Why are players dropping like flies?

Wifeaggro13

FierceSam wrote: »

tgrippa wrote: »

When it comes to raiding end game, yes that player base has been decimated by ZOS, there are only a couple “full” end-game groups still raiding seriously across both PCEU and NA. This is where the player base has been hit the hardest and where ZOS has cut its losses. It is a real problem and ZOS has to decide if it wants a game with a serious end game when it comes to raids or not.

There is little new content, basically a couple of new raids a year at best, DPS has been nerfed so there is less motivation to push scores since you are always competing against last patch DPS.

It’s purely down to poor combat management by ZOS and a lack of content. Maybe some people would return if a new raid were to come out soon, but for now this group of players have no content to do that they find interesting so they move onto Destiny 2 or something else.

Edit: Forgot to mention long reported but ignored bugs and the worsening server performance of late, that has also been the last straw for a number of veteran players, and this especially should be of concern to current and new players.

I’m not sure any game can sustain endgame raid players. ESO produces 1 new trial and 4 DLC dungeons a year, which seems like a lot for most players, but if you’ve completed the trial, and got all the achievements in, say, 2 months, and that’s your thing, you are going to move on because there really isn’t anything else for you until the next trial comes along. At which point you may or may not be back. You might snack on DLC dungeons when they come out, but fundamentally, once you’ve done the content, there isn’t anything to satisfy your need for gaming challenges. And that’s what drives you just as much as any love for a particular game.

That doesn’t mean ZOS has failed, rather that this playerset is very driven, highly promiscuous, and game mobile, just as many single player gamers are with single player games. You finish a game, you move on, you come back when the next instalment is out. It doesn’t mean you don’t like it, you have simply finished it.

Unless ZOS want to divert all their energies into satisfying a very small proportion of their playerbase, they’re never going to create enough trial content to keep them constantly challenged and there really isn’t a lot of point in making a mmorpg just for the top 1% of players because first, it’s not economically viable and second who wants to make a game that only appeals to 1% of their potential audience?.

In terms of recruitment of endgame guilds, maybe the perception that you need stupid DPS to even be considered is a factor.

I’m still not convinced that numbers are significantly lower than they were this time last year. I’m just seeing a natural turnover of players who outgrow the content for whatever reason and move on to be replaced by new players.

The main pinch point is horizontal progression sucks.how much overland rehashed garbage content does a game need. The story is mediocre ,progressive challenge is non existent and does nothing to engage the player to prepare them for group content. No eso found the market and ist the churn population it's why there is no community in this game it's a vapid cyclone of fledgling and failing guilds . And yes I dont think eso has its peak population but they are very good at selling garbage content to the casual.the sad thing is a game should not play worse then it did 4 years ago.

Recon4thCav

I hope every paid trading guild fails. Maybe then we can get an Auction House and stop this stupid ass guild trader crap.

Odovacar

Who necroed this thread, lol.

SpacemanSpiff1

Necromancy is so last year

Na0cho

Pretty sure I’d get bored and quit if I did the same thing multiple times a week.


How many times do you need to do the same trials?

You have all the achievements, all the gear, all the laurels and oohs and ahhs of the community.

Insert nerd voice, “ guys if we swap this skill for that one and this guy stands here and does this when that happens, then we will finish the trial .075 seconds quicker than last time”

No wonder they are “dropping like flies” if that’s what my main focus was in eso I’d prob just delete the game, then myself.

MEBengalsFan2001

I wonder if PS4 population is low as true end game players may not see anything worth running ATM until the next content comes out. This happens in all other MMOs I have played. When content first comes out for the first 1-2 months the game is highly active and busy. Than by the 3rd or 4th month the game slowly starts to die down. Than the week or two leading up to the new content release players come back to the game.

idk

Rampeal wrote: »

Malthorne wrote: »

ESO has so much potential. So much unrealized potential. I’ve had so much love for this game since launch. In 2014, even with all the flaws, bugs, and performance issues, I thought ESO could truly be something great if it was given time as well as the proper care that an elder scrolls title deserves.

The sad truth is that the devs seem to be happy delivering 1 meager chapter and 1 small dlc story content that can be completed in a few hours by someone playing casually.

In my opinion, and I know it’s subjective, the storytelling isn’t even that good anymore. Especially if you compare it a recent expansion from a different mmo.

Two dungeons released as our quarterly “content” is laughable to me. Those dungeons should be included with a chapter or dlc zone.

Maybe my standards are to high or maybe I expect to much... but as a paying customer I do expect ZOS to at least try to hold themselves to higher standard. I really feel like ZOS just does the bare minimum. This includes story, game performance and combat balance. They’re killing it all right.

