Declining Population
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Major_Lag✭✭✭✭✭
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Nope, you don't get it.This makes so little sense as those impacted most by faction locks are those who play in Cyrodiil. Logic wins out on this one.
Of course locks don't affect BGs, that's a given.
But before locks, the problem was that certain players would play Cyrodiil like it's a battleground map.
They didn't give a rat's behind about the objectives or factions, in fact they swapped factions on a daily basis as they saw fit.
Some would switch to the losing side for better fights - but at least as many, if not more, would switch to the winning side for easy gratification, and/or for trolling.
Cyrodiil is an alliance war zone, so being able to switch factions on the fly made absolutely 0 sense.
Of course ZOS still failed to provide viable options for players who have characters in more than 1 alliance. This is not in question, and it's an implementation failure on ZOS' part.
On the bright side, the faction lock system is still being worked on to some extent - as evidenced by the Scalebreaker changes - so maybe that issue will be addressed eventually.3 -
NBrookus✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Nope, you don't get it.
Of course locks don't affect BGs, that's a given.
But before locks, the problem was that certain players would play Cyrodiil like it's a battleground map.
They didn't give a rat's behind about the objectives or factions, in fact they swapped factions on a daily basis as they saw fit.
Some would switch to the losing side for better fights - but at least as many, if not more, would switch to the winning side for easy gratification, and/or for trolling.
Cyrodiil is an alliance war zone, so being able to switch factions on the fly made absolutely 0 sense.
Of course ZOS still failed to provide viable options for players who have characters in more than 1 alliance. This is not in question, and it's an implementation failure on ZOS' part.
On the bright side, the faction lock system is still being worked on to some extent - as evidenced by the Scalebreaker changes - so maybe that issue will be addressed eventually.
BGs are completely unlike Cyro. I was super excited for BGs, not as a replacement for open world Cyro, but as an addition to. (Until it turned out -- for a variety of reasons -- that they suck. Not the least of which is that running in circles flipping flags... snore.)
I think there is more than one reason why Cyro's pop is declining. Performance absolutely. But faction lock as well. Because ZOS told us 3 years ago to go make friends across alliances, and we did. We leveled up toons -- sometimes spending RL money. And now suddenly we can't play 2/3 of our toons or with 2/3 of our friends. One option, of course, is to give them MORE money and time leveling more characters in your chosen faction. Giving ZOS more money for a portion of the game that is in utter shambles sounds like a bad investment.
The other option is to go play other games with those friends. Which is what most of the people that I know that have quit or significantly curtailed their ESO time have done.2 -
Mr_Walker✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭The decline has been going on for years, which you have argued against saying it's just because of faction lock and now your saying otherwise.
Decline ramped up hardcare since faction locks. Nowadays not uncommon to see 30cp at zero bars across all 3 factions on XNA. It was vanishingly rare as little as 3 months ago.3 -
MaximillianDiE✭✭✭✭I literally haven't logged in for almost a year now due to the ridiculously bad performance issues/lag/terrible balance . I played from closed beta until then and most of my friends from those 4 years have quit for the same reason well before any faction lock came into play. The fact that I only recognise a handful of names in this thread from a year ago says a huge amount about how many people have quit without saying anything. Doesn't give me any urge to log in again to an empty friends list and dead guilds.Maximillian Die Caesar - DC - [K-Hole] RetiredRetiredMaximillian AD [[DiE]6
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sionIV✭✭✭✭✭It's that gosh darn faction locks fault!
I was walking down the street an hour ago, and I was attacked by a ferocious seagull. That wouldn't have happened if ZOS hadn't introduced faction locks! I haven't even mentioned how I'm not getting my Bonepirate Two Handed Sword! I had much better drops when we didn't have faction locks!
I even tried to call the meteorologist of my local TV channel to explain how the faction lock is to blame for the recent heatwave. He called the cops on me and now I have a restraining order!
