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ESO feels just overall empty

fizzybeef
fizzybeef
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First of all, im not treating ESO as a solo player game, i play all types of multiplayer content only. For solo games i have other games.
While i was excited for subclassing first and it was fun first, it just bores me now. Everyone has the same build in pvp and in pve it´s kinda the same aswell.
There is no variation, just the same meta sets and skill lines. Boring.

Im on PS EU there is no high population anymore. While spots like belkarth, mournhold or eldenroot were always well populated, nowadays these hotspots are just low populated, not much going on.
I try to queue for dungeons as a tank, its taking ages. I try to find hosted trials, its not happening. Battlegrounds taking ages, cyrodiil has as most 2 bars in the evening, the prime time is from 7-9pm after and before that its dead.

Im aware there are multiple instances in open world, but nobody can sell me im always in the empty instance.
It just feels less and more and more becoming a ghosttown, except maybe on weekends or certain events.

There is 5 big guilds im in, multiple trader guilds, social guilds and a pvp guild, of 500 members there are at most 60-70 online on the weekend at the evening, not much chatting and not much going on.
First i thought it was guild related, but i joined other popular guilds and its the same.
Also a lot of friends i used to play with have stopped and not been online for months.

Really i cant enjoy the game like this anymore, i dont want to run alone and spend my free time waiting in queues because nobody is playing anymore. So i wonder if its time to move on, thought i dont really want too, i play since release and love the game and spend a fortune of money in it.

I just wonder what happened, where are all the players gone and what has lead to this ?
Edited by fizzybeef on 16 September 2025 16:03
  • Parasaurolophus
    Parasaurolophus
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    fizzybeef wrote: »
    First of all, im not treating ESO as a solo player game, i play all types of multiplayer content only. For solo games i have other games.
    While i was excited for subclassing first and it was fun first, it just bores me now. Everyone has the same build in pvp and in pve it´s kinda the same aswell.
    There is no variation, just the same meta sets and skill lines. Boring.

    Im on PS EU there is no high population anymore. While spots like belkarth, mournhold or eldenroot were always well populated, nowadays these hotspots are just low populated, not much going on.
    I try to queue for dungeons as a tank, its taking ages. I try to find hosted trials, its not happening. Battlegrounds taking ages, cyrodiil has as most 2 bars in the evening, the prime time is from 7-9pm after and before that its dead.

    Im aware there are multiple instances in open world, but nobody can sell me im always in the empty instance.
    It just feels less and more and more becoming a ghosttown, except maybe on weekends or certain events.

    There is 5 big guilds im in, multiple trader guilds, social guilds and a pvp guild, of 500 members there are at most 60-70 online on the weekend at the evening, not much chatting and not much going on.
    First i thought it was guild related, but i joined other popular guilds and its the same.
    Also a lot of friends i used to play with have stopped and not been online for months.

    Really i cant enjoy the game like this anymore, i dont want to run alone and spend my free time waiting in queues because nobody is playing anymore. So i wonder if its time to move on, thought i dont really want too, i play since release and love the game and spend a fortune of money in it.

    I just wonder what happened, where are all the players gone and what has lead to this ?

    I don’t want to be “that toxic guy”, but still, originally MMOs are more of a PC genre. I can see how PC is getting emptier, and it’s really scary to imagine what’s going on with consoles right now. Just wait for crossplay, just wait. Or, if you’ve got the strength and time, start fresh on PC.
    PC/EU
  • colossalvoids
    colossalvoids
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    Despite not liking a perspective of a crossplay it's probably the only thing that can get ESO afloat for a time. When economy declines and there's not enough people to populate pickup queues it's virtually done already, so the only thing left is merging players as much as possible.
  • moderatelyfatman
    moderatelyfatman
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    Despite not liking a perspective of a crossplay it's probably the only thing that can get ESO afloat for a time. When economy declines and there's not enough people to populate pickup queues it's virtually done already, so the only thing left is merging players as much as possible.

