ESO is losing interest. Any idea why?

zaria

Tandor wrote: »

So the fact that there were 8,378 players online as an average in July 2017 compared to 3,286 players in July 2016 is a clear indication that the playerbase is falling and the game is in trouble?

I guess that modern education systems have a lot to answer for!

Yes, see it as an slowdown after Morrowind who looks like an huge success. Still game is going many times better than last year.

Elsonso

vamp_emily wrote: »

You guys are slacking today, I was thinking I would come here and see someone say:

Maintenance Down time, everyone quit playing because zeni takes down the servers for a few hours a week every day.

Fixed that for you.

Personofsecrets

@ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel

Does the ever changing vision for the game include losing players because nobody likes crappy resource "balance" updates?

SirCritical

Kneighbors wrote: »

But it feels the same ingame. I see exactly half of the player amount on line comparing to game peak times. It's normal to see 30/495 guildies online in our PvE oriented guild.

I really don't think I'm a fanboi, but I have to say I really like this game, and I think it isn't in bad status. We, in our casual PvE guild have 30 players from 100 online in the peak hours.

The thing, what I think could make players frightened is the gap in difficulty between basegame veteran trials and vMoL/vHoF. At least now we can't really see how could we get those shiny skins for our members.

As I said we aren't a HC leaderboard-hunting raider guild.

LadyNalcarya

notimetocare wrote: »

Kneighbors wrote: »

http://steamcharts.com/app/306130#6m

-15% every month during summer! Exactly same time year ago player pool was widening.

New patch kicks in, you would expect the game to gain interest? Nada. It isn't getting any more popular.

I know there are going to be people telling they feel no difference and game is very popular and it's just that most players playing directly through client.

But it feels the same ingame. I see exactly half of the player amount on line comparing to game peak times. It's normal to see 30/495 guildies online in our PvE oriented guild.

Steam charts only represent steam users, an unknown, but likely small, part of the population

Not even all steam users, I dont use steam launcher, because its buggy and I really dislike the idea of using 2 launchers every time I want to play ESO.
I even had to re-buy Morrowind upgrade (was stupid enough to get steam preorder )

Personofsecrets wrote: »

@ZOS_RichLambert @Wrobel

Does the ever changing vision for the game include losing players because nobody likes crappy resource "balance" updates?

Thats actually true. I know many dd players that hated the idea of heavy attack combat so much that they quit the game. Its really hard to find good dds for trials, in 2 groups I played with there were 4-5 healers and not enough dds to raid, haha. Experienced tanks are also rare.
On the other hand, there are many new players who joined at Morrowind release or earlier.

Valencer

Endgame PvE community is on life support again and PvP isn't looking much better.

Not surprised to see that the overall player count is up a bit compared to last year though. Theyve been super busy changing this game for (and actively marketing it for) the casual quester and that's where the money is at for ZOS.

Ozstryker

Ohh another "the game is dying" thread..

Except this one is based on *steam numbers.... hmmm, cue the expert analysis of allll the reasons this game sux..

LadyNalcarya

Valencer wrote: »

Endgame PvE community is on life support again and PvP isn't looking much better.

Not surprised to see that the overall player count is up a bit compared to last year though. Theyve been super busy changing this game for (and actively marketing it for) the casual quester and that's where the money is at for ZOS.

Ironically, the casuals were hit the most by the sustain changes. They cant rely on good support and dont have optimal builds, so without sustain they have less chances in vet content than before.

Riptide

What boggles me is how when someone is tired or bored of a game they don't just take a break and play something else or focus on another hobby for a while. Then come back fresh - or don't.

Instead they have to wring their hands about how there is some decline of the chosen game, or research to the point they are playing statistics games to somehow justify that simple action - and I don't know, inspire it in others?

I reckon it is because of their time invested and being timid about just setting it aside a while.

Seriously here, when a recreational activity brings you little joy - don't hand wring over it. Just move on for goodness sakes. It was never about the destination, you know?

Just do something else a while and pick it up down the road.

Kneighbors

danno8 wrote: »

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

Steam is a very limited section of the ESO players, even those on PC. Steam probably attracts a different demographic than the game as a whole. The numbers could very well not be indicative of ESO at all.

