Arrodisia wrote: »

Steam isn't accurate but queues, friend lists and active guild members are a good tell tale.

Steam numbers are the *only* accurate numbers we have. It's 100% logical that general trends on the Steam platform will largely be reflected on the rest of the platforms people play this game on. The rest is anecdotal & perception and while it can certainly be valid, it's not the hard data that Sream provides.

Arrodisia wrote: »

The company's profits have been reduced for quite some time by gold sellers masked as crown exchanges, which causes the quality of new releases to suffer. They fuel most problems existing on the server from stolen credit cards, to trolling and scamming legit crown sellers and vendor traders until they quit, to selling runs for real money and propelling their fake bidding wars on the main areas.

Let's also not forget that this gamed is owned by a multi-trillion dollar corporation that has the resources to invest in both curbing RMT and in adding content to this game if they choose to.

Arrodisia wrote: »

The current trade system is a huge turn off for most new players once they get to know how it works. The game needs different gold sinks. This one has been too heavily manipulated by those groups.

As a long-time trading guild GM, I have no argument with those wanting changes to the system, or even a coversion to a global AH. This is Zenimax's choice to consider this ongoing feedback and decide what's best for their (and our!) game. I can tell you, back in 2014, I very nearly didn't buy this game over lack of a global AH and then somehow ended up running a trading guild lol

Arrodisia wrote: »

IMHO, if players are going to play together to win something for guilds, it should be by actually playing content and not only by paying for things to win a vendor.

OK sure but the gold that comes from the teamwork to purchase a vendor comes from playing content.

Arrodisia wrote: »

A good start might be cutting down the amount of vendors a guild can bid per week. Plus, requiring an overall amount of guild activity(not log in) to receive bonus items, xp, purchasable guild reward items with some type of rep, mounts, titles and/or stats instead of solely being based on bidding. It would encourage more active solo and group play within guilds to reach a more active status.

While I don't agree on cutting down how many backup bids a guild can place, I love love love the idea of more perks to work towards with guilds and have given this feedback (along with many others) directly to ZOS. They know this is a huge desire.
We absolutely need more "teamwork" perks (for all types of guilds).

Arrodisia wrote: »

I think. This MMO could win a lot of players if the P2W trade vendor wars focus was finally toned down or ended and a more dynamic system where players are actually busy playing took over. Busy players would have more fun and less time to troll around as well. If they accomplish even half of that, things will begin falling into place and moving in the right direction again.

Are there some shenanigans going on? Of course there are. But the vast majority of trading guilds out there are putting in the work to raise gold and win a trader every week without swiping a credit card to do it. (Also, I'd encourage anyone to do the math on how much RL $$ it would cost to fund a trader bid, especially over a long term period. It gets really silly, really fast.

On PS EU we struggle for all multiplayer activities now, unless youre in certain endgame guilds

hiyde wrote: »

Arrodisia wrote: »

Steam isn't accurate but queues, friend lists and active guild members are a good tell tale.

Steam numbers are the *only* accurate numbers we have. It's 100% logical that general trends on the Steam platform will largely be reflected on the rest of the platforms people play this game on. The rest is anecdotal & perception and while it can certainly be valid, it's not the hard data that Sream provides.

Arrodisia wrote: »

The company's profits have been reduced for quite some time by gold sellers masked as crown exchanges, which causes the quality of new releases to suffer. They fuel most problems existing on the server from stolen credit cards, to trolling and scamming legit crown sellers and vendor traders until they quit, to selling runs for real money and propelling their fake bidding wars on the main areas.

Let's also not forget that this gamed is owned by a multi-trillion dollar corporation that has the resources to invest in both curbing RMT and in adding content to this game if they choose to.

Arrodisia wrote: »

The current trade system is a huge turn off for most new players once they get to know how it works. The game needs different gold sinks. This one has been too heavily manipulated by those groups.

