Population explosion?

Lord_Draevan · June 2014

So the night before Craglorn launched, NA campaigns were like this: Wabbajack locked all 3 factions, Bloodthorn High for EP and DC, Auriel's Medium all 3 factions. The night after: only Wabbajack goes above Low pop, and only during NA prime time.
It stays this way until last night when, all of a sudden, it returns to pre-Craglorn populations. In one shot.
Um... what the hell happened last night? Did the majority of the players all sign an agreement to stay off PvP until last night or something? I'm not complaining, more action accross the board is great, but... why did so many people vanish then re-appear litterally overnight? Were the population bars bugged and didn't show the real values?

Samadhi · June 2014

Maybe people started PvPing again once the merc merchants were removed and they found out they won't be stuck PvEing anymore.

Lord_Draevan · June 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

Maybe people started PvPing again once the merc merchants were removed and they found out they won't be stuck PvEing anymore.

Bad news for them then... the removal in only temporary

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/107032/6-3-14-hotfix-mercenary-merchants-in-cyrodiil

Huckdabuck · June 2014

Samadhi wrote: »

Maybe people started PvPing again once the merc merchants were removed and they found out they won't be stuck PvEing anymore.

Or everyone decided to go grind Craglorn in order to level cap (probably the easiest explanation of all).

joshisanonymous · June 2014

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Maybe people started PvPing again once the merc merchants were removed and they found out they won't be stuck PvEing anymore.

Bad news for them then... the removal in only temporary

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/107032/6-3-14-hotfix-mercenary-merchants-in-cyrodiil

Yes, temporary.. until a better fix is in place. That means you will not have to deal with broken mercenaries at any point in the future.

Anyway, it might also be due to a lot of people suddenly hitting VR12 after running anomolies. I can't say much about it though since I didn't play last night.

Gisgo · June 2014

I think some are done leveling in Craplorn, some are back after the patch, some didnt like WildStar, put them all together and its quite a bunch of players.

Mojomonkeyman · June 2014

I`m almost 100% positive that they just reduced the total player cap. There didn`t seem to be any more players on the maps than the days before despite having three bars now compared to one/two before.

Not a bad change, but I wouldve preferred them to announce it and be open about it instead of maing people wonder what happened...

Xnemesis · June 2014

Merc and Caltrops were fixed

dahl.lucas_ESO · June 2014

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

I`m almost 100% positive that they just reduced the total player cap. There didn`t seem to be any more players on the maps than the days before despite having three bars now compared to one/two before.

Not a bad change, but I wouldve preferred them to announce it and be open about it instead of maing people wonder what happened...

In that case maybe are are trying to address lag issues.

Kililin · June 2014

dahl.lucas_ESO wrote: »

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

I`m almost 100% positive that they just reduced the total player cap. There didn`t seem to be any more players on the maps than the days before despite having three bars now compared to one/two before.

Not a bad change, but I wouldve preferred them to announce it and be open about it instead of maing people wonder what happened...

In that case maybe are are trying to address lag issues.

Sure, if it is true them trying to address lag issues is surly the reason. After all they communicate everything openly... /sarcasm

Ragnar_Lodbrok · June 2014

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

LilMcGinley · June 2014

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

Well for 1 .. proof??

And 2nd: I'm almost 100% sure they lowered the population cap for Cyrodiil.

Locked campaigns last night didn't show the same type of numbers as usual. And 3 bars Pop on Bloodthorn was almost non-existent friendly players.

Kililin · June 2014

LilMcGinley wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

Well for 1).. proof??

And 2nd: I'm almost 100% sure they lowered the population cap for Cyrodiil.

If they did it is *** ridiculous, dont they think about anything they do?
It looks like they want to hide the fact that they are losing players, even if thats not the intention.
It is unbelievable, hopefully you are wrong.

LilMcGinley · June 2014

Kililin wrote: »

LilMcGinley wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

Well for 1).. proof??

And 2nd: I'm almost 100% sure they lowered the population cap for Cyrodiil.

If they did it is *** ridiculous, dont they think about anything they do?
It looks like they want to hide the fact that they are losing players, even if thats not the intention.
It is unbelievable, hopefully you are wrong.

Lower caps or lower number of campaigns, that is how to solve population imbalances. It looks like they want to keep 10 campaigns so lower caps is the other choice.

By locking Wabbajack with whatever percent less people, forces people to go to other campaigns, which makes more look appealing to people wanting to PvP and in the long run evens out the overall population.

I also noticed NO LAG last night on Bloodthorn - only had 1-2 sec lag when my group of 20+25 pugs smashed into an EP group of 60-70 - whereas before we got lag in Highrock gates.

EDIT: Lower population caps also means that each person is more important to the overhaul health of the faction in the campaign. You can't take 100 people to fight a scroll (like DC Bloodthorn did last night) and we lost 2 keeps and an outpost in little over a half hour. Fewer people means communication and guild groups need to work together - no more zerging without leaving yourself vulnerable.

joshisanonymous · June 2014

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

Considering that literally no one outside of Zenimax can even access official sales totals, it's highly unlikely that you have any evidence whatsoever to confidently say that they are losing 12k subscribers a day.

Even if we took your claim at face value, at least one estimate of the units sold up through early April was 1.2 million (elderscrollsonline.info/news/number-of-subscribers-and-success-rate-of-elder-scrolls-online). Say they have been losing 12k a day over the last month or so: 12k times 30 is 360k thousand. So now, instead of 1.2 million players, there are 840k players. Considering that this would likely be the initial dropoff from people who wanted to try it for release but didn't end up liking it (aka this "12k" number would not likely continue), then we can still expect nearly a million subscribers to be sticking around.