WHY CAN'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THAT EVERYTHING BAD THAT HAS HAPPENED AFTER ELSWEYR RELEASE HAS TO DO WITH THE GOSH DARN FACTION LOCK!?5 -
lostcloud✭✭✭MaximillianDiE wrote: »I literally haven't logged in for almost a year now due to the ridiculously bad performance issues/lag/terrible balance . I played from closed beta until then and most of my friends from those 4 years have quit for the same reason well before any faction lock came into play. The fact that I only recognise a handful of names in this thread from a year ago says a huge amount about how many people have quit without saying anything. Doesn't give me any urge to log in again to an empty friends list and dead guilds.
It is funny but my guildmates and I were talking about this very subject tonight pcna, just how few names we recognize now. Though we are offpeak oceanic players but still. Though for most of the years I have been playing ESO I was too busy actually playing the game to be bothered with the forums not so much now. Just waiting for the next decent MMO to come along.Nocturnal (AD AvA Oceanic guild, still kicking after 5 years) Formed in 1999 DAoC Beta now in our 21st year.1 -
tonemd✭✭✭✭Op and supporters, do you really think the pvp hemorrhaging will be reversed if the 30 day CP campaign is unlocked?
What makes you think the pro locked folks won't move to another campaign or stop playing?1 -
Raammzzaa✭✭✭✭✭
Decline ramped up hardcare since faction locks. Nowadays not uncommon to see 30cp at zero bars across all 3 factions on XNA. It was vanishingly rare as little as 3 months ago.
When is it “not uncommon”? I’m truly curious.
I typically play after work from 5-11pm central US during the week and any time on the weekends. We are usually pop-locked the entire time I’m on during the week, and by mid-day on the weekend... I have no idea what time the populations actually ramp up, or fall off since I’m working or sleeping at those times.
Personally, on XNA the biggest impact to player retention by far that I saw this year was the release of Black Desert. A lot of players migrated from ESO to BDO. Some returned, many did not. I tried it myself, but the grind was just too much for me.
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Mr_Walker✭✭✭✭✭
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When is it “not uncommon”? I’m truly curious.
I typically play after work from 5-11pm central US during the week and any time on the weekends. We are usually pop-locked the entire time I’m on during the week, and by mid-day on the weekend... I have no idea what time the populations actually ramp up, or fall off since I’m working or sleeping at those times.
Usually 6-7pm aest to... after I go to bed, so I'm not sure. Used to be min. 1 bar pop in 30cp. No longer. It fell off a cliff after faction locks were introduced.
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Orlacc✭✭✭It comes down to lack of choice. I have played since beta. I have mostly AD toons, but a great EP magplar and Templar as well as a DC Mag DK and Stam NB. I like CP. So when my AD guys are on the 30 day CP campaign, my other toons have to play on either the no CP server which has low pop or the 7 day which has pretty much no pop.
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josh.lackey_ESO✭✭✭✭✭
You say 100%, but the reason I took a break was because of performance mostly, and secondly because balance has totally gone down the crapper more than usual.
Faction locks had nothing to do with it.
Balance has been down the crapper for 3 years, just like performance. Faction lock is the only new variable being introduced.
The game can barely lock ONE campaign. And that's after pop caps have been reduced. It used to lock 2 campaigns, plus non-vet. It's been a steady decline, sure, but why do something that you know is going to *** off half the players? For only a placebo benefit? No one is quitting the game because people could play on any faction. I know several people who have stopped playing, or only barely play since faction locks. Don't know anyone who ever said quit because factions were open.
In fact, as someone mentioned up above...Ash_In_My_Sujamma wrote: »
So what I read from this is that One Tamriel was their biggest player gain, after that ups and downs.
One Tamriel was when the original soft faction locks were removed. And populations boomed. (I say "soft" lock because you could still group queue in to play with friends, but were excluded from leaderboards.) The faction lock we have today is harsher and more restrictive than it's ever been.
The really disgusting part is all people like me who have poured dozens or hundreds of hours into Cyrodiil characters on a second or third faction. That time is just down the drain. ZOS might as well have deleted half our accounts without as much as an explanation or apology, let alone compensation. Really despicable from a customer service perspective.
All because some people complained on the forums. And they still come here and celebrate it. It's just as offensive as if ZOS deleted your half your account and then we all came to forums and say "yay! ZOS deleted half your characters! This is so awesome! I think they should do it even more!" With the aggressive moderation on the forums, it should really all be banned as baiting and trolling. You all got your wish, there is no need to rub it and further antagonize the victims.
