Maintenance for the week of September 29:
• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – September 29, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – October 1, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – October 1, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
• PC/Mac: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – September 29, 4:00AM EDT (8:00 UTC) - 9:00AM EDT (13:00 UTC)
• Xbox: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – October 1, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
• PlayStation®: NA and EU megaservers for patch maintenance – October 1, 8:00 UTC (4:00AM EDT) - 16:00 UTC (12:00PM EDT)
Vengeance and population
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exiars10✭✭✭✭Dead game on "PCMR" EU mega server at 20.30 CET.
I finally found out who plays V3 - role players!
Look at all those poor Queen's loyal soldiers who are going to charge into battle.
P. S.
This day, we and Reds have almost the same score. This is going to be a great evening
.
Edited by exiars10 on 26 September 2025 18:38Aldmeri Dominion (PC EU via Steam)
The cowardly Wood Elves are best noted for their unwillingness to engage in a face-to-face attack; a Bosmer will strike at you from every side except the front. You won't cross swords with a Bosmer, but you might catch an arrow in the throat. Be wary in forests and jungles, and watch your back.0 -
blktauna✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭for entertainment I reactivated my old miats and the last battle I was in last night was a 3 way at alessia with 40 odd yello, 80 odd blue and similar red. That was not the only battle on the map.PCNA
PCEU1 -
StihlReign✭✭✭✭✭you cant fill the campaign Venge bois and girls...give us now the original camp to play some true pvp..
GH is garbage and has been for years. ZoS can definitely do better in communicating what the end goal is, but in no way should we encourage "drop everything and go with what we have".
The True PvP you allude to is a mess of garbage code and toxic gameplay enabled by a now no longer here Studio head who lacked the foresight to see how the subclass fiasco would further devolve the gameplay experience. We can heap a ton of credit on how awesome the game is to him, but he deserves an equal share of the blame for the madness we're all suffering through now. This doesn't absolve the staff remaining, many are 100% all in with twiddling away as the masses suffer.
We did not have to be here. We have devs dedicated to creating another game - Skyrim, inside this game, and that ship has hit an iceberg everyone saw coming for years.
How difficult is it to say, you can play how you want with the classes and skills we give you? No you can't have every ability because this isn't that other game. Yes we'll design more skills and morphs. Yes we'll develop ice, and fire mages and give RPs more options. Yes we'll let you select your scroll quest in Cyrodiil. Yes we'll fix the trolling in Tales of Tribute. Yes we'll incentivise and offer better PvP rewards. Yes we recognize PvP and PvE are integral parts of the game. No we won't support toxicity between the two. Yes we'll provide armor with toggles to turn off pieces for you guys - you've been asking for 11 years. Yes we'll add better trade support within the game. Yes we know the Arc is an unbalanced mess and we'll fix it. Yes we'll finish half done projects... Yes we'll hard code, yes we'll address the math calcs and armor bloat and racial passives and add more classes...etc etc etc
There's a lot they could do and haven't, but there's also a new team at the helm. This is a ship the devs can right, but the players should also find some patience and show a little grace during the interim while pressing for better communication.
We're here watching..patiently, till the Dwemer return.
"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy!
Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.” – Ch. VI, v. 8-9. — Master Sun Tzu
"You haven't beaten me you've sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke." — Ra's al Ghul
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious — Master Sun Tzu
LoS2 -
amiiegee✭✭✭✭This day, we and Reds have almost the same score. This is going to be a great evening.
you dont say.
I wonder whyPanthermic wrote: »
PC EU 23:23 CEST.
0 -
MasterSpatula✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Finally popped onto a red character for a bit, and I can report that, for me at least, winning a 15:1 fight is no more fun than losing one. It actually made me feel bad. But plainly I'm an outlier, cause *wavesarms*."A probable impossibility is preferable to an improbable possibility." - Aristotle3 -
LPapirius✭✭✭✭✭Friday night prime time and it's 2 bars for every faction on PC NA. If we had actual PvP there would be at least a 30-50 queue to get in.
....don't bother trying to claim that vengeance bars are X bigger than live cyro bars because the only people who know that for sure are ZOS employees.
Edited by LPapirius on 27 September 2025 02:092 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭StihlReign wrote: »you cant fill the campaign Venge bois and girls...give us now the original camp to play some true pvp..
GH is garbage and has been for years. ZoS can definitely do better in communicating what the end goal is, but in no way should we encourage "drop everything and go with what we have".
