I agree with you at all these points but your mocking of consoles player makes you unsympathic a lot

Population varies wildly but seems low most of the time. I play mostly in Imperial City. Two nights ago it was a ghost town. I made 2 full circles and saw maybe 2 other players that were only there for quests. Most of the time I encounter the same maybe 10-12 other players. On occasion, it will be crowded like mid year mayhem, which can be really fun. It's very rare for IC to be crowded.
Subclassing with all of is possibilities has still lead to only encountering about 3 different variations in the wild.

Desiato wrote: »

Why would a pvp enthusiast play eso in the first place? Why would they stay?

The bigger question is why any pvp main stays.

To be clear, I am talking gameplay. I know a lot of alliance loyalists who just enjoy the zone chat culture and hanging out with familiar faces.

Other players enjoy grouping with their friends in different kind of groups.

But at technical and gameplay levels, it's objectively bad. I think there are players who are seduced by the power fantasy derived from pugstomping pve casuals who are there to grind end of campaign transmutes on all of their alts without pvp builds. I don't consider them real pvp players though, because in my experience playing online pvp games for almost 30 years, true pvp players get bored by that kind of thing and will quit because of it.

And then on top of the technical and gameplay issues, there's the fact it's gated behind one of the most casual pve mmos ever made. Why would a pvp enthusiast bother?

How do I leave Cyrodiil though?

Waseem wrote: »

Subclassing must have helped refresh ESO and bring back all the old players




13 AP and rank 169

It is safe to say about 1000 player/month go to PC EU Cyrodiil/ month on the best assumption


I remember times when it was 1000/day

You need to subclass harder!

LadyGP wrote: »

I don't know of a single person who left the game (all my guilds are PvP) that have returned... for any reason lead alone subclassing.

Not sure on player numbers, they don't really share pop caps for some reason (and they won't say why they won't share those numbers). If I had to take a guess the numbers you're seeing is carryover from the vengence test and PvE people coming to PvP for one reason or another.

I'd be curious to see if this trend holds or not.

I came back for subclassing and the new content. It lasted for about two weeks when I realised that subclassing hadn't brought anything new and all my characters played exactly the same way.
And I skipped on the new content because paying the same price as a new AAA game for half an overland zone and a new trial felt like a slap in the face.

We play every Saturday as a guild. The Vengeance campaign saw maybe 30 of us having a right laugh. Last night, it was back to Grayhost and ball groups spoiling everything. Bombers too. In the end, we managed 3 people. I used the DC ball group in Arrius to get my max damage achievement, then we all logged out because, as usual, it was hopelessly one-sided when you're part of EP, Ball groups everywhere, and bananas just farming AP in towers, very boring.

I hope Vengeance will be finalised soon so it can be a permanent addition to the game. Oh yeah, at one point my PC which normally runs along great at 80-144 fps was at 10 fps during a huge seige by all three alliances at Fort Ash.

So I am a casual PvPer, I get a few kills but I'm killed more than I kill. My rank is just coming up to Colonel so I have a long way to go, I doubt I will ever see Grand overlord unless Vengeance is a permanent feature.

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Mathius_Mordred wrote: »

We play every Saturday as a guild. The Vengeance campaign saw maybe 30 of us having a right laugh. Last night, it was back to Grayhost and ball groups spoiling everything. Bombers too. In the end, we managed 3 people. I used the DC ball group in Arrius to get my max damage achievement, then we all logged out because, as usual, it was hopelessly one-sided when you're part of EP, Ball groups everywhere, and bananas just farming AP in towers, very boring.

I hope Vengeance will be finalised soon so it can be a permanent addition to the game. Oh yeah, at one point my PC which normally runs along great at 80-144 fps was at 10 fps during a huge seige by all three alliances at Fort Ash.

So I am a casual PvPer, I get a few kills but I'm killed more than I kill. My rank is just coming up to Colonel so I have a long way to go, I doubt I will ever see Grand overlord unless Vengeance is a permanent feature.

Your post shows how vengeance is preferred by those that don't PvP very often. It's popular with primarily PvE players.

The vast majority of the PvP mains loathe vengeance and will leave the game if vengeance is the only option. There won't be enough people left to play vengeance if it's mandated.

You don't realise it but you contradicted yourself. If Vengeance is preferred by those who don't PvP very often, as you state, then that's the majority of the game population, as the majority play and prefer PvE. If Vengeance is an option all the time, then vast numbers of people will be drawn into PvP, and this is exactly what we have seen the last two times it has been run; it's always very popular. Nobody said it would be the only option, PvP sweats, bombers and ball group gankers can still choose to play the other campaigns.

AngryPenguin wrote: »

I'll be a PvP main and will be forever...unless vengeance becomes the only mode, then it'll be time to find a new game.

This!

I don't agree with a lot of the comments in this thread - honestly I think most of the people responding here don't PvP often.

I see the same names in Cyro that I've seen for the last 7+ years. There is a hardcore dedicated group of people that have always played and are on multiple times a week.

With that being said - those people who are those dedicated core members all say the same thing @AngryPenguin said.

Desiato wrote: »

LadyGP wrote: »

AngryPenguin wrote: »

I'll be a PvP main and will be forever...unless vengeance becomes the only mode, then it'll be time to find a new game.

This!

I don't agree with a lot of the comments in this thread - honestly I think most of the people responding here don't PvP often.

I see the same names in Cyro that I've seen for the last 7+ years. There is a hardcore dedicated group of people that have always played and are on multiple times a week.

With that being said - those people who are those dedicated core members all say the same thing @AngryPenguin said.