Really sad. No sportsmanship. Just really a lot of hate for people who had a playstyle you didn't like. And if we're being honest, it's because multi-faction players were more likely to be the upper-tier pvp players and people got killed by them the most and so they petitioned ZOS to punish that group of players in some way. Maybe they even hope those players will just quit the game because they don't want good players killing them in Cyro.
"Faction hoppers" was always just a proxy for "players better than me that kill me a lot" and all the conspiracy theories about how they are cheaters or exploiters abusing AP mechanics or whatever (which were never moderated on the forums, even though conspiracy theories are explicitly against the code of conduct.) AP "exploiting" is something that has literally never occurred outside of an isolated incident with Black Boot mine and like a week of outpost flipping after they raised the capture AP tick. Both of which were patched out right away. It's always been easier to just farm bad players than to scheme up cross-faction AP shenanigans.Edited by josh.lackey_ESO on August 31, 2019 3:01AM4 -
It’s been interesting to see some of the changes. I’m waiting to see what other changes are coming in their next update.1
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Sanctum74✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭As terrible as the completely misguided changes are I can deal with that, but the 3 minute random load screens, disconnects, and desyncs are really starting to wear on my patience.
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Elsonso✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »The really disgusting part is all people like me who have poured dozens or hundreds of hours into Cyrodiil characters on a second or third faction. That time is just down the drain. ZOS might as well have deleted half our accounts without as much as an explanation or apology, let alone compensation. Really despicable from a customer service perspective.
All because some people complained on the forums.
I think people get that you don't like faction locks, and that is what you see as a reason for leaving, but seriously, performance has gotten worse; if not actually, then in perception. Faction locks don't matter as much when it's not fun to play the game because of lag and disconnects.
Now... if performance was rock solid, and people were still leaving, I'd go with faction locking as my choice. After that I would go with "boredom", since war.. war never changes. Especially in Cyrodiil.
The statement about people complaining on the forums is interesting. Faction locks are all because people complained in the forum? This line of thinking has always confused me, since it completely ignores that ZOS might have a say in the matter. It paints ZOS as some sort of mindless robot that helplessly does what it is told to do by the loudest voice. ZOS is a much bigger decision maker than this.
We all knew when ZOS removed the faction locks that they were evaluating the decision to see how it played out. I took it as a given that they would, eventually, return to that decision and take a second look. Obviously, they did, and they did not like how it was playing out. The restored faction locking, and in a few months, I guess they might take another look, but I would not count on it. For whatever reason that they have, they want it this way.
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Major_Lag✭✭✭✭✭
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This.lordrichter wrote: »Faction locks don't matter as much when it's not fun to play the game because of lag and disconnects.
Can't follow hammer in primetime, constantly get "stuck on textures" and killed while unable to move or do anything else. Or get lagged out and disconnected.
Can't port to keep/outpost under attack by a sizable zerg (while it's still yet possible to port to it) -> instant disconnect.
Can't even be in a group, because that causes me to get randomly lagged out and disconnected even in areas where there are very few players around - or sometimes even when I leave Cyrodiil for any reason without leaving group first.5 -
Tsuriel✭✭✭This.
Can't follow hammer in primetime, constantly get "stuck on textures" and killed while unable to move or do anything else. Or get lagged out and disconnected.
Can't port to keep/outpost under attack by a sizable zerg (while it's still yet possible to port to it) -> instant disconnect.
Can't even be in a group, because that causes me to get randomly lagged out and disconnected even in areas where there are very few players around - or sometimes even when I leave Cyrodiil for any reason without leaving group first.
Those performance issues have existed since Beta although they've grown worse as of late, not surprised people take that up now though when Faction-lock comes into the picture. People quit for both reasons although Faction-lock clearly had a bigger impact on population declining.Edited by Tsuriel on August 31, 2019 11:55AM1 -
josh.lackey_ESO✭✭✭✭✭lordrichter wrote: »
I think people get that you don't like faction locks, and that is what you see as a reason for leaving, but seriously, performance has gotten worse; if not actually, then in perception. Faction locks don't matter as much when it's not fun to play the game because of lag and disconnects.