The True PvP you allude to is a mess of garbage code and toxic gameplay enabled by a now no longer here Studio head who lacked the foresight to see how the subclass fiasco would further devolve the gameplay experience. We can heap a ton of credit on how awesome the game is to him, but he deserves an equal share of the blame for the madness we're all suffering through now. This doesn't absolve the staff remaining, many are 100% all in with twiddling away as the masses suffer.
We did not have to be here. We have devs dedicated to creating another game - Skyrim, inside this game, and that ship has hit an iceberg everyone saw coming for years.
How difficult is it to say, you can play how you want with the classes and skills we give you? No you can't have every ability because this isn't that other game. Yes we'll design more skills and morphs. Yes we'll develop ice, and fire mages and give RPs more options. Yes we'll let you select your scroll quest in Cyrodiil. Yes we'll fix the trolling in Tales of Tribute. Yes we'll incentivise and offer better PvP rewards. Yes we recognize PvP and PvE are integral parts of the game. No we won't support toxicity between the two. Yes we'll provide armor with toggles to turn off pieces for you guys - you've been asking for 11 years. Yes we'll add better trade support within the game. Yes we know the Arc is an unbalanced mess and we'll fix it. Yes we'll finish half done projects... Yes we'll hard code, yes we'll address the math calcs and armor bloat and racial passives and add more classes...etc etc etc
There's a lot they could do and haven't, but there's also a new team at the helm. This is a ship the devs can right, but the players should also find some patience and show a little grace during the interim while pressing for better communication.
We're here watching..patiently, till the Dwemer return.
None of what you talk about is going to be achieved by taking Gray Host away from the people that want to play it.
That's why it's several campaigns are disabled to get a small measure of an audience (one we aren't allowed to measure and they won't reveal) to the Vengeance campaign.
0 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭BetweenMidgets wrote: »Faction lock should go, no matter what campaign.
The numbers say that players want faction lock. That's why Gray Host fills up with a que 100 long while Blackreach doesn't.
Why would we want to take away what people want to play and make them play something they don't?Edited by edward_frigidhands on 27 September 2025 03:140 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭edward_frigidhands wrote: »MincMincMinc wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »
The numbers are not shown anywhere. We only have access to pieced together info. Zos doesn't show us numbers because they likely don't want competitors offering better experiences during a low patch.
Zos early on stated 1800 players per server back in the beta days. This is still on an FAQ on their website.
Zos claims veng can do 3x live stable shown in their data stream. They tried 4x live on EU, but it became unstable.
From Cyr tracking addons we see live pvp is in the ballpark of 300 players total. The same addons read around 1100-1300 at one point during the first test on EU. The addon owner was in one of the other threads to explain the several methods it uses to collect IDs for counting.
So basically we do not have access to this information that everyone keeps claiming we do.
We have guesswork gleaned from unreliable claims and add-ons.
We do have the information that players have gleaned from themselves, you just don't want to believe it. It's no different to how we have a good idea what drop rates for certain things are; years of players gathering data and testing.
You don't need to "believe" in data. It just is. Both undeniable and evident.
What does require belief is opinions based on conclusions you want to draw because of what you want to see happen.
Edited by edward_frigidhands on 27 September 2025 03:130 -
BardokRedSnow✭✭✭✭Heh, lol.
People got what they asked for, it doesnt matter if you raise the pop slow or not, Vengeance isnt going to retain a population of players because the type of players it attracts in the first place are not pvpers and its nothing but a side show for them. Its shallow, why do you think the no proc campaigns are dead? Complexity is good for the game.
Heal stacking and shield stacking is not.Tes fans hate Ulfric Stormcloak for imagined bigotry but love Dagoth Ur, the Empire, and the Telvanni unironically.4 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭MorallyBipolar wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »MincMincMinc wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »
The numbers are not shown anywhere. We only have access to pieced together info. Zos doesn't show us numbers because they likely don't want competitors offering better experiences during a low patch.
Zos early on stated 1800 players per server back in the beta days. This is still on an FAQ on their website.
Zos claims veng can do 3x live stable shown in their data stream. They tried 4x live on EU, but it became unstable.
From Cyr tracking addons we see live pvp is in the ballpark of 300 players total. The same addons read around 1100-1300 at one point during the first test on EU. The addon owner was in one of the other threads to explain the several methods it uses to collect IDs for counting.
So basically we do not have access to this information that everyone keeps claiming we do.
We have guesswork gleaned from unreliable claims and add-ons.
