PC EU: What is happening to ESO? Why cities are so empty?

mandricus

I play ESO since about a year and a half, and I'm a bit confused about what is happening to the game. I play on EU server, mainly in the evening.

Back in the days, almost every city of the game was very crowded, full of players, to the point that logging in some cities (e.g. Mournhold) was an issue at peak hours, due to the huge number of player textures to load at login. Zone chat was very populated, every single evening, full of people looking for Damage Dealers, Tanks and Healers in order to create groups for pledges. With the constant "noise" in the zone chats of guilds recruiting, trading guilds recruiting, people trying to sell stuff, people looking for stuff to buy, people just chatting, and so on). Cities felt exactly like a city should feel: very crowded, and full of life. Setting up a group was usually a matter of seconds. You called for 2 DDs for pledges in zone chat, and you were usually whispered by 4-5 players in no time, having to write most of the time "sorry, we are already full" to the late ones. Mournhold center was everytime full of players deconstructing equipment, dueling (when duels were introduced) or just messing around spamming skills or doing stupid things just for the fun of it.

Now get to what is happening today. The situation feels very different, and I honestly don't understand exactly what is happening.

In the last two or three weeks I've almost never been able to set up a group in order to run pledges. Cities are almost empty. Zone chat is almost empty. Tried in Mournhold, Belkarth, Rawl'ka, Elden Root, Wayrest. All cities looks exactly the same: almost nobody is there. Using dungeon finder, it's almost the same. Back in the days it took seconds to be put in a group to start a dungeon. Nowadays, it often takes hours to find a member for your group (and the funny thing is that often, after all this time spent waiting in queue, when you find a member and the dungeon starts, you are ported in the dungeon and then all the group is removed from instance, because group finder is still broken and nobody seems to care about it. AND, when you are thrown out, you are on 15 mins queue cooldown (this I think is the most annoying thing).

So my question is: what am I missing?

Are people spending time doing different things todays (normal and vet trials?) so nobody is anymore messin'around in cities?

Are all players too busy crafting stuff and decorating their houses, so nobody cares anymore about being in city or doing group content? For sure housing put out of the cities a lot of people that are now "hidden" in their instanced houses, but is this really the reason why nobody is in city anymore? And, if so, don't you think this may be hurting the "social" aspect of the game? If I go in a city, shouldn't I expect to find a lot of other players there?

Or may be it's because (easiest answer) ESO's active player base is actually shrinking?

What do you think about it? Am I the only one having the feel that city todays looks a lot emptier than before?



p.s. sorry for my english, I'm not a native speaker.

SolidusPrime

I've heard this more than once about PC EU. Can't say personally though.

I know PC NA is alive and kicking though. There are tons of people online almost all the time.

Sorry you're running into this. I know no one wants to see their server die out. Maybe everyone is just hiding in their homes?

xSkullfox

I think with the HS update they increased the instances, cause craglorn is empty if you compare it to before HS.

adriant1978

It's been a while since we had any new content. People are probably getting bored and finding other things to do, like playing other games or even going outside now that the weather is getting warmer.

Turelus

I haven't noticed any issues.

I know we have a lot of instances for the large cities like Deshaan and you can sometimes be placed in one which seems empty.

Otherwise you just need to head to Craglorn or any of the current event cities to see people all over the place playing.

DeadlyPhoenix

Don't forget about the jester festival. A lot of players are farming this event or are grinding new alts up and CP with the xp boost provided. So cities may not be as populated since it's a limited time event. Doesn't explain before the event though.

xSkullfox

DeadlyPhoenix wrote: »

Don't forget about the jester festival. A lot of players are farming this event or are grinding new alts up and CP with the xp boost provided. So cities may not be as populated since it's a limited time event. Doesn't explain before the event though.

Yea but the towns were "empty" before the jester event too, i rec. searching trial pug before HS every 10-20min ad in zchat, now its kinda dead in the zchat.


I want to know if the chat is splittet between the instances( every instance has a own zone chat) or its one global chat for all instances ???

@ZOS_GinaBruno , @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

mandricus

Yes, instanced cities may be another reason for that.
If so, may be could devs consider to reduce the number of instances for cities?
Or to not split players to different instances until a certain number of players is reached for every instance?
I mean, if there are 100 players at the same time in the same city, and we are split into ten different instances, the result is that every players feels like there is nobody in city, as he is put in a city that "looks" empty because there are only 10 players there, while the other 90 are actually in the same city but are "invisible", because they are split into several different instances.

Turelus

mandricus wrote: »

Yes, instanced cities may be another reason for that.
If so, may be could devs consider to reduce the number of instances for cities?
Or to not split players to different instances until a certain number of players is reached for every instance?
I mean, if there are 100 players at the same time in the same city, and we are split into ten different instances, the result is that every players feels like there is nobody in city, as he is put in a city that "looks" empty because there are only 10 players there, while the other 90 are actually in the same city but are "invisible", because they are split into several different instances.