So I don't think the game is failing at all, especially not in the way SWTOR failed, and that's using your completely baseless pessimistic guess that they're losing 12k subscribers a day.

Kililin · June 2014

LilMcGinley wrote: »

Kililin wrote: »

LilMcGinley wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

Well for 1).. proof??

And 2nd: I'm almost 100% sure they lowered the population cap for Cyrodiil.

If they did it is *** ridiculous, dont they think about anything they do?
It looks like they want to hide the fact that they are losing players, even if thats not the intention.
It is unbelievable, hopefully you are wrong.

Lower caps or lower number of campaigns, that is how to solve population imbalances. It looks like they want to keep 10 campaigns so lower caps is the other choice.

By locking Wabbajack with whatever percent less people, forces people to go to other campaigns, which makes more look appealing to people wanting to PvP and in the long run evens out the overall population.

I also noticed NO LAG last night on Bloodthorn - only had 1-2 sec lag when my group of 20+25 pugs smashed into an EP group of 60-70 - whereas before we got lag in Highrock gates.

EDIT: Lower population caps also means that each person is more important to the overhaul health of the faction in the campaign. You can't take 100 people to fight a scroll (like DC Bloodthorn did last night) and we lost 2 keeps and an outpost in little over a half hour. Fewer people means communication and guild groups need to work together - no more zerging without leaving yourself vulnerable.

Yes, i am with you. I also think if they did it, its a good idea.
But ffs why dont they communicate the change before they do it.
Why do they let players find out?

Samadhi · June 2014

Huckdabuck wrote: »

Samadhi wrote: »

Maybe people started PvPing again once the merc merchants were removed and they found out they won't be stuck PvEing anymore.

Or everyone decided to go grind Craglorn in order to level cap (probably the easiest explanation of all).

While this is possible as an explanation, I have seen V12 characters since the day of Craglorn's release.
This would have resulted in a trickle-in of players over a period of days.

The OP said there was a one-night population explosion and asked:

Lord_Draevan wrote: »

...all of a sudden, it returns to pre-Craglorn populations. In one shot.
Um... what the hell happened last night?...

The only event that occurred last night (that we were informed of, at least) was a hotfix removing the mercenary merchant from Cyrodiil.

http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/107032/6-3-14-hotfix-mercenary-merchants-in-cyrodiil#latest

I prefaced with a "maybe" because it is not necessarily the cause of the phenomena; however, it is the only (announced) event that coincides with the OP's observances.

Evergnar · June 2014

I got in to see if it were playable and it was like night/day. The lag/latency since the Craglorn patch had made PvP pretty much unplayable for me (until yesterday).

Was great to be back in. Lots of players and lots of good battles.

Oblongship · June 2014

joshisanonymous wrote: »

Ragnar_Lodbrok wrote: »

I wouldnt read into it, the game is hemmoraging subs an average of 12k a day, worse than SWTOR

Considering that literally no one outside of Zenimax can even access official sales totals, it's highly unlikely that you have any evidence whatsoever to confidently say that they are losing 12k subscribers a day.

Even if we took your claim at face value, at least one estimate of the units sold up through early April was 1.2 million (elderscrollsonline.info/news/number-of-subscribers-and-success-rate-of-elder-scrolls-online). Say they have been losing 12k a day over the last month or so: 12k times 30 is 360k thousand. So now, instead of 1.2 million players, there are 840k players. Considering that this would likely be the initial dropoff from people who wanted to try it for release but didn't end up liking it (aka this "12k" number would not likely continue), then we can still expect nearly a million subscribers to be sticking around.

So I don't think the game is failing at all, especially not in the way SWTOR failed, and that's using your completely baseless pessimistic guess that they're losing 12k subscribers a day.

If you don't think this game is failing/drowning I have some swamp land to sell you.

Agrippa_Invisus · June 2014

Another thing to point out concerning recent populations:

School's out for the summer now.

NekOnOkO · June 2014

They've just lowered the population cap in order to achieve two goals:
1. Reduce lag.
2. Cheat the remaining subs into thinking that the game is still populated.

frwinters_ESO · June 2014

Well since Caltrops are fixed and the mercenary vendor is shut down, the major exploits have been removed so people are coming back.

Halrloprillalar · June 2014

Mojomonkeyman wrote: »

I`m almost 100% positive that they just reduced the total player cap. There didn`t seem to be any more players on the maps than the days before despite having three bars now compared to one/two before.

Not a bad change, but I wouldve preferred them to announce it and be open about it instead of maing people wonder what happened...

Probably the major contributing factor, as well as the recent fixes.

nukeyoo · June 2014

NekOnOkO wrote: »

They've just lowered the population cap in order to achieve two goals:
1. Reduce lag.
2. Cheat the remaining subs into thinking that the game is still populated.

Yes I'm sure their motives were meant for deception. It still never ceases to amaze me at the volatile and idiotic behavior on these forums. People endlessly cry about lag and when they do something to try and remedy the issue; they're tagged with some sort of ulterior motive of trying to trick people.

Are some of you just eternally pessimistic? If so please just quit and be done with the game so it will stop making you feel so negatively. Try to find something in your life that brings you joy and embrace it; I implore you.

Some of us would like to enjoy improvements.