Some people are better than others at understanding the difference between what they know and what they just believe based on their feelings.
Very true.0 -
StihlReign✭✭✭✭✭edward_frigidhands wrote: »None of what you talk about is going to be achieved by taking Gray Host away from the people that want to play it.
That's why it's several campaigns are disabled to get a small measure of an audience (one we aren't allowed to measure and they won't reveal) to the Vengeance campaign.
Grey Host is a name. If Vengeance is recoded (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with "fixes" that allow us to use abilities and sets, and NOT be stuck in combat, no heal stacking, no shield stacking and no group buff stacking with increased pop caps and a template for players who don't want to invest heavily in sets, just plug n play - I don't care what they call it.
Almost No one plays or wants to play Grey Host. If the total pop cap is 300 or 1200 that's nothing compared to the 120,000 -180,000 monthly estimate of daily players and is abysmal compared to the 26M players ZoS has. 1 campaign. There should be a list of campaigns and a few should be locked 24/7."O divine art of subtlety and secrecy!
Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.” – Ch. VI, v. 8-9. — Master Sun Tzu
"You haven't beaten me you've sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke." — Ra's al Ghul
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious — Master Sun Tzu
LoS1 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭StihlReign wrote: »We're here watching..patiently, till the Dwemer return.
Honestly, if ZOS just gave me my Dwemer Artificer class, I'd buy whatever pass they offerred sight unseen and then I'd shut up in my corner for like a full year just having fun with building Centurions and tossing grenades.
Just saying...2 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »None of what you talk about is going to be achieved by taking Gray Host away from the people that want to play it.
That's why it's several campaigns are disabled to get a small measure of an audience (one we aren't allowed to measure and they won't reveal) to the Vengeance campaign.
Grey Host is a name. If Vengeance is recoded (Grey Host) Cyrodiil with "fixes" that allow us to use abilities and sets, and NOT be stuck in combat, no heal stacking, no shield stacking and no group buff stacking with increased pop caps and a template for players who don't want to invest heavily in sets, just plug n play - I don't care what they call it.
Almost No one plays or wants to play Grey Host. If the total pop cap is 300 or 1200 that's nothing compared to the 120,000 -180,000 monthly estimate of daily players and is abysmal compared to the 26M players ZoS has. 1 campaign. There should be a list of campaigns and a few should be locked 24/7.
Gray Host is not just a name. if it were then they would just recode it directly and expect participation. They don't. They know that. They have data that shows what people choose to play, and its not the test campaign up right now. They have tried multiple campaigns, they dont fill and people que for a faction locked campaign and pvp in Imperial City on a 101 que till it pops.
You can choose to see what you want to see, it doesn't take away from what is in front of us. People don't want to play these different game modes they are putting up. They want ESO PvP with all its features enabled and a faction lock. After a decade of the game being out this is consistently what their pvp community chooses.
You can tell yourself that its not that many people and they will accept a different version of the game that has all the things you dont like disabled and everyone will just accept it. But you know thats not true and the developers do too.
That is why everything else is disabled to funnel people into this test campaign. You saw it before with Ravenwatch and you are going to see it again when they try to run Vengeance alongside Gray Host.
0 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭StihlReign wrote: »
There should be a list of campaigns.edward_frigidhands wrote: »None of what you talk about is going to be achieved by taking Gray Host away from the people that want to play it.
That's why it's several campaigns are disabled to get a small measure of an audience (one we aren't allowed to measure and they won't reveal) to the Vengeance campaign.
This is probably the only thing we can agree on and it will likely result in people flocking to the campaign with all features of ESO enabled. This is why every other campaign is disabled to make people play Vengeance.0 -
StihlReign✭✭✭✭✭edward_frigidhands wrote: »
You can tell yourself that its not that many people and they will accept a different version of the game that has all the things you dont like disabled and everyone will just accept it. But you know thats not true and the developers do too.
Think what you wish. You can tell yourself everyone wants to play Grey Host while the zone's population continues to drop until you're the last one left. Play the test. Contribute to the data, or don't.
"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy!
Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.” – Ch. VI, v. 8-9. — Master Sun Tzu
"You haven't beaten me you've sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke." — Ra's al Ghul
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious — Master Sun Tzu
LoS1 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »
You can tell yourself that its not that many people and they will accept a different version of the game that has all the things you dont like disabled and everyone will just accept it. But you know thats not true and the developers do too.
