Is the Vocal minority a myth?

Fingolfinn01

There are many complaint threads.

Is it true they only represent a small percentage of the player base?

Gilvoth

more people are starting to come forward and speak their minds. (finaly )

Turelus

Somewhat.

Of overall players yes, the forums are the minority. Of the engaged and invested player base it's probably a large portion.

However you also need to remember the rule that no one* comes to the forums just to say how much fun they're having, so if there isn't a problem with something or someone doesn't see a problem they're unlikely to spend time posting about it.
Where's you see lots of complaint threads because when people are upset they want to vent/debate the changes and come here to do so.

* not actually no one, some do. Just because I know this is the ESO forums and someone will argue.

Vipstaakki

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

Turelus

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

*whistles innocently*

Gilvoth

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
(Arthur Schopenhauer)

Rohamad_Ali

I don't know . Had a friend show me some pretty bad reviews all over the place . I'm more tolerant then some players so it was a little surprising . I didn't think ESO was all that bad but there some that won't step foot in here after trying it . We seem to have enough people to keep the lights on . They might be the people that bought those expensive homes . All that matters in the end is if you are having fun . If not , there's a lot of games out there .

Turelus

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
(Arthur Schopenhauer)

"Ignorance speaks loudly, so as to be heard; but its volume proves reason to doubt every word."
(Wes Fessler)

It's very easy to find a quote or a proverb to back up any argument, it doesn't make it any more true doing so.

KochDerDamonen

Few people visit the forums, only a portion of forum-goers are complaining.

Sustain nerfs are good

Coilbox

Well, these forums are not the only place where people talk about the game, it's actually a non very representative part of the whole community. Youtube is a way more accesible place for most people, and can reach to a lot more people than these forums.
And to be honest, there are many more videos and comments complaining about morrowind ('the patch') than saying how amazing the next patch will be. Specially when talking about resources management and the way that balance aimed to PvP affects PvE.

Gilvoth

Turelus wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
(Arthur Schopenhauer)

"Ignorance speaks loudly, so as to be heard; but its volume proves reason to doubt every word."
(Wes Fessler)

It's very easy to find a quote or a proverb to back up any argument, it doesn't make it any more true doing so.

the man supports my beliefs and theories. and not only that, i just happen to find a philosopher from 1818 who not only agrees with me and many others of us here on the forums but he also wrote books on the very same comments and things we speak about.

Shadow_Viper_vX

No it is not a myth

The only people complaining on the forums are those with complaints.

The people with no complaints are usually too busy playing the game ;-)

Alot of the complaints are just from people afraid they'll lose their easymode with the next patch, or people screaming "nerf!!!!" rather than not being lazy and putting in the effort to Learn to Play, the more someone Learns to Play the easier it will be for them to Adapt and Overcome.

But either way all the boohooing needs to stop

phairdon

How would any know? You would need stats of some type. The amount of people discussing a certain subject on the forum vs the amount of people playing the game.

failkiwib16_ESO

Coilbox wrote: »

Well, these forums are not the only place where people talk about the game, it's actually a non very representative part of the whole community. Youtube is a way more accesible place for most people, and can reach to a lot more people than these forums.
And to be honest, there are many more videos and comments complaining about morrowind ('the patch') than saying how amazing the next patch will be. Specially when talking about resources management and the way that balance aimed to PvP affects PvE.

These forums are restricted to people who have an ESO account, and the information given here is not monetized - unlike youtube. I wouldn't say that place is a better platform.

Morrowind is still in beta testing stage, as far as I know...

Beardimus

Yes, it is the minority. Out of all the people I play with on Xbox im the only one who regularly checks the forum, mainly as i get bored at work.

Look how many views the Patch Notes get its a few thousand. And yet the game has millions of players across the platforms....

IF this forum represented the majority more would view the patch notes. And then secondly of this small minority how many are negative whom always are the loudest.

The loudest shouted about Sorc, now spec getting a nerf too that's just odd - now sorcs upset too. Society just likes to bring it's self down lol.

Id take everything on here that's neggy with a pinch of salt. It's a game, if people hate it they can just go...

Tasear

Turelus wrote: »

Somewhat.

Of overall players yes, the forums are the minority. Of the engaged and invested player base it's probably a large portion.

However you also need to remember the rule that no one* comes to the forums just to say how much fun they're having, so if there isn't a problem with something or someone doesn't see a problem they're unlikely to spend time posting about it.
Where's you see lots of complaint threads because when people are upset they want to vent/debate the changes and come here to do so.

* not actually no one, some do. Just because I know this is the ESO forums and someone will argue.

@ZOS_GinaBruno I having a lot of fun! Thank you!