As a long-time trading guild GM, I have no argument with those wanting changes to the system, or even a coversion to a global AH. This is Zenimax's choice to consider this ongoing feedback and decide what's best for their (and our!) game. I can tell you, back in 2014, I very nearly didn't buy this game over lack of a global AH and then somehow ended up running a trading guild lol

Arrodisia wrote: »

IMHO, if players are going to play together to win something for guilds, it should be by actually playing content and not only by paying for things to win a vendor.

OK sure but the gold that comes from the teamwork to purchase a vendor comes from playing content.

Arrodisia wrote: »

A good start might be cutting down the amount of vendors a guild can bid per week. Plus, requiring an overall amount of guild activity(not log in) to receive bonus items, xp, purchasable guild reward items with some type of rep, mounts, titles and/or stats instead of solely being based on bidding. It would encourage more active solo and group play within guilds to reach a more active status.

While I don't agree on cutting down how many backup bids a guild can place, I love love love the idea of more perks to work towards with guilds and have given this feedback (along with many others) directly to ZOS. They know this is a huge desire.
We absolutely need more "teamwork" perks (for all types of guilds).

Arrodisia wrote: »

I think. This MMO could win a lot of players if the P2W trade vendor wars focus was finally toned down or ended and a more dynamic system where players are actually busy playing took over. Busy players would have more fun and less time to troll around as well. If they accomplish even half of that, things will begin falling into place and moving in the right direction again.

Are there some shenanigans going on? Of course there are. But the vast majority of trading guilds out there are putting in the work to raise gold and win a trader every week without swiping a credit card to do it. (Also, I'd encourage anyone to do the math on how much RL $$ it would cost to fund a trader bid, especially over a long term period. It gets really silly, really fast.

I'll agree to disagree about Steam indicative of anything ESO. Simply because the pool of players on Steam who play through Steam is much smaller than those who play without it. It's like publishing 1 or even 2 in 10 doctors say "xyz".so we should do "xyz" They wouldn't publish this pool size because it's is too small to be accurate. Plus, the other 8 or 9 didn't say that. It's my opinion from years of experience. Your experience may reflect something different or not.

I also agree with the next point, while I add a detail to take it a step further. Some actions are happening, the companies who own MMO's should be "fairly" proactive about curbing RMT, while responsibly protecting the playerbase, who are literally investing into their company's growth with each content and cosmetic purchase they make, and still release new and dynamic content.

One thing I don't completely agree about is where all the gold and items generally comes from. While some of it is legit, it's not all legitimately farmed through normal gameplay. I don't want to rehash what many players already know and have seen happening. I'm just voicing what has been observed once one has scratched deeply past the surface.

Based on experience, it's some of those guilds who actually put that work into legit sales and buying cosmetics, etc. to legit supplement bids through the crown store with their own personal money, who get the worst end of the stick. The introduction of crown items being sold for gold is what tempted players to manipulate the markets and players more and more, even to the point where crowns/crown items are being sold sometimes by dangerous 3rd party websites. They spam their crooked deals all over the server zone chats.

Of course, someone with stolen sets of cards would spend some ridiculous amount of cash more weekly, than an average normal player even more than some of the more enthusiastic players. They're selling said illegit crown items below their value, because they didn't earn that money, nor do they care if those people who they've scammed and stolen from can feed, clothe, and house their families afterwards. I'll stop here with that point. It's unfortunate but I'd like to see this thread focus more on possible solutions rather then only the problems.

Some of this wouldn't be happening, imo, if the devs could maybe impliment a system to trade purchases with gold officially in the game, where price fluctuates based on it's legit supply and demand or even if just the trade itself locks in at acceptable prices through the in game system itself. Like a warning through the system upon crown item sale for gold. You're about to sell this item for this amount of gold "click here" to do so. Then the price locks and then "click here" if you are sure. This "might" also give the developers the opportunity to run whichever checks they deem necessary, flag and investigate suspicious purchase habits/transactions from the onset. Instead of having a mountain of problems to deal with at a later time when charges are disputed.