Think what you wish. You can tell yourself everyone wants to play Grey Host while the zone's population continues to drop until you're the last one left. Play the test. Contribute to the data, or don't.
I don't need to tell myself anything. I am experiencing it as I wait hours to get into a campaign that has so many people that it bogs down the servers its on and there isn't a place you can go to when inside where you dont get run down. This is during Prime Time when most people who play this game logon. This continues until the late hours of the night and longer if theres an event.
You're the one having to tell yourself that people want to play this disabled and watered down version of the game when they have to disable almost every other version of PvP to populate it. All past instances we have of these choices indicate people want to play the actual game with all features enabled.
It is right in front of you and you're choosing to believe fantasy for the simple reason that you do not enjoy what more people do. And that is okay. Everyone is not the same and they dont want to play the same thing.
But you're not going to force people to play what you want and how you want. That just isn't how anything works.They will just go play another game.Edited by edward_frigidhands on 27 September 2025 05:450 -
exiars10✭✭✭✭To finish report from the last evening…
"PCMR" EU mega server prime time stats for the last evening (Friday):
It started:
AD – 2 bars / EP – 3 bars / DC – 2 bars
At ~20.40 AD was at 3, too.
At ~21.40 EP dropped to 2.
So until 23 CET when I left Cyrodiil and which is already past prime time, it was AD – 3 and EP & DC – 2. Soon after DC dropped to 1 and AD to 2. I see Panthermic posted screenshot.
However, when I left the game at midnight, EP had 3 bars which means that EP for sure finally won one day as at 23 hours, we and EP had the same score (+/-20 points).
I‘m starting to think that indeed role players play V3. We had Gandalf the Purple (from Iceland?) scroll runner. Sorry for the somehow bad screenshot, but you can partially see that zone chat was full of funny comments
.
I‘ll later today post more screenshots related to population.
It was fantastic evening.
23.23 is basically night (depending on country) and way past prime time for sure.
And check my message above - I'm pretty sure Red won as they had 3 bars later.Edited by exiars10 on 27 September 2025 06:26Aldmeri Dominion (PC EU via Steam)
The cowardly Wood Elves are best noted for their unwillingness to engage in a face-to-face attack; a Bosmer will strike at you from every side except the front. You won't cross swords with a Bosmer, but you might catch an arrow in the throat. Be wary in forests and jungles, and watch your back.0 -
exiars10✭✭✭✭
Yep, we don't believe our own eyes.Friday night prime time and it's 2 bars for every faction on PC NA. If we had actual PvP there would be at least a 30-50 queue to get in.
....don't bother trying to claim that vengeance bars are X bigger than live cyro bars because the only people who know that for sure are ZOS employees.
Miat's PVP Alerts shows 17 AD players ready to charge for our glorious Queen, and the only rightfull ruler of the all Tamriel.
Meanwhile, my eyes see and brain counted almost 30 players.
This is what happens when Vaermina is involved. We dream things which are not reality
.
On this screenshot there are no at least 17 AD players, nor almost 30. It's all fake, just like Estre was a fake Auridon ("Veiled") Queen. Aldmeri Dominion (PC EU via Steam)
The cowardly Wood Elves are best noted for their unwillingness to engage in a face-to-face attack; a Bosmer will strike at you from every side except the front. You won't cross swords with a Bosmer, but you might catch an arrow in the throat. Be wary in forests and jungles, and watch your back.0 -
Last'OneSoul ShrivenI personally choose not to engage in PvP in Elder Scrolls, as it’s not something I enjoy. In my opinion, and I want to stress that this is just my perspective, the current setup leaves both communities a little unsatisfied. PvP players don’t get the full, dedicated PvP experience they might want, and PvE players, who often play Elder Scrolls primarily for its rich story and world, also don’t get a fully PvE-focused game. It feels like both groups only receive half of what they could have.
I don’t mean this as criticism of PvP or PvE players, I respect both communities. I also don’t claim to know what ZOS should or could do to improve PvP. But from my own point of view, I believe the best way to strengthen the game would be to focus more on PvE, because that’s what has always made Elder Scrolls truly amazing.
PvE makes Elder Scrolls amazing. Not PvP!0 -
Urzigurumash✭✭✭✭✭
✭I personally choose not to engage with the above comment. Other comments make this forum amazing. Not the one above this one!Xbox NA AD / Day 1 ScrubDK / Wood Orc Cuisine Enthusiast4 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭I personally choose not to engage in PvP in Elder Scrolls, as it’s not something I enjoy. In my opinion, and I want to stress that this is just my perspective, the current setup leaves both communities a little unsatisfied. PvP players don’t get the full, dedicated PvP experience they might want, and PvE players, who often play Elder Scrolls primarily for its rich story and world, also don’t get a fully PvE-focused game. It feels like both groups only receive half of what they could have.