    At the current rate of population decline, cross play might add an extra year or two of life before we're even worse off.
    The question is this: will we get cross play next year or the year after?
  • colossalvoids
    colossalvoids
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    Despite not liking a perspective of a crossplay it's probably the only thing that can get ESO afloat for a time. When economy declines and there's not enough people to populate pickup queues it's virtually done already, so the only thing left is merging players as much as possible.

    At the current rate of population decline, cross play might add an extra year or two of life before we're even worse off.
    The question is this: will we get cross play next year or the year after?

    They're already bit late to the party, to say the least. But with how fast we're getting basic stuff it's years away imo, can't imagine it being out earlier than 3-4 years.
  • fizzybeef
    fizzybeef
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    Despite not liking a perspective of a crossplay it's probably the only thing that can get ESO afloat for a time. When economy declines and there's not enough people to populate pickup queues it's virtually done already, so the only thing left is merging players as much as possible.

    At the current rate of population decline, cross play might add an extra year or two of life before we're even worse off.
    The question is this: will we get cross play next year or the year after?
    Despite not liking a perspective of a crossplay it's probably the only thing that can get ESO afloat for a time. When economy declines and there's not enough people to populate pickup queues it's virtually done already, so the only thing left is merging players as much as possible.

    At the current rate of population decline, cross play might add an extra year or two of life before we're even worse off.
    The question is this: will we get cross play next year or the year after?

    They're already bit late to the party, to say the least. But with how fast we're getting basic stuff it's years away imo, can't imagine it being out earlier than 3-4 years.

    I mean they said it took them 9 months for coding swimming mounts (wich is literally a walking animation in water), so i cant hype myself for that :(
  • Tandor
    Tandor
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    I think people are overstating both the decline in the game's population, which is mainly involving competitive play and not the overall game, and the contribution that crossplay will make to reversing any such decline. Assuming it does happen, it won't be any time soon.
  • Nemesis7884
    Nemesis7884
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    I always see people everywhere regardless when i log in - and i usually do my dailies between 5 - 6am and there are a ton of people online...(PC EU) so i have no idea where or when you are playing
  • fizzybeef
    fizzybeef
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    I always see people everywhere regardless when i log in - and i usually do my dailies between 5 - 6am and there are a ton of people online...(PC EU) so i have no idea where or when you are playing

    Good for you, im playing on PS EU, as i wrote above
  • colossalvoids
    colossalvoids
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    Tandor wrote: »
    I think people are overstating both the decline in the game's population, which is mainly involving competitive play and not the overall game ...

    That's the point, isn't it? The disjointed mass of players who inhabited the world and not connecting to each other versus people who do participate in community aspects like trading, guilds, group content etc. There are objectively thousands at any given time, probably couple ten of thousands players logged in at the very least. But that's not what people are really talking about when discussing the population decline as it involves social aspects and how those feel versus previous years. It's more about those 1-10 percent who make the game feel truly alive, imo.
    Tandor wrote: »
    ... and the contribution that crossplay will make to reversing any such decline.

    My guess it's more about sustaining adequate amount of people just a little longer if no substantial changes or reversals are made ultimately. I don't expect them to revert AwA, for example, but something should be done addressing all the issues it created for players and player retention. If not, there's no crossplay that would salvage lack of attachment.
  • Xarc
    Xarc
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    as I just said on another hot thread
    Xarc wrote: »
    fizzybeef wrote: »
    It actually feels like the game is dying

    September has always been a period of low pop on ESO (more or less high intensity)

    BTW
    Knowing this, and when I see the September daily rewards month, and the what are actual Golden Pursuits rewards, I think that ZOS could reward the most loyal players even more. But hey... that's just my opinion
    https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8369496/#Comment_8369496