ESO: 2014

Imperial City: 2015
Orsinium: 2015

Dark Brotherhood: 2016
Thieves Guild: 2016
Shadows of the Hist: 2016

Morrowind: 2017
Clockwork City: 2017
Horns of the reach: 2017

Summerset: 2018
Murkmire: 2018
Dragon Bones: 2018
Wolf hunter: 2018

Elsweyr: 2019
Wrathstone: 2019
Dragonhold: 2019

Seems like a steady pace from 2016 to present. I just think players got spoiled with a extra dlc in 2018. Just my opinion though.

One would be hard-pressed to find a game delivering as much content at such a regular pace. It is a big reason why the game population is not declining.

Cavedog

The people I know are leaving for two reasons, outside of normal life progression.

1- Unaddressed bug issues. Specifically lag, stuck in combat, etc. bugs that have been around for literally 3 years or more.

2- When people come on this forum to complain and discuss bugs and exploits, they get banned for using "profanity" that is allowed during prime time television.

Donny_Vito

Since it's technically less than 6 months since the post was originated, it will be curious to see if they close the thread or not. I really don't think anything new can be added to this 10+ page thread that hasn't already been said (but new readers are unlikely to read all those pages).

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Of the 3 guild im in
2 are still capped a 500

and one double in size since the guild finder came into the equation and all of the logged in in the last month

Mister_DMC

I stopped playing for a year and a half because I got fed up with the brutal rng and overwhelming bugs. I'm really looking forward to the next patch and hopefully everything runs better. All the quality of life improvements that happened in 2019 are much appreciated.

thadjarvis

Don't if platforms are very different (anyone know how to find console data?) but it seems at least on PC NA pop surged 2019 pre-chapter. Then chapter and scalecaller whipsaw saw many exit. Since then with Dragonhold things have begun to creep back.

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

nafensoriel

siddique wrote: »

I was in a guild that spanned over three guilds, with 1500 people. With at least 800/900 people active across those three guilds at any time.

Now? All three disbanded.

I have around 100 friends with most online at the time I am, now? I see 5, at max 10 friends online.

Three of the top five strongest guilds disbanded in just the last one month. That's the figures I'm talking about, the stuff I know for sure and can see.

Now if you are seeing a lot of people around you, good. Probably new players or bots farming nodes. I see a lot of those. But i was talking more about veteran players. People who were doing the hardest content day in and day out.

To be entirely fair the "top end" of every MMO tends to be very volatile. Guilds come and go regularly. Drama breaks and reforms them. Real-life guts the leadership and then everyone else doesn't want the job... that kinda thing.

Casual guilds are so much more immune to these things because they don't really have to care about performance or roster boss. They are in it for fun and thus don't break as quickly as higher-end guilds.

Not really taking a side on the player count but any metric involving "high end" is automatically suspect especially around major patch time.

lagrue

lokulin wrote: »

Just sat in a vLoM queue as tank, during east coast Australia prime time, on the day it is the pledge for 35+ minutes (combined total). I can't be the only one who is noticing how dead the game is in Aus?

Necromancy increased to 100.

Really the game has never been booming in AUS because ZOS doesn't love Oceana enough to give you guys a megaserver. You come on ours in North America in most cases... and our times sync up such that Aussies start coming on when NA players start logging off for the night.

Tigerseye

What would probably make me leave more than anything, at this point, is the relentless inv-juggling mini-game, coupled with the lack of storage space on one char (please don't talk to me about mules, I'm not interested) and the lack of ability for things, like maps, to stack.

The never-fixed quest bugs would be a close second.

I am, on the other hand, less unhappy with game performance, lately and there have also been some beautiful furnishings added, recently.

Grimm13

Recon4thCav wrote: »

I hope every paid trading guild fails. Maybe then we can get an Auction House and stop this stupid ass guild trader crap.

Well there is one less Trade guild come Monday as the GM is tired of not seeing guilds supported by ZOS with proper tools, poor game balance for the sake of PvP. They just not going to bother with fighting to download the whole game for something which as they said it not thrilling them any more.

Unfortunately for players it was a no fee guild with the GM wiling to support a fair Trader location by their own sales. After Monday you see less people around, then you know they felt the same way.

Ozby

There has been quite a lot of people move on especially the Vets however there is also a lot of new players. As a endgame trial player myself it has become increasingly hard to run trials as much as we used to due to lack of interested players as well as capable players sadly. We used to run at least one trial every night in our guild now we do 2 a week and even then have issues filling sometimes. I like doing the hard stuff and its getting to the point where there's just no group to do it with which is making me loose interest in the game.