I am pretty sure what you're asking for is how it works. It doesn't have 10 instances and divide people but opens new ones as limits are reached on the previous one.

mandricus

xSkullfox wrote: »

I want to know if the chat is splittet between the instances( every instance has a own zone chat) or its one global chat for all instances ???

I suspect that zone chat is splitted too, and that you are not able to chat in zone chat with people that are in a different istance of the same zone. That's also another reason why "splitting too much" can improve performance, but can become an issue for the game experience.

xSkullfox

They need to change the writ completion to every city, so craglorn would not be overcrowded and the player base would more split up.

They should allow us to change the instance, in STO theres a wheel in the map corner to select the map instance like
#Craglorn-1
#Craglorn-2
#Craglorn-x
#Craglorn-50

but i would prefer:

#Craglorn-de1
#Craglorn-......
#Craglorn-en1
#Craglorn-.....
....
#Craglorn-Int1

but they never would do this.

Callous2208

As a roleplayer, I have heard whispers of the EU community being down quite a bit overall, wasn't sure though. Sorry to hear this, PC/NA seems to be booming still in all areas of play.

gard

I'm bored with the gear grind, tired of the bugs that never get fixed (finder for one), tired of the insanely stupid rng (literally weeks of nightly grinding for sharpened necro staff) and just not having fun anymore. I've got a 2nd account at only ~260 CP and can't even bother myself to take advantage of the xp bonus to advance to 600 faster.

So the last two nights I played Fallout 4, which I never got around to playing before. I considered Mass Effect but I already owned Fallout so I figure I'll wait for ME to go on sale.

All I can say is, Morrowind needs to be something special, or I won't be spending much time playing it. If it's more of the same bug ridden grind, I'll pass thanks. Especially if resource management becomes painful with the changes to cp.

Why am I here then? (pre-emptive answer to the "Why are you posting if you don't like the game?" )
Because the game has so much potential. I WANT to play it and enjoy it.

parkham

Hrmm, might be time to head over to the EU server and check it out.

zaria

mandricus wrote: »

xSkullfox wrote: »

I want to know if the chat is splittet between the instances( every instance has a own zone chat) or its one global chat for all instances ???

I suspect that zone chat is splitted too, and that you are not able to chat in zone chat with people that are in a different istance of the same zone. That's also another reason why "splitting too much" can improve performance, but can become an issue for the game experience.

yes this was in change log that they added more shards to improve performance.
I also think the number of shards are pretty constant, they can not close them until all players have left so if one player is farming for hours in Reaper march they can not close the shard because of few players in Rawl'kha in the middle of the night.
Creating new will send the first players to an empty shard.
You could merge but that would have players popping in. Splitting would remove players but you might split on areas but would leave parts empty.

I had few issues with the old population density but have an powerful pc.
Have an feeling that on pc many configure graphic in an relaxed place and optimize for quality.
Rawl'kha is better here, even better would be an test environment with 50 npc using aoe.

mandricus

Turelus wrote: »

I am pretty sure what you're asking for is how it works. It doesn't have 10 instances and divide people but opens new ones as limits are reached on the previous one.

I hope so. But I feel quite strange that i'm always the "unlucky one" that is directed to a fresh new instance because the previous one just reached the limit. This may happens sometime, but not every single evening at every single zone change as has been happening to me in the past two or three weeks.

xSkullfox

Im sure the NA server has higher pop then EU. Its till

gard wrote: »

I'm bored with the gear grind, tired of the bugs that never get fixed (finder for one), tired of the insanely stupid rng (literally weeks of nightly grinding for sharpened necro staff) and just not having fun anymore. I've got a 2nd account at only ~260 CP and can't even bother myself to take advantage of the xp bonus to advance to 600 faster.

So the last two nights I played Fallout 4, which I never got around to playing before. I considered Mass Effect but I already owned Fallout so I figure I'll wait for ME to go on sale.

All I can say is, Morrowind needs to be something special, or I won't be spending much time playing it. If it's more of the same bug ridden grind, I'll pass thanks. Especially if resource management becomes painful with the changes to cp.

Why am I here then? (pre-emptive answer to the "Why are you posting if you don't like the game?" )
Because the game has so much potential. I WANT to play it and enjoy it.

//Offtopic
Did you play ME1 if not buy it i think its faaaar better then Andromeda. I completed it last weekend in 1 run was sooooo awesome after. And yes i played Andromeda.

Kodrac

xSkullfox wrote: »

They need to change the writ completion to every city, so craglorn would not be overcrowded and the player base would more split up.

Yes they do. Let us turn then in anywhere there is a writ caravan.

anitajoneb17_ESO

Are you sure OP you didn't mistakenly log onto the PTS ?

mandricus

I don't have PTS installed at the moment

Zorgon_The_Revenged

Maybe everyone got tired of killing and stealing........

Personally, for a long time ESO was the only game I played but now I also play a couple of other mmo's and some single player games, ones which I bought but never played due to my diary being full of ESO stuff.