Turelus

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
(Arthur Schopenhauer)

"Ignorance speaks loudly, so as to be heard; but its volume proves reason to doubt every word."
(Wes Fessler)

It's very easy to find a quote or a proverb to back up any argument, it doesn't make it any more true doing so.

the man supports my beliefs and theories. and not only that, i just happen to find a philosopher from 1818 who not only agrees with me and many others of us here on the forums but he also wrote books on the very same comments and things we speak about.

That's fine, but what I am saying is we could probably say the same of the reverse argument. That's why no one in the world agrees on the same things, we all see things differently because of different experiences.

lunalitetempler

They don't speak for me, I don't think they speak for the game

[Edit to remove insulting content]

vyndral13preub18_ESO

No it exsist. The problem is you have no way to tell which side is the minority. Everyone likes to think they are the majority, but are they?

How many post in this very thread start by talking about how small the forum community is? If it is that small then any sample taken here may not be representative of what the player base feels as a whole. if the forum user population is as small as some claim then there is no way either side could point at results gathered here as proof of majority or minority.

Tandor

phairdon wrote: »

How would any know? You would need stats of some type. The amount of people discussing a certain subject on the forum vs the amount of people playing the game.

Agreed, but if you go into say the Bank of Daggerfall you'll see about as many people in that one building as there are complaining in a typical thread. The thread may be several pages long but that's because people are posting multiple times in it. Now consider all the other people elsewhere in the game than the Bank of Daggerfall, and reflect that this is the only instance of this forum compared to the in-game population being spread over seven servers.

Moreover, the visible presence in the game is but a snapshot of the small proportion of the players who happen to be logged in there at a specific moment in time, whereas the forum topics contain contributions from all the posters who have logged in and posted at any time over the past few days.

The proportion of players who frequent the forum is very small, the proportion of those who actually post rather than lurking and reading is even smaller, and the proportion who bother to sit through video streams on Youtube of other people playing the game even smaller again.

Most people are simply playing the game, they're enjoying themselves regardless of whatever complaint of the week is being aired on the forum or in the latest video stream, and that is reflected in the continued growth in the game's population. It isn't "negative" changes like the current sustain issue (or the introduction of crown crates previously) that impacts on the game's population, it's the "positive" changes like B2P, console release, One Tamriel, Homestead, and Morrowind. Check out Vvardenfell in June, that's where the silent majority will be, not on the forum!

Aurie

Back on topic, without knowing how large the player base is, it's impossible to estimate the percentage of players who complain.

What is known is that the majority of people who play games don't visit forums, because they are either not interested in them or they don't want to use up valuable playing time. There is also a proportion of players who do visit the forums, but don't post.

These people vote with their feet. If they don't like a game enough for whatever reasons, they just move on.

pattyLtd

Yes, most likely the majority of players dont visit the forum and a large part of those that do moslt only read it.

However that does not mean that everyone that doesnt come here is happy with the changes most people just play the game are unaware of the existence of patch notes and just stop playing when they get frustrated because everything suddenly feels completely different or at least i think so.

kongkim

Only a small amount of the players are on the forum.

Artemiisia

when new people ingame ask me about the community I tent to always say this:

ingame the community is awesome, friendly and lots of people that wanna help, however stay clear of the forums until you have made your own opinion of the game, since the forum its 80% toxic

xeNNNNN

Turelus wrote: »

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

Vipstaakki wrote: »

Indeed they do. If you ever start observing who the people that *** and moan are. You will notice that it is usually the same small minority over and over again.

"The wise have always said the same things, and fools, who are the majority have always done just the opposite."
(Arthur Schopenhauer)

"Ignorance speaks loudly, so as to be heard; but its volume proves reason to doubt every word."
(Wes Fessler)

It's very easy to find a quote or a proverb to back up any argument, it doesn't make it any more true doing so.

truth is matter of perspective.

MacCait

Of all the players on PS4 that I know, I only know of two other people apart from myself who are on the forum. So yes, the vocal group here are a minority of the community. It's always been the same in other games too. Most people don't read forums, just play the game and get told stuff by people who are present on the forums.

KerinKor

Fingolfinn01 wrote: »

There are many complaint threads.

Is it true they only represent a small percentage of the player base?

Of course it's true, the percentage of players who actually READ the forums is likely in the single digits, those who POST are even fewer .. most people are playing the game for what it is and are content, otherwise they'd be somewhere else.

Tabbycat

Players who are dissatisfied with something are more likely to complain about it than players who are satisfied with something likely to praise it.

If you have a bad experience in a restaurant you are probably going to post all about it on your Facebook page. But if you have a normal experience, where the service is good and the food tastes great, how many will actually take the time to praise the restaurant on Facebook?