Performance is not worse and not getting worse. It's very bad and it's been very bad for years.
If anything, the declining populations have slightly improved performance.
Anyone citing performance is just trying to cover for factions locks killing Cyrodiil because they don't want to admit it. If it were the performance, population would have died off two or three years ago.
I will add that even the true Cyro endgame -- posting on the forms -- has declined. There are hardly any new posts from day-to-day. Even in times of bad performance people would still post.
It's really dire. ZOS seriously needs to reevaluate. Whether or not you believe it's faction locks, ZOS should get rid of them just in case it is. Or in 6 months we'll be lucky to get 3 bars at prime time. It doesn't make good business sense.
But like I've said before, PvP is probably a big headache and if it died off it would be a relief for them. PvE is still going strong and probably bringing in healthy revenue.0 -
Cernunnos55✭✭✭A lot of things are getting pretty tiresome in this game, and many of these things massively outclass faction lock. The performance, as people are relentlessly mentioning, is the main contributing factor to people leaving PvP, or indeed the game altogether. I am tired of being a full health and not even knowing I’m being hit until I’m dead due to lag, or disconnecting, crashing to desktop, generally hating life. It’s difficult to stay committed to and support a game that does not adhere to any kind of mutual ethical contract of supply.josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »
Performance is not worse and not getting worse. It's very bad and it's been very bad for years.
If anything, the declining populations have slightly improved performance.
Anyone citing performance is just trying to cover for factions locks killing Cyrodiil because they don't want to admit it. If it were the performance, population would have died off two or three years ago.
I openly cite performance as the primary issue AND I admit to be a 100% supporter of faction lock. It is not a bad thing at all. I still believe pop decline is folk having had enough of performance.Edited by Cernunnos55 on September 5, 2019 11:01AMGuild Master of The Pride of Daggerfall, D.C. loyalist and commander of the Cerglings.
R’hana – Khajiit – StamBlade – Crafter/PvP
Iranduril – Altmer – MagSorc – PvE DPS
Sayelo Tomylilfren – Argonian – Hybrid Dragonknight – PvE Tank
A Brexit Policy – Redguard – StamSorc – PvP4 -
Agrippa_Invisus✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Speaking as a veteran who hasn't logged in for a while, I can tell you why this member of the population has declined.
Absolutely terrible server performance, which I could always ignore because I got to play with friends, followed by the diaspora of friends over three factions and inability to distract myself from said performance due to the draconian faction locks.
Ignoring the performance was always about finding other ways to make your fun when the servers were terrible. Then suddenly multiple of my friends couldn't log in and play with me anymore because of an arbitrary decision with no empirical backing to prove it would achieve its desired goals (which were utterly ephemeral to begin with).
So here you go, a prime example of someone who hasn't been playing recently because of a) performance and b) lack of options to find ways to enjoy myself regardless of said performance due to the restrictive nature of the new faction lock system.Agrippa Invisus / Indominus / Inprimis / Inviolatus
DragonKnight / Templar / Warden / Sorcerer - Vagabond
Once a General, now a Citizen
Former Emperor of Bloodthorn and Vivec
For Sweetrolls! FOR FIMIAN!6 -
Hexquisite✭✭✭✭I am one of the last left in my main PvP guild, as well as my F List is empty. The performance is horrid. And the Health Desyncs are crazy. I could deal with a lot, but the health desync is so discouraging.PC NA~Ethereal Traders Union~~Spicy Economics~~Tropic Thunder~~Us Ghosts~7 -
Hexquisite wrote: »I am one of the last left in my main PvP guild, as well as my F List is empty. The performance is horrid. And the Health Desyncs are crazy. I could deal with a lot, but the health desync is so discouraging.
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idk✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Nope, you don't get it.
Of course locks don't affect BGs, that's a given.
But before locks, the problem was that certain players would play Cyrodiil like it's a battleground map.
They didn't give a rat's behind about the objectives or factions, in fact they swapped factions on a daily basis as they saw fit.
Some would switch to the losing side for better fights - but at least as many, if not more, would switch to the winning side for easy gratification, and/or for trolling.
Cyrodiil is an alliance war zone, so being able to switch factions on the fly made absolutely 0 sense.