It's not like the company did nothing at all to protect their MMO. The company has tried to stop or slow down said behaviours in the past, but it's been a while and those behaviours have mutated and skyrocketed since. Maybe it's time to wack those moles again.

Plus, what would it hurt if the devs impliment a more dynamic guild system with rewards and such while they do so. Maybe it would be a win - win to engage more people in a newer type of multi faceted and rewarding guild system. I'm sure they could come up with a more detailed and engaging guild structure. Maybe having those clear cut goals and rewards and perks may even help with new player retention.

As you were calling it "teamwork perks" it really resonated with me. The idea of players enjoying team based play is generally a good thing for an MMO. I'm not saying solo players can't also benefit, they sure can. However, it'd be fire if players could go do content together and earn new buffs or rewards for their gameplay while also working towards a guild's progress if they choose to participate.

How and if they change the system is up to their discretion, but we can't deny the current system is deeply split and corrupted away from their original intentions.

The reason I suggested the 10 times bidding change is because it pushes a good portion of guilds of varying sizes to preinvest gold well beyond their legit sales earnings. Bids are often partially padded with crown sales, and since not all are legitimate, the current system imho works against those who adhere to the TOS and even against the MMO owners/investors themselves. The amount padded by some, not all, guilds may be silly. Yet it's still done.

I do think. The devs have the capability to reign some of these issues in a bit, if they receive the appropriate signals and cashflow from above to adapt and rework a couple systems over time while releasing some solid new content. Will it actually happen? who knows. I'm guessing future roadmaps and communications will tell us this.

Steam charts are the best trend info we have access to, so it's all we've got that isn't anecdotal evidence like friends list and guild membership numbers.

But steam charts should be reliable information as it's a representative sample large enough to be indicative of population trends. It would be impossible to poll every player with an ESO account, so the only option is to use a representative sample like steam charts to determine what the population trends are.

Virtually all statistics are derived from representative samples. It's exceedingly rare to have a sample population small enough to count every members behavior individually.

Arrodisia wrote: »

hiyde wrote: »

Arrodisia wrote: »

Steam isn't accurate but queues, friend lists and active guild members are a good tell tale.

Steam numbers are the *only* accurate numbers we have. It's 100% logical that general trends on the Steam platform will largely be reflected on the rest of the platforms people play this game on. The rest is anecdotal & perception and while it can certainly be valid, it's not the hard data that Sream provides.

Arrodisia wrote: »

The company's profits have been reduced for quite some time by gold sellers masked as crown exchanges, which causes the quality of new releases to suffer. They fuel most problems existing on the server from stolen credit cards, to trolling and scamming legit crown sellers and vendor traders until they quit, to selling runs for real money and propelling their fake bidding wars on the main areas.

Let's also not forget that this gamed is owned by a multi-trillion dollar corporation that has the resources to invest in both curbing RMT and in adding content to this game if they choose to.

Arrodisia wrote: »

The current trade system is a huge turn off for most new players once they get to know how it works. The game needs different gold sinks. This one has been too heavily manipulated by those groups.

As a long-time trading guild GM, I have no argument with those wanting changes to the system, or even a coversion to a global AH. This is Zenimax's choice to consider this ongoing feedback and decide what's best for their (and our!) game. I can tell you, back in 2014, I very nearly didn't buy this game over lack of a global AH and then somehow ended up running a trading guild lol

Arrodisia wrote: »

IMHO, if players are going to play together to win something for guilds, it should be by actually playing content and not only by paying for things to win a vendor.

OK sure but the gold that comes from the teamwork to purchase a vendor comes from playing content.

Arrodisia wrote: »

A good start might be cutting down the amount of vendors a guild can bid per week. Plus, requiring an overall amount of guild activity(not log in) to receive bonus items, xp, purchasable guild reward items with some type of rep, mounts, titles and/or stats instead of solely being based on bidding. It would encourage more active solo and group play within guilds to reach a more active status.

While I don't agree on cutting down how many backup bids a guild can place, I love love love the idea of more perks to work towards with guilds and have given this feedback (along with many others) directly to ZOS. They know this is a huge desire.
We absolutely need more "teamwork" perks (for all types of guilds).