Second, anyone who looks at that chart sees months activity increases and decreases which includes a year over year increase that is more than double, almost triple which would mean success and business analysis looks at year over year to determine growth.

In the end, it shows a solid increase in the playerbase from the steam perspective but also activity cannot be considered a solid representation of ESO's popularity by any means. Just looking at the information logically.

Lol, it's like we are the only two people (including the OP) in the thread that actually looked at the chart.

OP, last year the concurrent users on August 29 was 3950. August 21 2017 was over 10,000. All of 2016 did not go over 10,000 according to steam but 2017 has seen nothing less than 10,000 concurrent.

You would make a really poor investor. You can't just look at the last statements returns and panic when there is a dip. There are ALWAYS dips. You need to look at the big picture. And according to steam the big picture is a HUGE increase in 2017 over 2016.

Last year is the point where I and many many others joined the game. Game went on sale drawing a lot of attention. It was less buggy than today, more dynamic (easier resource management = skills spam). Tanks had 30k hp and were running different sets in the dungeons (not HP sponges of today everyone running Plague+Ebon or a choice of 2 other sets). Heals also had enough resources to spam attack skills like Radiant Destruction (prior 21% nerf). The game was much more dynamic and popularity was booming.

Looking at it today, where tanks and heals are fully supportive roles with a very strict requirements for vet content of the game. DD's running heavy attacks builds. Game became a niche for retired people taking opposite direction from fast paced action of most popular online games today.

Statistics aren't lying, game popularity dropped from 29k steam peak players Nov16 to 11k this month. Yes it is still higher than it was before game went on sale. It is pretty dumb to compare gaming graph to trader graph. Game's lifespan is not long enough to invest in low point and expect to sell at rise. Any low point can become a point game will never return to. For example there is no chance game will get back to 29k steam peak players with current developers. It is a cheap game now and the only way to draw popularity now is going f2p. I can't predict what will happen if it will go f2p but sure enough I don't want to be there when it happens.

FearlessOne_2014

I haven't lost interest in ESO. I'm just taking a simi break from it. My reasons are simple.

Felt cheated with my Morrowind content/BG experience being the biggest one.

The balance and Proc META was a pretty decent size turn off for me. (The sustain and CP nerfs, with posions in the mix)

RNG in this game is pretty bad, and in most cases highly unrewarding. (50 runs of a single content to not get what I need to progress.)

RNG in this game makes you a better player overall or a worst off player. (Gear and trait inbalancements)

Friends I used to play this game with ALL lefted because of issues with gameplay or real life.

As a TES series fan. I started playing more Skyrim Special Edition. Because it just offers me more. That being said I still sometimes logs in to train my mounts and continue my crafting. How ever dropped my 6 month sub, and don't know if I'd resume it. With the way things are in ESO now. Tho I am still interested enoth in the game to keep my eye to these forums for changes, with baited breath.

Nestor

Its Summer, the sun is shining, the birds are chirping, people are wearing less clothing leading to thoughts that are not gaming related.

Kneighbors

Tandor wrote: »

So the fact that there were 8,378 players online as an average in July 2017 compared to 3,286 players in July 2016 is a clear indication that the playerbase is falling and the game is in trouble?

I guess that modern education systems have a lot to answer for!

Yes, there was a point with 10 first players who downloaded ESO and started playing it. So 11k players compared to that point is a huge increase and you totally destroyed my point! Too bad that November 2016 there were 29k players on the same chart.

Click 6m and look at the chart. This type of graph in mathematics called "steadily falling".

Mureel

Zvorgin wrote: »

kylewwefan wrote: »

QoL issues galore. Inventory management online. Broken group finder. No trials or Dragonstar group finder. Lagtastic PvP performance.

PvP and PvE separation. Totally different gear and skills that don't correlate well with each other.

Though they try to balance, the ceiling is ridiculously high and the game is not balanced around average. This leads to massive frustration and quitting IMO.

A group finder for trials and DSA would be miserable unless there was some base level skill requirement for being able to queue up. I refuse to run either of those pieces of content with people I don't know are capable of doing it. Even vet dungeons can be miserable when pug'ing.