Valagash

Ozby wrote: »

There has been quite a lot of people move on especially the Vets however there is also a lot of new players. As a endgame trial player myself it has become increasingly hard to run trials

on NA too? PC EU is flooded with new players but mostly single players. Even non-popular zones are very crowded but the zone chat don´t move for hours. Sometimes one or 2 guild advertisments per hour but that s all. If you ask something (beside of the crafting zone hubs) you get barely an answer.

But MMO players and Veterans left on all corners the game. Cyro is complete dead in comparison before Elsweyr release. If you start new on CP campagne your are on place 176 with 1000 AP. non-CP even less. + queue of 50-100 on saturday evening means we have overall not more than 2000 active pvp players over all campaigns on PC EU. If you start a normal farm trial group you have big trouble to find 9 DDs
I was in 2 guilds (one PvE one PvP) with over 300 players and both suspend piecewise after the login queue introduction from last year, where you weren´t to play at all during the week because of 1-2 hour login queue into the game. Some came for a short look into elsweyr back but most quit shortly after.

However I would say ESO has more player as ever. But different ones...

Deathlord92

I been playing since eso release on console. Now I still love eso but I truly believe the lag in cyrodiil can’t get any worse if it did we simply wouldn’t even be able to login. Sure some old players quit but no doubt a lot of them do what I do I play other games along side eso.

Emma_Overload

I went on hiatus for the first time in years last month because I feel like my class has been nerfed beyond repair. The new DLC offers NOTHING in terms of relief, so I'm not even going to bother with it. My only hope is that the new Chapter brings some positive improvements, but that's months away.

I barely even post on the forums anymore, because everything that needs to be said has already been said. When the next Chapter hits the PTS, then there may be something worth discussing.

JJBoomer

Yes okay. The game is dying. It's on its last legs. The end is nigh. The game will be shut down, all the employees fired, no refunds will be given. And that's that. So enjoy what little time the game has left. I bet Greymoor will be the last ever chapter.

Is that what you guys want to hear? sheesh. Calm your ***. it's like you guys have never played an MMO before.

Is this game in decline? Mmm probably, yes. But going from decline to shutdown is a process that can take years to actually happen. And tbf, if TES6 doesn't kill this game, the new LOTR mmo probably will.

but until the announcement is made that the game will be shutting down, enjoy it. Or don't. But these doom and gloom threads are literally worthless, produce nothing, and only serve to hurt morale and drive away new players.

Contaminate

JJBoomer wrote: »

Yes okay. The game is dying. It's on its last legs. The end is nigh. The game will be shut down, all the employees fired, no refunds will be given. And that's that. So enjoy what little time the game has left. I bet Greymoor will be the last ever chapter.

Is that what you guys want to hear? sheesh. Calm your ***. it's like you guys have never played an MMO before.

Is this game in decline? Mmm probably, yes. But going from decline to shutdown is a process that can take years to actually happen. And tbf, if TES6 doesn't kill this game, the new LOTR mmo probably will.

but until the announcement is made that the game will be shutting down, enjoy it. Or don't. But these doom and gloom threads are literally worthless, produce nothing, and only serve to hurt morale and drive away new players.

Everyone here is well aware the game isn’t going to “die” because a bunch of causal and ignorant whales will eat anything ZOS puts out no matter how scummy or detrimental it is to the gaming industry as a whole to support such consumer-hostile marketing.

But it doesn’t a real endgame community of any significance. It doesn’t offer any more true vertical progression. There is very little engaging content due to aiming all of overland at levels ~10-30. There are bugs that have existed for years that have never been addressed. The monetization has gotten more unethical and more blatant, even so much that they’ve outright said they’re nerfing sets that were never overperforming in order to make a DLC set look better by comparison (search Iceheart). There have been no base-game content updates since launch. There is practically nothing to earn in-game compared to what has to be bought. The balance yo-yo makes players weaker over time unless they are able to no-life grind all the sets and abilities. Inventory has been left a mess so that it’s impossible to keep sets that are average and might one day end up BiS due to the balance yo-yo.

For someone who wants a game and not a theme park dress up simulator, ESO no longer has much of anything to offer.

Wrekkedd

The time for this game to turn around has come and gone. I can only speak for myself here, though I do believe this rings true for a lot of veteran players. I am done, the server performance alone is enough to get me to leave, though I've stayed. Getting horrible balance changes every patch they bother to put them in, is tiring. I cannot continue to waste my time in a game continuing to spiral downwards (unless you're a skyrim online player) and with a dev team so out of touch with the game itself. My rant ends here, but just had to get my 2 cents in seeing the other comments on this thread.