Arrodisia wrote: »

I think. This MMO could win a lot of players if the P2W trade vendor wars focus was finally toned down or ended and a more dynamic system where players are actually busy playing took over. Busy players would have more fun and less time to troll around as well. If they accomplish even half of that, things will begin falling into place and moving in the right direction again.

Are there some shenanigans going on? Of course there are. But the vast majority of trading guilds out there are putting in the work to raise gold and win a trader every week without swiping a credit card to do it. (Also, I'd encourage anyone to do the math on how much RL $$ it would cost to fund a trader bid, especially over a long term period. It gets really silly, really fast.

I'll agree to disagree about Steam indicative of anything ESO. Simply because the pool of players on Steam who play through Steam is much smaller than those who play without it. It's like publishing 1 or even 2 in 10 doctors say "xyz".so we should do "xyz" They wouldn't publish this pool size because it's is too small to be accurate. Plus, the other 8 or 9 didn't say that. It's my opinion from years of experience. Your experience may reflect something different or not.

I also agree with the next point, while I add a detail to take it a step further. Some actions are happening, the companies who own MMO's should be "fairly" proactive about curbing RMT, while responsibly protecting the playerbase, who are literally investing into their company's growth with each content and cosmetic purchase they make, and still release new and dynamic content.

One thing I don't completely agree about is where all the gold and items generally comes from. While some of it is legit, it's not all legitimately farmed through normal gameplay. I don't want to rehash what many players already know and have seen happening. I'm just voicing what has been observed once one has scratched deeply past the surface.

Based on experience, it's some of those guilds who actually put that work into legit sales and buying cosmetics, etc. to legit supplement bids through the crown store with their own personal money, who get the worst end of the stick. The introduction of crown items being sold for gold is what tempted players to manipulate the markets and players more and more, even to the point where crowns/crown items are being sold sometimes by dangerous 3rd party websites. They spam their crooked deals all over the server zone chats.

Of course, someone with stolen sets of cards would spend some ridiculous amount of cash more weekly, than an average normal player even more than some of the more enthusiastic players. They're selling said illegit crown items below their value, because they didn't earn that money, nor do they care if those people who they've scammed and stolen from can feed, clothe, and house their families afterwards. I'll stop here with that point. It's unfortunate but I'd like to see this thread focus more on possible solutions rather then only the problems.

Some of this wouldn't be happening, imo, if the devs could maybe impliment a system to trade purchases with gold officially in the game, where price fluctuates based on it's legit supply and demand or even if just the trade itself locks in at acceptable prices through the in game system itself. Like a warning through the system upon crown item sale for gold. You're about to sell this item for this amount of gold "click here" to do so. Then the price locks and then "click here" if you are sure. This "might" also give the developers the opportunity to run whichever checks they deem necessary, flag and investigate suspicious purchase habits/transactions from the onset. Instead of having a mountain of problems to deal with at a later time when charges are disputed.

It's not like the company did nothing at all to protect their MMO. The company has tried to stop or slow down said behaviours in the past, but it's been a while and those behaviours have mutated and skyrocketed since. Maybe it's time to wack those moles again.

Plus, what would it hurt if the devs impliment a more dynamic guild system with rewards and such while they do so. Maybe it would be a win - win to engage more people in a newer type of multi faceted and rewarding guild system. I'm sure they could come up with a more detailed and engaging guild structure. Maybe having those clear cut goals and rewards and perks may even help with new player retention.

As you were calling it "teamwork perks" it really resonated with me. The idea of players enjoying team based play is generally a good thing for an MMO. I'm not saying solo players can't also benefit, they sure can. However, it'd be fire if players could go do content together and earn new buffs or rewards for their gameplay while also working towards a guild's progress if they choose to participate.

How and if they change the system is up to their discretion, but we can't deny the current system is deeply split and corrupted away from their original intentions.