It's just how people are. They like to complain. Complaining is exciting and stirs people up. That's why you see more exciting negative news stories than you do warm fuzzy good feeling news stories.

Spaghettiknight

Only a small percentage of players uses the forum, and a lot of casual players probably won't be bothered by changes since they just quest and occasionally do group content.

SnubbS

The 'Vocal Minority' in principle is a very real thing—however, no two instances are ever alike and that certainly applies here.

In gaming, I think you can break players down into four categories. The first is the actual 'Casual' gamer, who has no real investment in the game, doesn't bother with forums and maybe gets online for a couple hours a week. This type of gamer is what drives your sales figures. It's part of the reason they've "Sold" 7 million copies, and yet there's probably fewer than 30k unique users per day on Xbox NA.

While a game like Bo2 (A five year old CoD) has 90k unique users online at the same time.

This type of casual is who companies often times try to initially market towards because they're the largest market—however, in terms of balance changes and core game-mechanics, these are the absolute worst people to base your decisions on. JoeKapp420247 who gets online 2 hours every Sunday Night doesn't care what the CP cap is, whether CP is in PvP or not—whether Redguard gets nerfed. He just wants to play the game.

A step up from that is the 'Constant' casual—these are the people who usually play 10-20 hours a week. These are mostly the kinds of people that keep the game afloat crownstore-wise. As I break this down, it's important to note that the each tier has substantially more people than the next. These people may take interest in the core balance changes to the game, but they're largely indifferent—C-Frags being nerfed doesn't hurt their ability to do overland quests in Eastmarch for instance. So they're not likely to threaten 'quitting' or make forum accounts to voice their opinions—they might not even have an opinion in most cases. What I'm really getting at here, is that they just aren't that invested into the game.

The next tier is the 'Players' tier. These are mostly going to just be the people you see every day—most of the forums probably fall under this category. These people would likely be 400-max cp, playing maybe 15-30 hours a week. These people are invested into the game, and are the sorts of people who have real opinions about game balance.

The tier after this is the 1%, the people who log 35+ hours a week, the people you always see on the Trials/PvP leaderboards etc. These people are the most invested into the game, and by way of that likely have the clearest understanding of the game on average. They will likely have the strongest opinions about game-balance etc.

And this is where we get into the fallacy that is the 'Vocal minority'—the whole point of my lengthy post. Because technically, 'Vocal minority' is true—completely true in fact. The problem is that the majority have no knowledge of the changes, and likely wouldn't care if they did. They're not invested, there's nothing wrong with not being invested in the game—but if you aren't invested, if you just don't care that much about it, you shouldn't be in the same box with the people who do care. And that's precisely what the 'Vocal minority' fallacy does. The first two tiers will play the game regardless, so in my opinion, they as a whole do not count. If you think I'm referring to you, and that you're in the first two tiers I assure you that I'm not, I'll use my own fallacy here—Everyone reading this falls under the 'Players' category. If you're invested enough in ESO to find the forums and read threads regarding balance—your opinion is at least relevant.

So we eliminate the first two tiers (Which make up a TON of the monthly unique users) and we're left with the people who are invested into the game. In my opinion, when discussing balance changes, or anything regarding nuanced gameplay—the opinions of these people are the only opinions that count. And it's among these people where you should really ask the question of is it a 'Vocal minority' or not. To be clear, I'm not just talking about the people on the forums—I'm sure if you're against some of the changes, and you have like-minded friends who don't have forum accounts, they'll share at least a few of your opinions. There certainly are people who like the upcoming "changes"—but they appear to be the minority amongst those who are actually invested in the game. I cannot say for certain—no one really can—but if you read the forums, talk to people in zone chat, guild chat, talk to your friends etc—it doesn't seem like the 'anti-changes' party is the majority. Overall though, the 'We don't care' party will ALWAYS be the majority.


tl;dr: Vocal minority is a fallacy, and the premise only holds weight because 90% of the player-base doesn't know about any changes, and likely wouldn't care about them. You should only look at players who are invested when trying to gauge how the playerbase feels about particular changes—this extends outside the forums.

ParaNostram

Usually the only people who take the time to say something are the people who are angry enough to do so, negative emotions are greater motivators for action than positive ones. The people who like something are likely to just be out enjoying it while those who dislike something will want to express their disdain in a place where they will be heard.

Then there are people like me who are just pissed off at how much vicious bile gets spewed up on the threads over changes that people haven't even played with nor given a chance to nor even understood the basic concept that THIS IS IN BETA TESTING AND SUBJECT TO CHANGE.

TLDR - vocal minority is true