I don’t mean this as criticism of PvP or PvE players, I respect both communities. I also don’t claim to know what ZOS should or could do to improve PvP. But from my own point of view, I believe the best way to strengthen the game would be to focus more on PvE, because that’s what has always made Elder Scrolls truly amazing.
PvE makes Elder Scrolls amazing. Not PvP!
I don't understand why you're posting that in a thread about the Vengeance campaign. It has nothing to do with this topic.2 -
fizzybeef✭✭✭✭I personally choose not to engage in PvP in Elder Scrolls, as it’s not something I enjoy. In my opinion, and I want to stress that this is just my perspective, the current setup leaves both communities a little unsatisfied. PvP players don’t get the full, dedicated PvP experience they might want, and PvE players, who often play Elder Scrolls primarily for its rich story and world, also don’t get a fully PvE-focused game. It feels like both groups only receive half of what they could have.
I don’t mean this as criticism of PvP or PvE players, I respect both communities. I also don’t claim to know what ZOS should or could do to improve PvP. But from my own point of view, I believe the best way to strengthen the game would be to focus more on PvE, because that’s what has always made Elder Scrolls truly amazing.
PvE makes Elder Scrolls amazing. Not PvP!
See and for me and many others its the exactly opposite. While i originally thought this is like a skyrim 2.0 i have finished all the interesting quests, find the dungeons and trials boring and i only stay for pvp.
Cut that off and im gone3 -
StihlReign✭✭✭✭✭edward_frigidhands wrote: »StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »
You can tell yourself that its not that many people and they will accept a different version of the game that has all the things you dont like disabled and everyone will just accept it. But you know thats not true and the developers do too.
Think what you wish. You can tell yourself everyone wants to play Grey Host while the zone's population continues to drop until you're the last one left. Play the test. Contribute to the data, or don't.
I don't need to tell myself anything. I am experiencing it as I wait hours to get into a campaign that has so many people that it bogs down the servers its on and there isn't a place you can go to when inside where you dont get run down. This is during Prime Time when most people who play this game logon. This continues until the late hours of the night and longer if theres an event.
You're the one having to tell yourself that people want to play this disabled and watered down version of the game when they have to disable almost every other version of PvP to populate it. All past instances we have of these choices indicate people want to play the actual game with all features enabled.
It is right in front of you and you're choosing to believe fantasy for the simple reason that you do not enjoy what more people do. And that is okay. Everyone is not the same and they dont want to play the same thing.
But you're not going to force people to play what you want and how you want. That just isn't how anything works.They will just go play another game.
If that's what you think you haven't been paying attention. You're selling yourself some dream that doesn't exist. I'm playing a test when I play Vengeance. I'm playing a mess that most players have quit when I play Grey Host. The devs have decided to directly address many of the issues with the Zone - Cyrodiil, that more people have quit than any other feature of the game, vocally.
Read the forums - the vast majority of players do not enjoy - lag, or getting rolled by groups or players they cannot counter and kill. Over the years the devs have removed features and repeatedly introduced either abilities or armor sets aimed at lowering the population of the Zone or the fights.
Lag? Remove the deer, torchbugs and the mercenary mages.
Too many players, groups too large, impulse spam and comets killing everyone? Try Prox det. Let's lower group size. Spread out. The obnoxious invis bomber not effective enough...we have more.
huh, what? too far back?
How about some recent painful history where vet PvPers quit en masse (again) and new players just opted out and avoided the zone...let's try Dark Convergence, Plague Break, Rush of Agony - all sets that led to an exodus because they were obnoxious. All were nerfed. All came with pre-warnings on PTS. They affected the groups people wanted to kill, but threw the entire zone and the server's backend into chaos.
Need more? Nibenay Bay Battlereeve, Jerall Mountains Warchief. Vicious Death, Balorgh. Rallying Cry. Snake in the Stars. Azureblight Reaper. Why were these sets created? Play how we want?
To avoid addressing the long standing issues complained about ad-nauseum for years. Heal stacking, buff stacking, shield stacking and burst. The devs prior solution has been troll abilities and skills, reduction in group size, removal of features, troll armor sets and poor communication with an end result, drumroll - lower popcaps, less large fights, less fights period.