This highlights the fact that the game doesn't do a good job of teaching players how to be effective which I think is the real issue. Personally, I was a crap 15k dps before actually meeting some players who took 10 minutes to show me an effective rotation and light attack weaving which will bump almost anyone to 20-25k dps.

Inventory management is a pain and I feel the need to keep all sets in decent traits because today's trash could easily be next patch's golden goose.

I'd amend that to 'capable of progression' as in: Have the correct gear/spatial awareness/and some kind of raid coms (whatever the group is using) to at least be able to learn to do their jobs...

If we never brought anyone to trials who hasn't done it...well no one would have brought you.

What grates my cheese the most is when in guild we get people who + for training run then are all 'no TS/Discord whatever' and it's no raid coms, no raid. That's it. I've actually been called elitist for this, when I'll take anyone really, providing they can learn.

kynseon

If you were to ask me a year ago if i was going to buy crowns, i would say yes. Its not that I am losing interest but a few of us are done wasting money on crowns that add nothing of value to your gameplay experience. When homestead first came out, i was very excited but after a month the hype was gone and all I was left with was a house that can't hold any inventory at all. Its safe to say that BGs are boring and they provide no incentives besides some cool titles.

gard

Server performance is worse than ever.

Even dungeons are lagging now. Me and the guys I dungeon with have noticed that ever since Horn of the Reacharound monsters will stay standing for several seconds after they are dead. I turned on healthbars so that I could quit wasting resources attacking dead stuff.

Other little things, too. Corpses taking a long time to become lootable. Delays before you are able to interact with quest npcs. Invisible crafting stations (you can interact with them but they don't appear on your screen until a minute or two after you approach the crafting station). I see this most often in Shornhelm if I go to the ww station directly after porting there.

I don't really see the resource changes as a big deal. More a pain in the ass than anything else. I can still kill stuff. Just takes me longer.

Morrowind? Nice content, just too little of it. Horn of the Reacharound? Meh.

Anyway, little stuff adds up. Last night I logged on to do writs before doing a few quests and dungeons on a new toon and lazy writ crafter wouldn't work for provisioning.. I said "screw it" and logged off.

Demolitionary

Really?! People are still salty about that last minute change in HoTR to a few numbers?
It is not like they removed gear, they didn't MAKE people use different gear in any way at all, the whine about some DPS loss is like their lives ended pmsl.
Let me guess, all that were salty about the last minute change farmed like hell on statistics from PTS and not from the actual live release. Guess what? That gear still works as intended, derp.
Yourselves to blame, not ZoS.

There is actually quite a lot playing. Going by steam statistics alone does not determine anything as Steam is not the SOLE launcher or SOLE way to get this game, Steam is just a third party. In-fact, as some have said, those statistics show an increase since 2016 not a decrease. Monthly by monthly data is also a bad thing to go by, depending on geographic region this time of year is peak holiday season.

Nutshotz

These are the reasons why I'm getting bored of ESO for the final time.

-Lag is still around. Even tho zos said they would fix it to the best of there ability - false
-the never ending bugs that are still around and re introduced after each patch - indicating that zos Devs are incompetent at doing their job correctly
-no communication between Devs and players on a known basis ( any other big game has weekly Dev notes or chats with players ) I'm not talking about the chats from Jess or gina I'm actually talking chats with the Devs
-not having weekly maintenance to repair the servers even tho they say they do but we all know they don't cuz if they did the servers wouldn't be garbage. Sort of speaking
-the non stop nerfs that have been happening. Yes some have been needed but some that make you scratch your head like wtf....


I am just grabbing stuff off of the top of my head. Not at home were I have a full spreadsheet of *** that is why I'm waiting for Camelot unchained, star citizen , or something better. Right now ESO is just a way to socialize with friends and pass time

Pops_ND_Irish

School has started back too. Mornings and afternoons will be slow

Ratzkifal

I am highly suspicious how accurate that chart it.

As you can see it says "steam's players" and I am sure a lot of people don't play ESO over steam. I don't and I doubt that I am alone. Clearly these players are not represented in that statistic. With this unintentional bias the representativity of the statistic may be harmed. Don't trust this statistic blindly and treat it as facts.