Of course ZOS still failed to provide viable options for players who have characters in more than 1 alliance. This is not in question, and it's an implementation failure on ZOS' part.
On the bright side, the faction lock system is still being worked on to some extent - as evidenced by the Scalebreaker changes - so maybe that issue will be addressed eventually.
LOL Nope, you do not get it. People play Cyrodiil just as they always have. Just with faction lock instead of hopping on an alt for the faction of friends they want to help they just get their guild to help them so it is two factions against one. It has been this way since the first year of this game. They are many of the same people you accuse of being BG players because it is just easy to classify them as such.
Where you are right is they have a different interest in playing Cyrociil and it is not wrong.1 -
josh.lackey_ESO✭✭✭✭✭Cernunnos55 wrote: »A lot of things are getting pretty tiresome in this game, and many of these things massively outclass faction lock. The performance, as people are relentlessly mentioning, is the main contributing factor to people leaving PvP, or indeed the game altogether. I am tired of being a full health and not even knowing I’m being hit until I’m dead due to lag, or disconnecting, crashing to desktop, generally hating life. It’s difficult to stay committed to and support a game that does not adhere to any kind of mutual ethical contract of supply.
I openly cite performance as the primary issue AND I admit to be a 100% supporter of faction lock. It is not a bad thing at all. I still believe pop decline is folk having had enough of performance.
Performance has always been bad. If the performance was a turn-off for you, you would never have started playing in the first place. It's not like it was something you didn't know about until you already had a big time investment. Performance has been totally horrible for years, including health desynchs, disconnects, and everything else. Anyone who has been in Cyrodiil around primetime even one time in the past 3-4 years would immediately know performance sucks. And if it were a dealbreaker, they'd be done with it then and there.
It's the faction locks.
If performance were going to make people quit, they would have never started playing in the first place.0 -
Hexquisite✭✭✭✭josh.lackey_ESO wrote: »
Performance has always been bad. If the performance was a turn-off for you, you would never have started playing in the first place. It's not like it was something you didn't know about until you already had a big time investment. Performance has been totally horrible for years, including health desynchs, disconnects, and everything else. Anyone who has been in Cyrodiil around primetime even one time in the past 3-4 years would immediately know performance sucks. And if it were a dealbreaker, they'd be done with it then and there.
It's the faction locks.
If performance were going to make people quit, they would have never started playing in the first place.
It has never been this bad. I have played for 5 years. I play PC NA 30 Day CP, and I can count on one hand the times I have crashed before the Scalebreaker patch. Afterwards I was crashing 5 to 10 times a night. Now with the latest patch it is down to only 2 or 3 times a night, but now it seems I get constant health desync. I stuck with the game through all of the other performance issues, and even built around them. But the crashing and health desync have cut my hours drastically, and I finally unsubbed.PC NA~Ethereal Traders Union~~Spicy Economics~~Tropic Thunder~~Us Ghosts~5 -
Major_Lag✭✭✭✭✭
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What is "right" or "wrong" in terms of how the game is to be played, is for the developers (ZOS) to decide.Where you are right is they have a different interest in playing Cyrociil and it is not wrong.
And they have decided that certain kinds of behaviors are not, in fact, acceptable ways of playing their game
I'm really baffled by the whole "play with their friends" argument.
If you have friends on other factions, you can have just as much fun fighting AGAINST each other as WITH each other.
And getting an enemy faction guild to help yours, I'm fine with that kind of thing - because unlike rampant alt hopping, that actually carries with it some elements of risk that would be absent otherwise.
Also you can't formally group with or heal the enemy factions, so there's that too.2 -
dtsharples✭✭✭✭✭Personally I love the faction lock, but I am playing much, much less than I did.
I tend to log in now for the 2 hours that I plan with a few friends, and then immediately log out afterwards (as do most of them).
2 hours is about as much as our poor brains can take of the current state of the game - if we can actually play that is without crashing out.
Previously to this patch a few of us would usually log to different chars (same faction) and play for another hour or two in Cyrodiil, now we just CBA.
The enjoyment is being sucked out of PVP due to lag, glitches and disconnects - all of which have been ever more prevalent recently.
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