The reason I suggested the 10 times bidding change is because it pushes a good portion of guilds of varying sizes to preinvest gold well beyond their legit sales earnings. Bids are often partially padded with crown sales, and since not all are legitimate, the current system imho works against those who adhere to the TOS and even against the MMO owners/investors themselves. The amount padded by some, not all, guilds may be silly. Yet it's still done.

I do think. The devs have the capability to reign some of these issues in a bit, if they receive the appropriate signals and cashflow from above to adapt and rework a couple systems over time while releasing some solid new content. Will it actually happen? who knows. I'm guessing future roadmaps and communications will tell us this.

Ph1p wrote: »

In your example, you just claim that the other doctors say "abc" instead of "xyz" without any evidence. Similarly, people who don't trust Steam numbers never provide a reason why players on Steam supposedly are not representative. They never explain why Steam trends, which are based on data from literally hundreds of thousands of current ESO players, somehow aren't indicative of the broader player base.

I feel like a lot of the "steam metrics aren't relevant" people are being purposefully disingenuous and they know it - they have to deny it, because admitting that steam metrics might be a valid sample to the overall discussion about ESO's dwindling player count is also admitting that their favourite game might not be as healthy as they think it is (or ZOS are leading them to believe).

Also in my experience the vast majority of the "I haven't seen a decrease in player count" crowd are exclusively solo overland questers who don't play in groups and thus don't really care about the total player numbers to begin with, so their opinion is hilariously uninformed. As long as they see people around the traders in hubs or the occasional person out in the world questing they're going to assume nothing is happening. After all, they're not the ones watching raid groups die, guild events not filling or realize the PvP crowd are fighting the same exact people every time.

Truth has already been spoken here, but I just wanted to say that for those who trade in this game since at least 2022 it is so much evident the decline: I'm in the Companion Gear market and I always sold 3 full guilds slots every week. These days I'm selling 4-8 items per week in just one trader.
My income has drastically reduced and it's not just the fact we didn't get companions this year: companion gear drops on the market depends on number of players playing content with companions out - it seems there are very few compared to previous years.
I don't think a mass of players have decided all together to stop using their companions... Sounds unlikely. Seems more likely that those NPCs have lost their player companions.

Lagzee wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

This is all so accurate, and well said. The people who dont realize that population has been seriously dwindling are either in denial, or mainly play solo. This is simply a matter of fact and to deny it is to deny reality. I have never understood why people deny that steam is a good metric to judge by, but heres some more.

absolutely. i'm no expert, but i understand how statistics and sample sizes work. although i totally agree with the steam data... i don't even need steam data to see the writing on the wall. as a solo player who avoids group content like the plague and is perfectly happy with just overland questing and living under my little rock, i can clearly see how populations have drastically dropped by looking at the BMU guild i am in along with my trading guilds that used to be capped out on players. i can also see it with the economy. i never used to get listings back in the mail. now i hardly ever sell anything. was just saying to a friend the other day "you know the economy is dead when you can list herbs at the low end of ttc and they never sell..."

Radiate77 wrote: »

Nobody is arguing that the population isn’t lower than ever, there were just a few people debating whether Steam Charts were a reliable source.

To reiterate on my point way at the beginning of the thread; it is not a reach to put 1:1 together, but the real topic is why.

Why is the population so low?

I said it earlier, and it should come as no surprise that in a year with the least content, that we would have the least players. But once again, I believe we are all in agreement on this? Does anyone really think that population is fine?

it's not any one thing. if you look at forum posts over the last year or so, you'll see where ppl left for all kinds of reasons going back to U35. and as others have mentioned here, when you have even smaller exoduses of players, it causes more ppl to leave. i specifically remember someone putting out a poll on the forums about why you have left/dropped your sub/etc. listing things like U35, AWA, subclassing, 15 day listings, etc. all of these things contribute. i answered that none of those things affected me personally, but they each drove significant amounts of players away, which had a big effect on the economy which had a big effect on how i play the game.

definitely not fine. i'm not sure how they can sustain things the way they are going. what they need is more content, but they keep putting out less and less and charging more for it. hopefully we'll get some good news with the reveal in a few days