Vengeance 1- escalating crowds and rave reviews to the end, Vengeance 2 - heal stacking. Vengeance 3 - low pop.
The consensus? Vengeance 1's performance would be lovely if we could have all of our stuff. The truth - the players don't like heal stacking, shield stacking, buff stacking, pulls, charms, invis burst and over performing heals. It raises the skill cap too high, it's tedious and boring. Players want the enemy to die and they don't want it to take 30 players chasing 1 player for 10 minutes.
If you think standing around waiting an hour for 1 campaign on one day with 35 people in queue is popular in a game with 25M players, enjoy your trophy and tiara. You're buying something a multi-million dollar marketing company can't sell.
EDIT 25M players Edited by StihlReign on 27 September 2025 14:26"O divine art of subtlety and secrecy!
Through you we learn to be invisible, through you inaudible; and hence we can hold the enemy’s fate in our hands.” – Ch. VI, v. 8-9. — Master Sun Tzu
"You haven't beaten me you've sacrificed sure footing for a killing stroke." — Ra's al Ghul
He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious — Master Sun Tzu
LoS1 -
tomofhyrule✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭I personally choose not to engage in PvP in Elder Scrolls, as it’s not something I enjoy. In my opinion, and I want to stress that this is just my perspective, the current setup leaves both communities a little unsatisfied. PvP players don’t get the full, dedicated PvP experience they might want, and PvE players, who often play Elder Scrolls primarily for its rich story and world, also don’t get a fully PvE-focused game. It feels like both groups only receive half of what they could have.
I don’t mean this as criticism of PvP or PvE players, I respect both communities. I also don’t claim to know what ZOS should or could do to improve PvP. But from my own point of view, I believe the best way to strengthen the game would be to focus more on PvE, because that’s what has always made Elder Scrolls truly amazing.
PvE makes Elder Scrolls amazing. Not PvP!
This is a major issue with the game: that there are so many playerbases competing for limited dev time.
In my opinion, there's no way that ESO would ever be able to measure up to a solo RPG experience at the level of Skyrim, and people who want it to be so are deluding themselves for asking for it. After BG3, the standards for storytelling and choice are impossibly high, and ESO can't possibly measure up. And besides, the fact that it is an MMO means that there can't be any major world-changing branched stories in the first place.
The PvPers especially are annoyed because that used to be the whole point of the game on release. The idea was that you blast through your quests to get to the final endgame: Cyrodiil. Obviously that didn't go over too well because TES is a franchise that heavily skews to the "I don't like PvP" players, so that was why the pivot happened. But they have pivoted again to focus too hard on the soloists - we see the dev team is very strictly focusing those solo players with things like Subclassing, to the detriment of PvP (and don't forget that high-level group PvE is a different base as well). Now you absolutely can build the way you want... unless you're intending to be competitive in high-level PvE or PvP.
The group PvE (dungeons and trials) are all incredibly done, and Finn's team is the only one that is consistently knocking it out of the park. But the writing? The Combat balance? Those are suffering, and it's not from lack of attention. The leads of those teams need to step up, because both teams are quite disappointing. The thing that's most annoying from the combat team is the fact that Subclassing upended balance across the game, and now they've spend the entire time since it dropped on... ignoring balance and instead adding "loadouts" and "perks" (all with a custom UI and new icons! So it's obviously not just some reused assets they're throwing away because "it's just a test.") to Vengeance, which as a PvP mode is seemingly designed to make it easier for non-PvPers to get into PvP. So even the "new PvP" stuff isn't really for PvPers.
Im my opinion, ESO should stop focusing so much on the "I want ESO to become TES6" base, because TES6 is a different game and when it does finally release, all of those players who are just using ESO to fill their time will immediately drop ESO. After all, what could ESO offer different from TES6 in the first place? TES6 graphics will be better. The stories will be more in depth. There will likely be consequences for the story. You'll have the standard TES mechanics. Moddability. Any zones that people miss will 100% get modded in by the players afterwards.
The only thing TES6 won't have is... group content and PvP. That means that those two playerbases will come back to ESO for those things... and therefore they're the ones who will keep ESO alive. The soloists will all jump ship instantly, and then Microsoft will declare ESO unprofitable and pull the plug on the servers before they all come back... and remember that ESO is more like Legends in that it's hosted on a server and once it's shut down, it's gone.3 -
edward_frigidhands✭✭✭✭✭StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »
You can tell yourself that its not that many people and they will accept a different version of the game that has all the things you dont like disabled and everyone will just accept it. But you know thats not true and the developers do too.