    @xarcs FR-EU-PC -
    Please visit my house ingame !
    sorry for my english, it's not my native language, I'm french
    "Death is overrated", Xarc
    Xãrc -- breton necro - DC - AvA rank50
    Xarcus -- imperial DK - DC - AvA rank50 - [pve] pureclass
    Elnaa - breton NB - DC - AvA rank50
    Xärc -- breton NB - DC - AvA rank49 - [pve] pureclass
    Isilenil - Altmer NB - AD - AvA rank41
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    Glàdys - redguard templar - DC - AvA rank40 - [pve & pvp] pureclass
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    Xalisja - bosmer necro - DC - AvA ?
    Shurgha - orc warden EP - AvA rank? [pve & pvp]pureclass
    Scarlętt - breton templar DC - AvA rank?
    - in game since April 2014
    - on the forum since December 2014
  • Nemesis7884
    Nemesis7884
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    fizzybeef wrote: »
    I always see people everywhere regardless when i log in - and i usually do my dailies between 5 - 6am and there are a ton of people online...(PC EU) so i have no idea where or when you are playing

    Good for you, im playing on PS EU, as i wrote above

    Crossplay is being worked on....so soon that will improve
  • AngryPenguin
    AngryPenguin
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    Xarc wrote: »
    as I just said on another hot thread
    Xarc wrote: »
    fizzybeef wrote: »
    It actually feels like the game is dying

    September has always been a period of low pop on ESO (more or less high intensity)

    BTW
    Knowing this, and when I see the September daily rewards month, and the what are actual Golden Pursuits rewards, I think that ZOS could reward the most loyal players even more. But hey... that's just my opinion
    https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8369496/#Comment_8369496

    I was an eso+ subscriber for 10 years without missing a single month. What did I get for my loyalty? Ten years of eso+. So when some changes I didn't approve of came along I finally cancelled the sub and am liking the game much more now that I'm no longer increasing my financial investment into the game. At least I'm not paying for the vengeance nonsense and tiny zones with a fraction of what we used to get for the same money.
  • Daoin
    Daoin
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    ESO just feels overall empty. this is because 22 hours a day eso is overall empty and for a couple hours a day its just pretty empty. been like this a long time now. hopefully numbers will be stable around this pont and be able to hold up for a year after this next drop in numbers and be able to match 2016 numbers then build something good back up again after things are stable again
    Edited by Daoin on 17 September 2025 22:46
  • fufu_from_ps4
    fufu_from_ps4
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    fizzybeef wrote: »
    First of all, im not treating ESO as a solo player game, i play all types of multiplayer content only. For solo games i have other games.
    While i was excited for subclassing first and it was fun first, it just bores me now. Everyone has the same build in pvp and in pve it´s kinda the same aswell.
    There is no variation, just the same meta sets and skill lines. Boring.

    Im on PS EU there is no high population anymore. While spots like belkarth, mournhold or eldenroot were always well populated, nowadays these hotspots are just low populated, not much going on.
    I try to queue for dungeons as a tank, its taking ages. I try to find hosted trials, its not happening. Battlegrounds taking ages, cyrodiil has as most 2 bars in the evening, the prime time is from 7-9pm after and before that its dead.

    Im aware there are multiple instances in open world, but nobody can sell me im always in the empty instance.
    It just feels less and more and more becoming a ghosttown, except maybe on weekends or certain events.

    There is 5 big guilds im in, multiple trader guilds, social guilds and a pvp guild, of 500 members there are at most 60-70 online on the weekend at the evening, not much chatting and not much going on.
    First i thought it was guild related, but i joined other popular guilds and its the same.
    Also a lot of friends i used to play with have stopped and not been online for months.

    Really i cant enjoy the game like this anymore, i dont want to run alone and spend my free time waiting in queues because nobody is playing anymore. So i wonder if its time to move on, thought i dont really want too, i play since release and love the game and spend a fortune of money in it.