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Truth has already been spoken here, but I just wanted to say that for those who trade in this game since at least 2022 it is so much evident the decline: I'm in the Companion Gear market and I always sold 3 full guilds slots every week. These days I'm selling 4-8 items per week in just one trader.
My income has drastically reduced and it's not just the fact we didn't get companions this year: companion gear drops on the market depends on number of players playing content with companions out - it seems there are very few compared to previous years.
I don't think a mass of players have decided all together to stop using their companions... Sounds unlikely. Seems more likely that those NPCs have lost their player companions.

thats somthing else i completely forgot. Trading. since around the same time as the mail changes. Its just been on a decline. idk if it was because of that or a sign of the time

Radiate77 wrote: »

Nobody is arguing that the population isn’t lower than ever, there were just a few people debating whether Steam Charts were a reliable source.

To reiterate on my point way at the beginning of the thread; it is not a reach to put 1:1 together, but the real topic is why.

Why is the population so low?

I said it earlier, and it should come as no surprise that in a year with the least content, that we would have the least players. But once again, I believe we are all in agreement on this? Does anyone really think that population is fine?

I mean take your pick. Less content, repeat/rehashed content. It seemed a lot of people didnt like the mail changes last year. Update 35, hybridization changes and the fact they remain unfinished. Terrible cyrodiil performance has left pvp in the gutter, chasing many players away. Subclassing is a big one, pretty much every end game player i talk to, both still playing and those who quit, hate subclassing.

Sure casual players like it, and i understand, but theres a reason why no other big mmo has done something like this. Its a balance nightmare, which hurts player count. And its destroyed class identity, something else that chases players away. And for some people its just a deal breaker. Because people value class identity. Plus it makes the meta so stale, people get tired of seeing the same builds in pvp and pve. And its raised the barrier of entry to pvp by a large amount, which deters newer players. Plus, at the end of the day, subclassing is also just more rehashed content disguised as something new.

So at the end of the day, ya a lot of things. Even more than i can think of. I just hope they can turn things around, but its an uphill battle now. They really need to go above and beyond, and im not sure they can. At least where content is concerned. But im not sure they will ever fix the damage they did with subclassing. Its just a deal breaker for a lot of people, and i dont blame them.

scrappy1342 wrote: »

definitely not fine. i'm not sure how they can sustain things the way they are going. what they need is more content, but they keep putting out less and less and charging more for it. hopefully we'll get some good news with the reveal in a few days

I hope for this too, but I don't have high hopes.

What we know they are working on:
- Class reworks
- More vengeance
- New PvP map/mode
- Balancing subclassing
- Overland difficulty
- Cross play
- Going to revisit older zones (probably touching up a select few old zones + new paid quests in those zones)

It seems all these things will take up a lot of resources already for different teams, that there is not enough left for a lot of new content/new zones. Also, most of these things are all about balancing things. I don't see them introducing a new class or a new system because then there will be even more imbalance and clean-up work later.

We will see. But I don't have high hopes. I have catched up will all the content (stickerbook + quests). So if there isn't a lot of brand new stuff I will leave my guilds and take a long break as well until they catched up with content in a year or two.

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Yudo wrote: »

ToddIngram wrote: »

I don't believe for a second ZOS can't fix GH. They created it, they can fix it. They're deciding not to make the investment by choice, not mandate.

My point was it looks like ZOS is trying to put Cyrodiil into maintenance mode. Rather than even try, they're just telling us it is what it is, take it or leave it, they're not even going to try.

I guess it just outside of the scope of priority/time/cost or whatever, rather than being "impossible" to fix.
I would argue they should revisit the alternatives, as I also don't want them to give up on GH.

Here is the key message from me:
If they can make improvements, however small, to the current GH, it will still be miles better.
They can look at cross healing, maybe some learnings from Vengeance might inspire changes to GH, and go from there. This was the original expectation and hope for going into testing. Does feel like a sudden flip to push for Vengeance.

