Is population very low in High Isle or it is my play time?

Hlaaluna

I am a solo player and have been struggling to get world bosses done in High Isle as nobody seems to be around. I call out in zone, offer to share the quest and have an auto-invite addon but the place seems dead. Mostly after 20 minutes or more of nothing happening I just give up and go do something else.

I am puzzled by this as my experience has been that in the early days of an expansion the place is usually really jumping. I am wondering if this is due to little interest in the new XP, maybe too early days for some, or if I am just picking a terrible time to play? I do play Oceanic time. Anyone else noticing this?

fizl101

I'm on console so don't have the new chapter yet, but I think the majority are in Murkmire trying to get the oakensoal lead!

bmnoble

Its a combination of things players are leveling companions in other zones or hunting down mythic leads for hours on end, some have already finished the zone and moved on and the tutorial changes are reducing the number of new players starting in the latest zones.

Time zone does play a part of it I am Australian, when I was doing the world bosses in High Isle was lucky to see 3 other players, the volcanic vents tended to have anywhere up to 10 players at a time.

Ever since they brought in companions and antiquities players tend to be a lot more spread out, I remember the chapter zones use to be flooded with people regardless of the time before the West Skyrim chapter.

Hlaaluna

Ah thanks. That makes sense. It had not occurred to me that people would be in other zones, even for the HI expansion. Maybe I should do likewise and come back to doing the WB dailies a little later. I guess when everyone has their mythics and companions levelled, they too will start on the dailies. Mystery solved I think. 😊

Rowjoh

It's a very underwhelming piece of content, quite small and most people only interested in the Oakensoul mythic item which they have by now.

Pevey

I think ppl have also figured out that Zos will add things to the dailies later to tempt us to come back. Like furnishing plans. So a lot ppl I know are not doing the dailies much right now. No rush. They will drop better stuff later, probably.

Parasaurolophus

Unfortunately, this was exactly the case with Blackwood's release. Only if the High Isle had a high population on the first day, Blackwood was empty to begin with. Honestly, this shocks me. I remember the huge crowds of players around every quest marker in the first few days after chapters were released. And then the release of Blackwood and just bam ... And all of it is absolutely empty. Yes, definitely some of the players left to farm new leads or farm experience for companions. But after all, eso is considered a casual game where questing comes first. And this part of the content is empty. Are people tired of quests and overland? Eso can no longer attract new players?

ApoAlaia

I keep bumping into people wherever I go (which is nice even if we are all 'doing our own thing'), may it be PDs, Vents, WBs or just general zone quests, just not crowds of them.

Given that the big push of the chapter (ToT) detracts from people from being active in the zone(s) and that some the mythic leads (acquiring Mora's ones is proving a rather frustrating affair for instance) are IMO the worse to date I'm not surprised that the chapter doesn't feel 'crowded'.

Still Gonfalon Bay seems lively enough despite (again IMO) losing to Leyawiin/Vivec/Alinor in terms of convenience and functionality.

Which is a shame, I really like the architecture/general look and feel of the place (and the zone in general).

Snamyap

It seems a little quiet but I haven't had any issues with taking down world bosses and vents. People are waiting or showing up quick enough.

Yasha

Everyone is in Mirkmire waiting for boxes to spawn.

Alcast

Zones have a lot of instances, that is also often why it looks like zones are empty.

My guess is the main reason they use instancing so aggressively is because they want to avoid lag. So it looks like there aren't a lot of people around, but in reality the playerbase is just split between instances + there are a lot of activities you can do right now in High Isle.

Pepegrillos

I don't think there are as many people in the zone as there were in previous expansions.

Freelancer_ESO

I thought it was crazy how empty High Isle was vs Murkmire this week but, then I checked my guild listings and noticed High Isle had 5-10x the number that were in Murkmire so I suspect it's instancing.