    I just wonder what happened, where are all the players gone and what has lead to this ?

    in my opinion, the dumbing down of the game has driven away the community. allow me to elaborate on what i mean.

    back in the day, we had classes, roles, specs. when they introduced hybridization, it was touted as a feature that would INCREASE the options for playing the game. this did the opposite tho, and reduced the amount of viable specs for people to play. also i would like to point out this is unfinished, we still have problems with crit buffs (sorc/nb) and problems with minor sorc/brutality. like.... if you're a magsorc, you get the mag crit buff, but then you might be mostly stam, so you will run stam pots, which means you dont get the passive buff on your crit percentages. the system is not finished and it creates problems still.

    now we have subclassing. again, touted as giving us more options to play.... but in reality... there are now 3 builds to run in pvp. we went from people having 18 characters with 1-8 specs for each one..... to 18 characters, with 16 of them being useless and a total of 3 builds to play.

    then you have the policing of the game. people are victims of a terrible ban system. people get banned for nothing and rarely is it ever investigated. its super toxic, and pathetic.

    the grind. the grind in this game is terrible. whats the solution? pay 50 bucks per skill line. disguesting.

    gaslighting. we get gaslit so much as a community that we do not trust the company anymore. they make ea look good. examples of this are like ummmm 2022? the year they took off to fix bugs? still stuck in combat. psijic ult still doesnt work (a paid feature mind you). queue is still glitching out. you said you would fix rush of agony and its still broken. you said you'd fix the weave with jabs and you ruined it. i could go on and on but its a waste of time, everyone knows.

    feedback. i have seen so much GOOD and WELL THOUGHT OUT FEEDBACK get thrown into the trash it blows my mind. there are like 5 smart people that used to come on here.... you could literally let them balance the game for FREE.... but they dont listen to the community and they push terrible changes down the pipe.... and look where it got us.

    crossplay. crossplay will make the game feel populated but the underlying issues will still drive people away, being a futile endeavor.

    i can fix this, but its gonna cause an uproar. its simple. roll back the patch. admit that its bad design, allow subclassing to happen in duels/arenas/pve areas and make a seperate leaderboard for it. go back to what we had before, but allow subclassing to exist in a vaccuum.

    you could try to balance it.... but thats a fools errand. subclassing killed all the flavor of the game, and people will still leave. to balance it, remove the passives from subclassed skill trees. you can have incap and merciless resolve, but you cant get the 10% crit damage buff unless you're a nightblade. also ensure that every class has a good dps passive. some classes have poor buffs in comparison to assassination and the beam tree.
    Edited by fufu_from_ps4 on 17 September 2025 23:20
  • fufu_from_ps4
    fufu_from_ps4
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    also im looking for a job. it would be cheap to hire me and save you guys from advertising things like subclassing will add more ways to play! cuz obviously, it vastly reduced the amount of ways to play. you should be emberrassed. if i was in charge of this, and my team told me it would increase diversity, and i advertised massively on this premise.... only to find out that i was wrong, and i look like a complete idiot.... heads would roll. but also this would never happen because i play the game and understand how changes will ripple thru the community. hit me up. or just keep on with this dumpster fire.... it sure is fun to watch.
  • fizzybeef
    fizzybeef
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    fizzybeef wrote: »
    First of all, im not treating ESO as a solo player game, i play all types of multiplayer content only. For solo games i have other games.
    While i was excited for subclassing first and it was fun first, it just bores me now. Everyone has the same build in pvp and in pve it´s kinda the same aswell.
    There is no variation, just the same meta sets and skill lines. Boring.

    Im on PS EU there is no high population anymore. While spots like belkarth, mournhold or eldenroot were always well populated, nowadays these hotspots are just low populated, not much going on.
    I try to queue for dungeons as a tank, its taking ages. I try to find hosted trials, its not happening. Battlegrounds taking ages, cyrodiil has as most 2 bars in the evening, the prime time is from 7-9pm after and before that its dead.

    Im aware there are multiple instances in open world, but nobody can sell me im always in the empty instance.
    It just feels less and more and more becoming a ghosttown, except maybe on weekends or certain events.

    There is 5 big guilds im in, multiple trader guilds, social guilds and a pvp guild, of 500 members there are at most 60-70 online on the weekend at the evening, not much chatting and not much going on.
    First i thought it was guild related, but i joined other popular guilds and its the same.
    Also a lot of friends i used to play with have stopped and not been online for months.