I haven't noticed cities being empty, less players in major cities maybe, but Craglorn for the most part is back to a healthy crowd of players.

Ozstryker

Can honestly say I have not noticed the population declining, our guild is busier than ever, cities appear well populated, overland is very busy, dolmens and delves always have a crowd!
Sry OP just not seeing it! Although I do take myself to my house to craft/decon etc. These days, maybe others are too... dunno?

mandricus

zaria wrote: »

I also think the number of shards are pretty constant, they can not close them until all players have left so if one player is farming for hours in Reaper march they can not close the shard because of few players in Rawl'kha in the middle of the night.

Let's consider this scenario: lot of peole logs in during the day, so several shards of the city are being instanced, with every shards having a decent amount of player.
As we go towards late hours, people keeps logging out, and city population shrinks, but as long as there is at least one person into the shard, the instance can't be closed.
This could lead to having a discrete amount of "empty" instances in the evening, with players splitted across the several istances that were created during the day.
I would be curious to know how this situation is handled. Are all new players coming in directed to the same instance (let say the one with the "lowest id number"), having as a result a bunch of decently populated instances, and a quite high number of instances almost empty? Or are they just randomly distributed across the existing instances as long as they are available?

kojou

It would be interesting to see on a per server basis (EU-PC, NA-PC, etc) how many people are currently subscribed, and how many people have logged in at least once since launch.

I'm sure there are going to be increases and decreases over time with most of the increases happening right after major releases. It will be interesting to see how many new and returning players there are for Morrowind as well.

Alagras

I think it's mostly an instances question honestly.

Still very recently cities were crowded like never before, they had merged instances by a lot. But many people, as you said, had super long loading especially for Rawhl' Kha, Craglorn etc...
Then they divided again by a LOT, and it seems very empty now.

I'm not saying PC-EU population is rising either, but if there' s a drop it's nothing like what we see in cities. About chat I think it's mostly cause the nTrial farming fever has lowered, many people now have their complete sets.

I was they found a middle way between loading time and apparent pop, because I loved lively cities too.

MarkusLiberty

Callous2208 wrote: »

As a roleplayer, I have heard whispers of the EU community being down quite a bit overall, wasn't sure though. Sorry to hear this, PC/NA seems to be booming still in all areas of play.

That's a separate issue, the roleplaying community on EU is practically non-existent.

That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of players who wants to get involved with roleplaying, the problem is that there just aren't any established communities for them to join anymore. What EU needs is someone who can take the initiative to establish and maintain a strong role playing presence, untill then it's just going to keep fading.

hmsdragonfly

mandricus wrote: »

Yes, instanced cities may be another reason for that.
If so, may be could devs consider to reduce the number of instances for cities?
Or to not split players to different instances until a certain number of players is reached for every instance?
I mean, if there are 100 players at the same time in the same city, and we are split into ten different instances, the result is that every players feels like there is nobody in city, as he is put in a city that "looks" empty because there are only 10 players there, while the other 90 are actually in the same city but are "invisible", because they are split into several different instances.

Why should they, people complained a lot about the lack of instances which resulted in lagging and crashing especially at the New Life Festival.
PvP is always pop-locked from 4 PM, my tank always has instant q for vet dungeons, plus you can see people all over Tamriel, even in some delves in ... Greenshade (which was totally dead before One Tamriel).

Kendaric

MarkusLiberty wrote: »

Callous2208 wrote: »

As a roleplayer, I have heard whispers of the EU community being down quite a bit overall, wasn't sure though. Sorry to hear this, PC/NA seems to be booming still in all areas of play.

That's a separate issue, the roleplaying community on EU is practically non-existent.

That doesn't mean that there aren't a lot of players who wants to get involved with roleplaying, the problem is that there just aren't any established communities for them to join anymore. What EU needs is someone who can take the initiative to establish and maintain a strong role playing presence, untill then it's just going to keep fading.

I don't know about the english speaking RP community, but at least the german RP community seems pretty healthy. Though with Homestead being out, a lot of RP takes place there rather than in the open.

Tinus_92

As a PC/EU player my experience there is that the instances I'm being placed in are far from empty, with ocassionally being timed out in locations such as belkarth/mournhold/rawl'kha. As I do play PC/NA sometimes a bit too, pc/eu seems busier then pc/na at the times where I'm playing at. ~19-23u GMT+1. (~13-17u EST) Of course this is due to timezones, so can't tell about NA primetimes.

Both servers are far from death, though. Increased instances means the overal server popularity should've been increased previously too, if that's the case.

xSkullfox wrote: »

Im sure the NA server has higher pop then EU.

I'm not so sure about that. EU probably got massive up- and downtimes on players, as we're all in simular timezones (GMT), unlike NA, which seems to be spread out more, especially considering asian/australian players.

deepseamk20b14_ESO

That sucks. NA is always populated.

Cogo

On PC-EU, the imperial city is never empty (Trueflame), which is one of the best features with ESO. Doesnt matter when you play, there always are enemies to hunt and kill.