Anony_Mouse

I think people who are in ToT games arent actually visible in zones. There doesnt seem to be an idle animation for it, like for example if you are looking in the crownstore or the map etc.

starlizard70ub17_ESO

I think people are trying to level up their new companions skills as fast as they can, and the best places to do that are not in High Isle. With 4 companions now, you can match your character with the best companion that works for them. I've seen a lot of players with companions in tow doing mage guild and undaunted skill line quests to get them leveled up. Also there's more people in Craglorn with companions grinding groups areas for companion XP.

High Island is the kind of place that's fun while you're doing the story. But after a month or two that's no reason to come back except to pick up sky shards on your alts.

Tenthirty2

I'm loving the new zone and everything with it so far and had this same concern yesterday.
I'm EST and earlier in the day and into late afternoon it seemed like there were very few ppl.
However there were large groups of players at vent events (leads, decks)

I had a wagonload of maps and surveys I needed to do so I took a break from ToT (ADDICTED) and while running other zones I noticed the ones that had new item lead(s) were very busy. (Zone chats in Glenumbra and Murkmire were... "colourful and youthful" )
Then into the evening and late night High Isle was much busier, how I would have expected at quests, overland, Gonfalon Gaming Hall, etc.

So I don't think the game or new zone is less busy than other launches, I think ppl are more scattered around other zones.
And when I think about it leads for many of the major new mythics ppl are after are in other zones from High Isle.

Ingenon

High Isle hasn't dropped on console, yet. But my guess is that the folks who bought High Isle on PC are doing other chapter stuff besides WB daily, like folks above said.

And I know there are folks like myself who do the dailies more often when there is a chance they will drop something besides some gold and a random zone armor/weapon. When Fargrave was released, it took a while for ZOS to change the drop to include a chance for motif or something else valuable. Once that drop change happened more folks started doing WB dailies, and on multiple alts.

Troodon80

Judging from the addon BeamMeUp (on PC-EU with five guilds), most people are split between High Isle, with High Isle currently taking the lead, and the ol' favourite of Vvardenfell. So I would say it's probably just your play time.

Avishag

Rowjoh wrote: »

It's a very underwhelming piece of content, quite small and most people only interested in the Oakensoul mythic item which they have by now.

We wish we would have it by now! lol. People are still there, dozens per lockbox and still putting unimaginable efforts to get it.

rbfrgsp

I've not got the new chapter yet but my partner has. She started the main quest the day after release (IE: the first full day of the new chapter), and I watched an hour or so of the gameplay. Went into that big main city where you learn the card game. There were about 7 or 8 people running about and that's it. The last chapter I got at launch was greymoor and Solitude was PACKED for two full weeks, night and day. So I think it can't be just what time you're logging in: the new chapter seems very quiet so far.

danno8

High Isle hasn't really changed the peak players nor average count over on steamcharts.

https://steamcharts.com/app/306130#7d

Yes I know it's not the whole population yad yada yada...

BazOfWar

High Isle is a pretty dead map considering its only just released, the new overland sets are garbage, the two public dungeons there had zero treasure chests and the mobs seemed to only drop the odd gold. World bosses drop like flies, the vents are just rehashed dolmens. It is a pretty underwhelming chapter so it's not surprising it's empty.

I went against my better judgement and ended up buying it even though I said I wasn't. I goto the map every now and then to complete a bit of it but tbh it doesn't even excite me and make me want to stay.

Reverb

I think there are a few reasons for this.

One being that it’s a small zone that can be “completed” quickly.

Another is that the big interest elements are leads and the card game, both of which draw people into other zones and away from HI.

And lastly is that we know from history that Zeni will hold a big marketing event for the zone soon (“if x% of players meet x% achievement everyone gets a prize!”) and a few months after that they will add motifs and furnishing plans. So there’s no incentive to do the dailies right now. The FOMO hype training is coming later.