U_D_D_I_N_R

siddique wrote: »

So, what's the plan? All the big guilds seem to be disbanding or have disbanded on PS4, I have heard of an exodus pre dragonhold on PC as well. All the veteran players seem to have lost interest or just stopped bothering.

It's getting harder to find a good group to even do vSS. Forget vCR. Yes, there are a few groups running around doing the hardest content but it seems a huge number of population has given way.

Is this the beginning of the end? I've played on PC since 2015 and on PS4 since 2018. Things haven't been so dismal in the past 4-plus years.

P.S, I understand dps dropped considerably this patch making the end game harder than before. But most of that content was being done with even less of a damage output when it came out.

Is it perhaps because of the absolute clueless attitude of ZOS? Like triggering people because they can't figure out what they are doing patch after patch?

I'm just trying to figure out if I should invest more time and money or maybe finally move on and wait for a new Elder Scrolls

Edit: no this is not a I quit thread. I still love this game and hope that I am wrong about my feelings.

The game died cause of people losing interest over the same repetive content that was released, Heck if they ever release a new pvp area that will defo bring me back over an stupid trial that has same *** gear similar bonus and ***. I really wish they bring a dlc similar to ic but bigger land so it can pass off as an "Expansion".

Brandathorbel

idk wrote: »

Rampeal wrote: »

Malthorne wrote: »

ESO has so much potential. So much unrealized potential. I’ve had so much love for this game since launch. In 2014, even with all the flaws, bugs, and performance issues, I thought ESO could truly be something great if it was given time as well as the proper care that an elder scrolls title deserves.

The sad truth is that the devs seem to be happy delivering 1 meager chapter and 1 small dlc story content that can be completed in a few hours by someone playing casually.

In my opinion, and I know it’s subjective, the storytelling isn’t even that good anymore. Especially if you compare it a recent expansion from a different mmo.

Two dungeons released as our quarterly “content” is laughable to me. Those dungeons should be included with a chapter or dlc zone.

Maybe my standards are to high or maybe I expect to much... but as a paying customer I do expect ZOS to at least try to hold themselves to higher standard. I really feel like ZOS just does the bare minimum. This includes story, game performance and combat balance. They’re killing it all right.

ESO: 2014

Imperial City: 2015
Orsinium: 2015

Dark Brotherhood: 2016
Thieves Guild: 2016
Shadows of the Hist: 2016

Morrowind: 2017
Clockwork City: 2017
Horns of the reach: 2017

Summerset: 2018
Murkmire: 2018
Dragon Bones: 2018
Wolf hunter: 2018

Elsweyr: 2019
Wrathstone: 2019
Dragonhold: 2019

Seems like a steady pace from 2016 to present. I just think players got spoiled with a extra dlc in 2018. Just my opinion though.

One would be hard-pressed to find a game delivering as much content at such a regular pace. It is a big reason why the game population is not declining.

it goes up and down but there have been points where it is decling. And that is not much content. Usually FF14 or Wow or whatever one of their big chapters is 1 to 2 years of eso content. Dragonhold and elsywer were pathetic when it came to content. it was much better in the early years now its just getting worse and worse. The next chapter without a double will be the worst content/price ratio we have seen.

we are getting a lot of new players, but we are losing a lot of long term players and the direction the team is going will not hold those new players .

Bradyfjord

People say this about games, movies, and anything else. To me there seems to be an ebb and flow to all things.

@siddique Why don't you try to form a guild? It sounds like there's some good players that may need a good guild/home. (Thinking about silver linings)

Kalante

I went from having consistent flat 59k-60k dps in my stamina nightblade on a smooth and fluid skill bar rotation to now barely even scratching 50k while cheesing my skill bar set up in the most horrifically way possible with a disgusting rotation and cheesing my stam recovery with lava foot. While there was NO NEED to do that in the first place. On the atro I went from 88k dps to not even 75k. At that point I didnt care about pve anymore I was just demotivated and done with it. I worked so hard to perfect my rotation just to get it nerfed a few months later. I was bored of playing pvp for 3 years, so I went to try out PVE and as soon as I see some progress after two months of just doing PVE getting my vmol and vhof skins the legit way and then finally going for my dd tittle, zos then decides to ruin PVE just like they did to PVP. Now I dont even play the game more than once a week. The game is just so unsatisfying to play as an end game stamina nightblade and so backwards compared to how it used to be. The best way to describe it is clunkiness. New players will never get to feel how smooth this game used to play.