Part of the reason why cyro is in the current state is not purely performance. Subclassing has a lot to do with it with everyone running the same high burst combo and adding more frustration besides performance.
These improvements, and balance together would give us the experience, even with performance issue, the fun environment which we have been able to tolerate for years.

I won't put my money on a smaller GH, because the game cannot handle 3 ball groups in one keep, the size of the map seems to matter little. They could lower the pop, which might help, but also reduces the epic scale of what is GH. Let's see what exactly they announce, I just hope they are reading these and taking in feedback seriously. I hate that I am resorting to compromise facing the potential termination of GH, but this is what I think. Looking forward to the 4th Survey results.

You are correct in that the problems in GH are worst at big fights in one location. Making that location smaller, in this case Cyrodiil, will not change anything when it comes to improving performance. The smaller zone would still have the same problem of huge fights in one location, except it would be more frequent because less locations to fight at.

Great point!

There are many things wrong with ZOS' proposal of a smaller Cyrodiil map. With the biggest problem being that a smaller map will not, unto itself, solve any performance issues.

SummersetCitizen wrote: »

lostineternity wrote: »

I hold a master degree in applied mathematics. My main specialization is mathematical statistics, with a particular focus on social mathematical statistics (everything related to societal trends, opinion polls, elections, etc.

I also hold an MS in the social sciences, with a particular focus on data analysis. The level of statistical illiteracy in these discussions is striking. Personal anecdotes and individual experiences may feel meaningful, but they do not constitute evidence and carry little weight in population-level analysis.

One contributing factor to population decline is the forum environment itself. Long-standing trolls—some of whom have posted thousands of borderline rage-bait messages over the years—appear to be effectively insulated from consequences, potentially due to inconsistent or legacy moderation practices. At the same time, many ordinary in-game players report being automatically banned through AI-driven moderation systems.

These trolls are widely disliked by the player base, yet their posts—often driven by emotion rather than evidence—tend to align with pro-ZOS narratives. As a result, dissenting voices are gradually removed or disengage out of frustration, leaving a shrinking, unrepresentative group that persists until the community itself is effectively shut down.

I don't think ZOS realizes that this favoritism has resulted in people leaving ESO forever. When a member of ZOS makes up a reason to take action against a player, at least sometimes that player just leaves and never returns. That's why this situation being allowed to continue unabated seems so strange to me.

Yeah I've definately noticed the population shrink. It's harder to notice when you do overland but when it comes to anything involving a group it's heavily noticable

Battleground Queues - 30 mins to an hour

Dungeon quests 30 mins to an hour for a tank

All that is bad

Just noticing running around solstice, normally a new dlc is busy for a good six months after release. Solstice is practically dead. No one is doing wbs runs at all (Yes I know it's buggy) But that's concerning

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

SummersetCitizen wrote: »

lostineternity wrote: »

I hold a master degree in applied mathematics. My main specialization is mathematical statistics, with a particular focus on social mathematical statistics (everything related to societal trends, opinion polls, elections, etc.

I also hold an MS in the social sciences, with a particular focus on data analysis. The level of statistical illiteracy in these discussions is striking. Personal anecdotes and individual experiences may feel meaningful, but they do not constitute evidence and carry little weight in population-level analysis.

One contributing factor to population decline is the forum environment itself. Long-standing trolls—some of whom have posted thousands of borderline rage-bait messages over the years—appear to be effectively insulated from consequences, potentially due to inconsistent or legacy moderation practices. At the same time, many ordinary in-game players report being automatically banned through AI-driven moderation systems.

These trolls are widely disliked by the player base, yet their posts—often driven by emotion rather than evidence—tend to align with pro-ZOS narratives. As a result, dissenting voices are gradually removed or disengage out of frustration, leaving a shrinking, unrepresentative group that persists until the community itself is effectively shut down.

I don't think ZOS realizes that this favoritism has resulted in people leaving ESO forever. When a member of ZOS makes up a reason to take action against a player, at least sometimes that player just leaves and never returns. That's why this situation being allowed to continue unabated seems so strange to me.