Giraffon

It's also summer in NA so players might be playing less as there is that whole outdoor thing you can do. My play time is certainly lower this time of year.

zaria

Zone probably has to many instances,

Alcast wrote: »

Zones have a lot of instances, that is also often why it looks like zones are empty.

My guess is the main reason they use instancing so aggressively is because they want to avoid lag. So it looks like there aren't a lot of people around, but in reality the playerbase is just split between instances + there are a lot of activities you can do right now in High Isle.

Morrowind was very overfilled with players at launch so they changed to to more instances.
I also think its a bit hard to clear out instances . Fast travel at lest out of zone and back might put you in an more populated instance.

AzuraFan

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Unfortunately, this was exactly the case with Blackwood's release. Only if the High Isle had a high population on the first day, Blackwood was empty to begin with.

I didn't find the same thing when Blackwood was released. I was able to complete all the daily achievements (30/30) with no problem. There were always players at the world bosses. And plenty of players doing the other content.

With High Isle, it feels deserted. I arrived at a WB yesterday and decided to wait to see how long it would take for someone else to show up. It took TEN minutes. When I arrived at another boss, only one player was there (already engaged). With Blackwood, there were always other players there, usually waiting for the boss to spawn again.

ETA: I see a lot of posters saying players are elsewhere or doing something else or waiting for an event or there are more instances to prevent lag. I don't buy it. Players could always do that, but previous chapters were definitely more populated. Same goes for the instances. I suspect the chapter didn't sell well. Probably a lot of players are waiting for a sale.

EF321

According to BMU, High Isle currently is the most populated zone among my 5 guilds, which is over 2000 players total. Even more so than Vvardenfell, which is normally number one.

It is just that number of instances they made for High Isle is very high, so a lot of people are there, just not there with you.

Vaoh

Every chapter zone besides Blackwood has been flooded with players at launch and maintains lots of players for the rest of the year. In fact many of them still have lots of players.

Blackwood was the only zone which did not feel new environment-wise and was kind of boring due to the awful storyline.

High Isle seems to push players away from the zone for a lot of it’s content (Cards, Companion grinding, etc). It is not due to a lack of players.

jaws343

You say you play Oceanic time, but like, what time of the day are you playing. Because that likely has something to do with it.

From a US time zone perspective on Xbox NA, if I am playing at 6AM, there are far less people on than if I were playing at 6PM. If someone in the UK were playing on the NA server those times would line up to 12PM and 12AM. They'd have to get past midnight to see the same population levels that US players see during primetime.

And it would be the same kind of shift for Oceanic. 6PM would be in the 3AM range for the US, so the NA server is going to be pretty dead at that time.

Iselin

Maybe as Alcast said it's more aggressive instancing than before but also you really can't discount the appeal for High Isle owners of the Oakensoul Ring, an inordinate appeal IMO, because the ring isn't really the end all and be all like some seem to think it is, but that's a different story.

There's a significant chunk of High Isle owners camping Murkmire safe boxes 24/7. Just take a trip there and you'll see that Murkmire is actually much more populated than High Isle at the moment.

As for me, I am just now leaving High Isle for other places for the first time since it released but that's only because Ember is at 1500+ rapport and I'm off doing her quest - a much more interesting and fun quest IMO, than that of any previous companion.

SteamKitten01

High Isle does feel very empty and devoid of players compared to other chapters post-launch (PC/NA). In most chapters, for the first couple of weeks, you could pretty much guarantee that there would be constant groups of people taking down the World Bosses as soon as they spawned. I've been doing multiple WB quests a day and more often than not, when I show up, the world boss is already spawned and I wind up soloing the entire fight. Maybe one other person will show up while I'm fighting. I can count on one hand the number of times I've fought a world boss with 5 or more people. With previous chapter launches, quest givers used to be swarmed and yet even when completing the main quest in prime time, I was frequently the only one around while in the overland. I don't know where everyone else is in High Isle but I've certainly not been seeing them.