Think what you wish. You can tell yourself everyone wants to play Grey Host while the zone's population continues to drop until you're the last one left. Play the test. Contribute to the data, or don't.
I don't need to tell myself anything. I am experiencing it as I wait hours to get into a campaign that has so many people that it bogs down the servers its on and there isn't a place you can go to when inside where you dont get run down. This is during Prime Time when most people who play this game logon. This continues until the late hours of the night and longer if theres an event.
You're the one having to tell yourself that people want to play this disabled and watered down version of the game when they have to disable almost every other version of PvP to populate it. All past instances we have of these choices indicate people want to play the actual game with all features enabled.
It is right in front of you and you're choosing to believe fantasy for the simple reason that you do not enjoy what more people do. And that is okay. Everyone is not the same and they dont want to play the same thing.
But you're not going to force people to play what you want and how you want. That just isn't how anything works.They will just go play another game.
If that's what you think you haven't been paying attention. You're selling yourself some dream that doesn't exist. I'm playing a test when I play Vengeance. I'm playing a mess that most players have quit when I play Grey Host. The devs have decided to directly address many of the issues with the Zone - Cyrodiil, that more people have quit than any other feature of the game, vocally.
Read the forums - the vast majority of players do not enjoy - lag, or getting rolled by groups or players they cannot counter and kill. Over the years the devs have removed features and repeatedly introduced either abilities or armor sets aimed at lowering the population of the Zone or the fights.
Lag? Remove the deer, torchbugs and the mercenary mages.
Too many players, groups too large, impulse spam and comets killing everyone? Try Prox det. Let's lower group size. Spread out. The obnoxious invis bomber not effective enough...we have more.
huh, what? too far back?
How about some recent painful history where vet PvPers quit en masse (again) and new players just opted out and avoided the zone...let's try Dark Convergence, Plague Break, Rush of Agony - all sets that led to an exodus because they were obnoxious. All were nerfed. All came with pre-warnings on PTS. They affected the groups people wanted to kill, but threw the entire zone and the server's backend into chaos.
Need more? Nibenay Bay Battlereeve, Jerall Mountains Warchief. Vicious Death, Balorgh. Rallying Cry. Snake in the Stars. Azureblight Reaper. Why were these sets created? Play how we want?
To avoid addressing the long standing issues complained about ad-nauseum for years. Heal stacking, buff stacking, shield stacking and burst. The devs prior solution has been troll abilities and skills, reduction in group size, removal of features, troll armor sets and poor communication with an end result, drumroll - lower popcaps, less large fights, less fights period.
Vengeance 1- escalating crowds and rave reviews to the end, Vengeance 2 - heal stacking. Vengeance 3 - low pop.
The consensus? Vengeance 1's performance would be lovely if we could have all of our stuff. The truth - the players don't like heal stacking, shield stacking, buff stacking, pulls, charms, invis burst and over performing heals. It raises the skill cap too high, it's tedious and boring. Players want the enemy to die and they don't want it to take 30 players chasing 1 player for 10 minutes.
If you think standing around waiting an hour for 1 campaign on one day with 35 people in queue is popular in a game with 25M players, enjoy your trophy and tiara. You're buying something a multi-million dollar marketing company can't sell.
EDIT 25M players
You are confusing what you enjoy and want with what other people enjoy and want.
Its very easy to see what is what. People don't enjoy or want a dumbed down and watered down version of the game. Attempts to sell that to them have failed and will continue to fail. No amount of further insulting me or anyone else in disagreement with what you have to say on the forums will change that.
Yes there are complaints on the forums about the things you mentioned. A very small portion of the playerbase is actually on these forums and posting. Actions speak a lot louder than words. How many people are actually going to play a watered down version of the game that becomes available as an alternative (for the sake of the game's future we can only hope it is an alternative)? We need only look at failed campaigns like Ravenswatch and now the Vengeance test for answers to that.
That is the only consensus that exists based on what we see so far whether you like it or not.
If you actually believe the 25 million number being sold to you, you might as well put a down payment up for a bridge.2 -
Iriidius✭✭✭✭✭edward_frigidhands wrote: »StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »StihlReign wrote: »edward_frigidhands wrote: »
You can tell yourself that its not that many people and they will accept a different version of the game that has all the things you dont like disabled and everyone will just accept it. But you know thats not true and the developers do too.