Although posts like this present one way to look at what is being described, what I see is something completely different. I see a number of people who say and do things against the TOS and get banned, rightly so, and rather than accept responsibility for their own actions have to come up with some weird conspiracy theory that ZOS likes some forum posters more than others and protects them, and that somehow whatever the person getting banned said or did is somebody else’s fault instead of their own. Not a single player on this forum can control what I post or don’t post, so it boggles my mind that some people think something they post against the TOS is someone else’s fault.

Rkindaleft wrote: »

Elvenheart wrote: »

MorallyBipolar wrote: »

SummersetCitizen wrote: »

lostineternity wrote: »

I hold a master degree in applied mathematics. My main specialization is mathematical statistics, with a particular focus on social mathematical statistics (everything related to societal trends, opinion polls, elections, etc.

I also hold an MS in the social sciences, with a particular focus on data analysis. The level of statistical illiteracy in these discussions is striking. Personal anecdotes and individual experiences may feel meaningful, but they do not constitute evidence and carry little weight in population-level analysis.

One contributing factor to population decline is the forum environment itself. Long-standing trolls—some of whom have posted thousands of borderline rage-bait messages over the years—appear to be effectively insulated from consequences, potentially due to inconsistent or legacy moderation practices. At the same time, many ordinary in-game players report being automatically banned through AI-driven moderation systems.

These trolls are widely disliked by the player base, yet their posts—often driven by emotion rather than evidence—tend to align with pro-ZOS narratives. As a result, dissenting voices are gradually removed or disengage out of frustration, leaving a shrinking, unrepresentative group that persists until the community itself is effectively shut down.

I don't think ZOS realizes that this favoritism has resulted in people leaving ESO forever. When a member of ZOS makes up a reason to take action against a player, at least sometimes that player just leaves and never returns. That's why this situation being allowed to continue unabated seems so strange to me.

Although posts like this present one way to look at what is being described, what I see is something completely different. I see a number of people who say and do things against the TOS and get banned, rightly so, and rather than accept responsibility for their own actions have to come up with some weird conspiracy theory that ZOS likes some forum posters more than others and protects them, and that somehow whatever the person getting banned said or did is somebody else’s fault instead of their own. Not a single player on this forum can control what I post or don’t post, so it boggles my mind that some people think something they post against the TOS is someone else’s fault.

Anyone who breaks the TOS should expect to get banned and I think everyone knows that.

The reason people are frustrated at this is because it's starting to feel like the application of the rules isn't being consistently applied across users - people have talked about the over-moderation of the forums for years, but everyone who's been on the forum for more than say a month, knows the same 2-3 accounts on the forum who are very clearly baiting other users, or downright trolling and being toxic, but those 2-3 accounts have been doing the same thing for years because apparently they have free reign to do so.

For apparently no real reason either, it is completely unexplainable other than they don't get banned because they tend to be heavily on the pro-ZOS side, because anyone who would be even slightly critical of the game, posting the same kinds of things as regularly as they do, would have been dealt with a long time ago.

Well, again, this just might be a different way of seeing things, but what some people may perceive as baiting and trolling others may see as just someone offering a counterpoint.

These forums come across so negative sometimes, and what I see is that many times if anyone dares to try to say anything positive in a topic that runs counter to the idea being discussed in the topic they are jumped on and what they say is belittled by some and ridiculed by others. The ones trying to blame two or three posters for people choosing to quit ESO should wonder what effect all the negativity readers are exposed to on the forums is having on player retention rather than worrying about the posts of two or three players.

Just because a player has an experience in the game that runs counter to the idea being discussed and they want to share that experience to try and balance out the negativity with a little bit of positivity does not mean they are baiting or trolling. And if anyone takes what someone says as “bait” and responds to these posts in a way that is against TOS and they get actioned against it does not mean that what they said or did was the other person’s fault - in the end, posters are 100% in control of and responsible for what they post and how they post it.