I put a good 8-12 weeks in basically as a pvp main prior to scribing, so my pov isn't completely irrelevant.

It's clearly a dead game mode by dead game standards. When someone says a game is dead, that doesn't mean absolutely no one plays it. But it has a fringe audience. I stand by everything I wrote earlier. I can watch PVP streams and see everything I experience pre-scribing is the same or worse now.

Everquest PVP was pretty much always awful, yet P99 red still has a dedicated audience that inexplicably keeps playing it!


^ dead game

Yes, you're one of the few comments in this thread that had relevance/insight into current day PvP.

Desiato wrote: »

Why would a pvp enthusiast play eso in the first place? Why would they stay?

The bigger question is why any pvp main stays.

To be clear, I am talking gameplay. I know a lot of alliance loyalists who just enjoy the zone chat culture and hanging out with familiar faces.

Because other games are worse? PvP is a minority in most games. The one game many ESO players jumped to a few years ago don't even have open world fights anymore.

If you know something I don't, I'd love to try.

moo_2021 wrote: »

Because other games are worse? PvP is a minority in most games. The one game many ESO players jumped to a few years ago don't even have open world fights anymore.

If you know something I don't, I'd love to try.

There are plenty of popular PVP games!! Like dozens.

The open world PVP game I play when I'm not playing ESO is Rust. (random video from a popular content creator... see the kind of audience a content creator gets in exciting pvp games?)

I'm more a fan of aloneintokyo, but his videos might not be as appealing to people who don't play.

The point of entry is too high. Subclassing has made it worse and has turned general vet players of the game off entirely. The history of lag is a massive turn off to anyone not local to the servers.

Vengeance is the future, it will take over and have cross play enabled because of how stripped back it is. They'll eventually move the same format to bg and have separate set of curated unlocks or build options like gw2 arena.

The only thing from main game is the cosmetics. You only need one 1 whale to feed the play of thousands.

Stamicka wrote: »

I think that @Desiato has it right. ESO PvP does not appeal to the actual demographic that it needs to appeal to in order to thrive. That demographic is actual competitive PvPers. There’s a lot of reasons for this that would take forever to get into, but I’ve written about it in the past:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/658954/the-real-reason-pvp-and-end-game-pve-are-so-niche/p1


Anyway, ESO lost the trust and attention of the more competitive PvP crowd many years ago. The people who still regularly sweat ESO PvP are usually sweating against people who aren’t even very interested in PvP. They also seem to love and defend ESO’s horribly uneven playing field.

I’m not sure what kind of competitive player is content with constantly fighting people who aren’t competitive themselves or even on the same playing field. It’s kind of like a “pro” basketball player who only shows up the their local park to dunk on people playing casually for fun.

It’s actually pretty anti-competitive to support an environment that allows such massive power gaps and to only fight those who are way less experienced.

You've posted on this forum numerous times lately stating clearly that you are not a PvP player, at least not anymore.

silky_soft wrote: »

The point of entry is too high. Subclassing has made it worse and has turned general vet players of the game off entirely. The history of lag is a massive turn off to anyone not local to the servers.

Vengeance is the future, it will take over and have cross play enabled because of how stripped back it is. They'll eventually move the same format to bg and have separate set of curated unlocks or build options like gw2 arena.

The only thing from main game is the cosmetics. You only need one 1 whale to feed the play of thousands.

And with that... the core group of people hwo have been hanging on with a thread in hopes they would fix pvp for the last 7 years will exit stage left.

I really hope you're lower barrier to entry and brining in the casual Pve person makes pvp thrive. I don't have confidence they will get a core group to stick around and keep the pop up.

Will the first few weeks/months of the finished veng be good - sure.

6 months from now... it will be a ghost town.

The zerg wins format they are going with is killing their pvp. It's not competitive and boring AF after 1 hour of playing.

A lower barrier of entry doesn't necessarily mean lower skill cap. The first couple of years of Cyrodiil had a low barrier of entry and a high skill cap. Remember Balttle Levelling? That started to slip with the introduction of CP in 1.6, but was largely solved by the introduction of the CP cap 3 updates later in 2.2. Though 2.2 introduced a lot of technical issues, it was peak ESO PVP for me in terms of gameplay.

The set gap started around 2.5 when velidreth was introduced and around that time sets started dropping in all traits. In the early game, most pieces of PVE sets only had one trait -- the exception were the named pieces -- and it was almost never impen, reducing their value in PVP. So crafted sets dominated PVP. The most impactful PVE sets were monster sets, especially Bloodspawn.

To be clear, I'm not a fan of the gameplay of Vengeance 2. Sustain was too high and health dropped too slowly. In early Cyrodiil, active defence was required to survive or else one would die quickly. Yet one couldn't stay on the defensive forever because sustain wouldn't allow for it. Strong resource management and efficient use of abilities were essential traits of good players and in general aggressive players had the edge. Well, after the blockcasting meta was solved in 1.6, at least. 1.5 was really stale. It was very fast and exciting gameplay. There were no resets to full resources mid-fight. Vengeance was not that. I think a low TTK is essential. It's what makes PVP games exciting.

But I am a fan of the general concept of not sacrificing performance for unsustainable gameplay and a high population cap. What is the point of the size of the map if there aren't enough players to fill it?

There's no reason they can't improve the gameplay without sacrificing the gains they've made. Whether they have the will to make an exhilarating PVP experience for PVP enthusiasts is another question. No one knows but them at this point. Maybe even they haven't thought that far ahead yet and instead are focused on testing technical boundaries.

Players in this thread are hanging on to something that died a long time ago. Cyrodiil is your P99 red.