against each other for the best scores. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. There’s kind of just 20 or so people who hold all the records and are nearly uncontested.

I wouldn't say dead, and it depends on what you mean by endgame. The hardest of hardmodes is balanced around the small communities that have left the game or are dwindling. One of my guilds still has a private git gud group that has been working on vDSR HM for months now. There are still plenty of people doing vet Trials, perhaps not the hard modes but they are there. I see Aedra still doing many vRG HM semi-open runs and vCR+3 0 Portals, but that stuff is above what I can pull for numbers.

Is the game in the healthiest of places, no. Could the devs do more? I think so. I am I still having fun? Yes, for the most part. Do my guilds have weekly trials, guild events, and fun things every week? Yes.

Orbital78 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Endgame isn’t just dying, it’s dead. There was a time when there were many raid teams competing against each other for the best scores. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. There’s kind of just 20 or so people who hold all the records and are nearly uncontested.

I wouldn't say dead, and it depends on what you mean by endgame. The hardest of hardmodes is balanced around the small communities that have left the game or are dwindling. One of my guilds still has a private git gud group that has been working on vDSR HM for months now. There are still plenty of people doing vet Trials, perhaps not the hard modes but they are there. I see Aedra still doing many vRG HM semi-open runs and vCR+3 0 Portals, but that stuff is above what I can pull for numbers.

Is the game in the healthiest of places, no. Could the devs do more? I think so. I am I still having fun? Yes, for the most part. Do my guilds have weekly trials, guild events, and fun things every week? Yes.

What I meant by “endgame is dead” is more so that the endgame community is dead. I don’t doubt that there’s still people running veteran trials, that will probably always be the case.

The community however is all the stuff that I mentioned in the original post. It’s the discords where many different guilds could interact with each other, it’s the top end teams having other teams to compete against, and it’s the sense of knowing other people in the community and sharing information/strategies. The sense of community is enhanced by things like content creators and streamers posting their runs and interacting with other players. It’s also about whether or not the community is big enough for newcomers to find a team where they fit in well.

With all these discords shutting down, teams disbanding, and content creators quitting, the community really suffers. There’s less people that know each other, less discussion about strategies and builds, less competition, and ultimately less people are exposed to this aspect of ESO. It doesn’t seem like there’s people coming in to replace all who left.

So yea, I think the best indicator for how alive something is is the community around it and almost no one is left in both the PvP and PvE communities.

Stamicka wrote: »

Orbital78 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Endgame isn’t just dying, it’s dead. There was a time when there were many raid teams competing against each other for the best scores. That doesn’t seem to be the case now. There’s kind of just 20 or so people who hold all the records and are nearly uncontested.

I wouldn't say dead, and it depends on what you mean by endgame. The hardest of hardmodes is balanced around the small communities that have left the game or are dwindling. One of my guilds still has a private git gud group that has been working on vDSR HM for months now. There are still plenty of people doing vet Trials, perhaps not the hard modes but they are there. I see Aedra still doing many vRG HM semi-open runs and vCR+3 0 Portals, but that stuff is above what I can pull for numbers.

Is the game in the healthiest of places, no. Could the devs do more? I think so. I am I still having fun? Yes, for the most part. Do my guilds have weekly trials, guild events, and fun things every week? Yes.

What I meant by “endgame is dead” is more so that the endgame community is dead. I don’t doubt that there’s still people running veteran trials, that will probably always be the case.

The community however is all the stuff that I mentioned in the original post. It’s the discords where many different guilds could interact with each other, it’s the top end teams having other teams to compete against, and it’s the sense of knowing other people in the community and sharing information/strategies. The sense of community is enhanced by things like content creators and streamers posting their runs and interacting with other players. It’s also about whether or not the community is big enough for newcomers to find a team where they fit in well.

With all these discords shutting down, teams disbanding, and content creators quitting, the community really suffers. There’s less people that know each other, less discussion about strategies and builds, less competition, and ultimately less people are exposed to this aspect of ESO. It doesn’t seem like there’s people coming in to replace all who left.

So yea, I think the best indicator for how alive something is is the community around it and almost no one is left in both the PvP and PvE communities.

There's a new generation coming up in some discords, especially the ones doing pug trifectas (and yes those discords exist, Aedra has put up a bunch of pug PBs in the past month - I was in one of them) and I've noticed a lot of the pre update 35 raiders kinda back in ESO again - some of the old esoruns people. What we don't really have on NA at least is the big unaffiliated discords, but what we do have is some guild discords that have kind of taken their place. There's 3 or 4 you have to be in nowadays to see all the open sweaty runs on NA rather than just being in OMP or ESORuns like it was back in the day.

Edit: That said, endgame is in an extremely fragile place right now I think. One wrong move by ZOS and it's gone, probably for good.

To be fair a more accurate statement is there's not enough tanks. If you were to create a group finder as one of the tanks you'll probably find more runs.

Nihilr wrote: »

All I'm reading is that content needs to be scalable to the number of players joining the fight. Other games have handled this over a decade ago. It's time ESO implements it so old/dead content can be played by new players without needing more players that are non-existant in that area or disinterested with a specific zone or fight.

I agree, as long ZOS do better than ArenaNet did with GW2, in which some Champions (their version of our World Bosses) become such powerful aberrations when fighting massive crowds they're almost unkillable.

Is this, as usual, all about pc?

Lots of players on PSEU

Pvp guild getting 2-3 groups up; quite a lot of vet hm trials being run & new players coming in to guilds.

Just to give a different perspective 😁