    Really i cant enjoy the game like this anymore, i dont want to run alone and spend my free time waiting in queues because nobody is playing anymore. So i wonder if its time to move on, thought i dont really want too, i play since release and love the game and spend a fortune of money in it.

    I just wonder what happened, where are all the players gone and what has lead to this ?

    in my opinion, the dumbing down of the game has driven away the community. allow me to elaborate on what i mean.

    back in the day, we had classes, roles, specs. when they introduced hybridization, it was touted as a feature that would INCREASE the options for playing the game. this did the opposite tho, and reduced the amount of viable specs for people to play. also i would like to point out this is unfinished, we still have problems with crit buffs (sorc/nb) and problems with minor sorc/brutality. like.... if you're a magsorc, you get the mag crit buff, but then you might be mostly stam, so you will run stam pots, which means you dont get the passive buff on your crit percentages. the system is not finished and it creates problems still.

    now we have subclassing. again, touted as giving us more options to play.... but in reality... there are now 3 builds to run in pvp. we went from people having 18 characters with 1-8 specs for each one..... to 18 characters, with 16 of them being useless and a total of 3 builds to play.

    then you have the policing of the game. people are victims of a terrible ban system. people get banned for nothing and rarely is it ever investigated. its super toxic, and pathetic.

    the grind. the grind in this game is terrible. whats the solution? pay 50 bucks per skill line. disguesting.

    gaslighting. we get gaslit so much as a community that we do not trust the company anymore. they make ea look good. examples of this are like ummmm 2022? the year they took off to fix bugs? still stuck in combat. psijic ult still doesnt work (a paid feature mind you). queue is still glitching out. you said you would fix rush of agony and its still broken. you said you'd fix the weave with jabs and you ruined it. i could go on and on but its a waste of time, everyone knows.

    feedback. i have seen so much GOOD and WELL THOUGHT OUT FEEDBACK get thrown into the trash it blows my mind. there are like 5 smart people that used to come on here.... you could literally let them balance the game for FREE.... but they dont listen to the community and they push terrible changes down the pipe.... and look where it got us.

    crossplay. crossplay will make the game feel populated but the underlying issues will still drive people away, being a futile endeavor.

    i can fix this, but its gonna cause an uproar. its simple. roll back the patch. admit that its bad design, allow subclassing to happen in duels/arenas/pve areas and make a seperate leaderboard for it. go back to what we had before, but allow subclassing to exist in a vaccuum.

    you could try to balance it.... but thats a fools errand. subclassing killed all the flavor of the game, and people will still leave. to balance it, remove the passives from subclassed skill trees. you can have incap and merciless resolve, but you cant get the 10% crit damage buff unless you're a nightblade. also ensure that every class has a good dps passive. some classes have poor buffs in comparison to assassination and the beam tree.

    I agree with everything being said here, its so sad. The downfall started with hybridisation and with subclassing its just another nail in the coffin.

    Not only in pvp its just the same 3-4 builds and classes now, the pve meta is also so stale and boring now.

    No wonder i dont see much activity anymore
  • fufu_from_ps4
    fufu_from_ps4
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    [/quote]

    I agree with everything being said here, its so sad. The downfall started with hybridisation and with subclassing its just another nail in the coffin.

    Not only in pvp its just the same 3-4 builds and classes now, the pve meta is also so stale and boring now.

    No wonder i dont see much activity anymore [/quote]




    yeah bro idk why they dont roll the patch back and just admit it was a bad design choice. altho, this company never admits when they make poor decisions. they die on every hill they build. jab animation/vampire ult, passives, mistform/necromancer and pets in general /subclassing/hybridization.... soon we will see vengence be thrust upon us again. they constantly are ruining the game while proudly touting it as a new feature. if it wasnt my favorite game to play it would be hilarious to laugh at the mismanagement..... but it makes me sick to my stomach sadly.
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