Why the player base on steam is declining? Well, maybe other games got released which players switched to. It doesn't necessarily have to be ESO's fault, although I can imagine it being. To me, apart from pvp, the game seems to be in fairly good health and more alive than ever. Others might disagree.

DMuehlhausen

Kneighbors wrote: »

http://steamcharts.com/app/306130#6m

-15% every month during summer! Exactly same time year ago player pool was widening.

New patch kicks in, you would expect the game to gain interest? Nada. It isn't getting any more popular.

I know there are going to be people telling they feel no difference and game is very popular and it's just that most players playing directly through client.

But it feels the same ingame. I see exactly half of the player amount on line comparing to game peak times. It's normal to see 30/495 guildies online in our PvE oriented guild.

The first line is a big reason why as well. Contrary to popular beliefs during the summer most casual gamers (which is the majority in any MMO) do go outside in good weather.

Kneighbors

DMuehlhausen wrote: »

Kneighbors wrote: »

http://steamcharts.com/app/306130#6m

-15% every month during summer! Exactly same time year ago player pool was widening.

New patch kicks in, you would expect the game to gain interest? Nada. It isn't getting any more popular.

I know there are going to be people telling they feel no difference and game is very popular and it's just that most players playing directly through client.

But it feels the same ingame. I see exactly half of the player amount on line comparing to game peak times. It's normal to see 30/495 guildies online in our PvE oriented guild.

The first line is a big reason why as well. Contrary to popular beliefs during the summer most casual gamers (which is the majority in any MMO) do go outside in good weather.

It's a cool theory. Too bad there are other 100 games with booming popularity during the same days
http://steamcharts.com/app/578080#6m


Guys, turn it around the way you want: ESO popularity is going down. I understand many try to find positive sides and look at the graph from different angle. Or the wish to believe that statistics for players directly through client is different. Well, steam graph on pc represents 1/3 of players, most chances other 2/3 looking identically. If there's huge decrease in steam players together with steady increase on game client it means players from steam rebuying the game with own client. Would be a really dumb theory to believe in, but if you like to leave that hope in yourself go on continue to believe in that.


No matter how you turn it, the game popularity is on a decline. I feel it within the game. I feel it in myself. I feel it in my friends who left the game. I feel it in my guild running less and less trials. It's everywhere on EU PC server. There's even less of bot activity because a year ago 1 million gold was sellling for 50$-70$ on grey market and now it is only 10-20$.

FloppyTouch

Play on xb1 NA we are full of players it's crazy

I have my pc account still only feels dead in the mornings EST. Not dead like the VR sub days in a gold zone that was horrible.

Sarato

gethemshauna wrote: »

Because people love stability, and last few patches forced us to change gamestyle atleast twice?

Word

idk

Shardan4968 wrote: »

Still better than EVE Online! http://steamcharts.com/cmp/306130,8500#All

The reality, @Kneighbors link shows an almost 3 fold increase year over year. In business terms that's a huge success and is so much more significant than short term fluctuations.

Thx OP for showing the huge success Zos has had with ESO this year.

Lorajet

I left last year to play other games that came out. Came back 2 months ago and really enjoying it again. Just needed a break. I'm actually doing other areas of the game I ignored before, such as crafting and such.

mb10

It's getting boring and overcharging us for stupid nonsense is probably the reason why

Cyrodiil is back to being empty, battlegrounds is quite trash, PVE is so repetitive, the quests are awfully scripted most of the time and it's just overall very bland now.

I'm just waiting for TES 6

Gilvoth

please increase sneak speeds,
and cut sorcerer damge and shields in half,
and listen to the customers requests and game will increase subbs.

mb10

Tandor wrote: »

So the fact that there were 8,378 players online as an average in July 2017 compared to 3,286 players in July 2016 is a clear indication that the playerbase is falling and the game is in trouble?

I guess that modern education systems have a lot to answer for!

July was the double AP time so those figures are definitely not a good representation. Also just a month after the expansion.

FloppyTouch

mb10 wrote: »

It's getting boring and overcharging us for stupid nonsense is probably the reason why

Cyrodiil is back to being empty, battlegrounds is quite trash, PVE is so repetitive, the quests are awfully scripted most of the time and it's just overall very bland now.

I'm just waiting for TES 6

You got a long wait