Think what you wish. You can tell yourself everyone wants to play Grey Host while the zone's population continues to drop until you're the last one left. Play the test. Contribute to the data, or don't.
I don't need to tell myself anything. I am experiencing it as I wait hours to get into a campaign that has so many people that it bogs down the servers its on and there isn't a place you can go to when inside where you dont get run down. This is during Prime Time when most people who play this game logon. This continues until the late hours of the night and longer if theres an event.
You're the one having to tell yourself that people want to play this disabled and watered down version of the game when they have to disable almost every other version of PvP to populate it. All past instances we have of these choices indicate people want to play the actual game with all features enabled.
It is right in front of you and you're choosing to believe fantasy for the simple reason that you do not enjoy what more people do. And that is okay. Everyone is not the same and they dont want to play the same thing.
But you're not going to force people to play what you want and how you want. That just isn't how anything works.They will just go play another game.
If that's what you think you haven't been paying attention. You're selling yourself some dream that doesn't exist. I'm playing a test when I play Vengeance. I'm playing a mess that most players have quit when I play Grey Host. The devs have decided to directly address many of the issues with the Zone - Cyrodiil, that more people have quit than any other feature of the game, vocally.
Read the forums - the vast majority of players do not enjoy - lag, or getting rolled by groups or players they cannot counter and kill. Over the years the devs have removed features and repeatedly introduced either abilities or armor sets aimed at lowering the population of the Zone or the fights.
Lag? Remove the deer, torchbugs and the mercenary mages.
Too many players, groups too large, impulse spam and comets killing everyone? Try Prox det. Let's lower group size. Spread out. The obnoxious invis bomber not effective enough...we have more.
huh, what? too far back?
How about some recent painful history where vet PvPers quit en masse (again) and new players just opted out and avoided the zone...let's try Dark Convergence, Plague Break, Rush of Agony - all sets that led to an exodus because they were obnoxious. All were nerfed. All came with pre-warnings on PTS. They affected the groups people wanted to kill, but threw the entire zone and the server's backend into chaos.
Need more? Nibenay Bay Battlereeve, Jerall Mountains Warchief. Vicious Death, Balorgh. Rallying Cry. Snake in the Stars. Azureblight Reaper. Why were these sets created? Play how we want?
To avoid addressing the long standing issues complained about ad-nauseum for years. Heal stacking, buff stacking, shield stacking and burst. The devs prior solution has been troll abilities and skills, reduction in group size, removal of features, troll armor sets and poor communication with an end result, drumroll - lower popcaps, less large fights, less fights period.
Vengeance 1- escalating crowds and rave reviews to the end, Vengeance 2 - heal stacking. Vengeance 3 - low pop.
The consensus? Vengeance 1's performance would be lovely if we could have all of our stuff. The truth - the players don't like heal stacking, shield stacking, buff stacking, pulls, charms, invis burst and over performing heals. It raises the skill cap too high, it's tedious and boring. Players want the enemy to die and they don't want it to take 30 players chasing 1 player for 10 minutes.
If you think standing around waiting an hour for 1 campaign on one day with 35 people in queue is popular in a game with 25M players, enjoy your trophy and tiara. You're buying something a multi-million dollar marketing company can't sell.
EDIT 25M players
You are confusing what you enjoy and want with what other people enjoy and want.
Its very easy to see what is what. People don't enjoy or want a dumbed down and watered down version of the game. Attempts to sell that to them have failed and will continue to fail. No amount of further insulting me or anyone else in disagreement with what you have to say on the forums will change that.
Yes there are complaints on the forums about the things you mentioned. A very small portion of the playerbase is actually on these forums and posting. Actions speak a lot louder than words. How many people are actually going to play a watered down version of the game that becomes available as an alternative (for the sake of the game's future we can only hope it is an alternative)? We need only look at failed campaigns like Ravenswatch and now the Vengeance test for answers to that.
That is the only consensus that exists based on what we see so far whether you like it or not.
If you actually believe the 25 million number being sold to you, you might as well put a down payment up for a bridge.
It is 25 million accounts but they are from much less than 25 million players as many players have multiple accounts and most of these players arenot active anymore because only a minority is playing a game daily for up to 11 years. Many players have played the game only for few hours/days/weeks or month and some bought but never started it or noticed immediately it is not for them. Real players of the game are probably less than 1 million.0
