UnabashedlyHonest wrote: »2 million players? ESO doesn’t have anywhere near 2 million real, active players. If they picked up 2 million new accounts over the course of the past year, that actually suggests an even sharper decline in long-time players and bodes worse for the overall health of the community.
The vast, overwhelming majority of accounts are inactive, barely active, or bots. Their daily players total maybe 200,000. The more you inflate that total account number, the worse that active player count is.
I wonder how many people have formed personal guild banks with inactive and additional accounts just for storage purposes.
Many, many people bought 9 accounts for $5 each, on sale, to form private guild banks. We’ll never know how many people, but assume it’s in the thousands.
Offshore botters and RMT agencies also create new account each time they are banned, further adding to the false numbers.
Zeni has an interest in never letting the “active player” numbers be known. Because we can be sure it doesn’t tell a good story compared to the overall sales numbers.
Gaebriel0410 wrote: »Why would these hypothetical thousands of people go through the effort of buying 9 (nine??) accounts even at 5 bucks a pop, just to make a personal guild bank?
If no friends have slots available, just ask in zone chat if people want to help you out and temporarily join your guild until you have 10 members. There's always new players around, so just go to a starter zone and offer them some gold for the effort.
I really really doubt that it's common to buy 10 accounts.
Depends, are you a casual solo quester? If you are then ESO has a ton of stuff on the horizon I’m sure.
If you are a PvPer ESO is genuinely in maintenance mode. PvP hasn’t seen anything new or improved for like 5 years now. I suspect that endgame PVErs will start to see a similar lack of support soon.
Kingsindarkness wrote: »Depends, are you a casual solo quester? If you are then ESO has a ton of stuff on the horizon I’m sure.
If you are a PvPer ESO is genuinely in maintenance mode. PvP hasn’t seen anything new or improved for like 5 years now. I suspect that endgame PVErs will start to see a similar lack of support soon.
Okay I'm not going to disagree with that...and I hope you take what I am about to say logically and not as a slight...
As much as Zenimax wanted PVP to be a integral part of the end game it just didn't take off...but you know the arena system is doing quite well. If open world PVP is a bust then I'm betting they can bolster the Arena system even more...add a quest line to it similar to the old TES games
I doubt seriously though that PVE players will stop seeing support as they are the games bread and butter, and it's pretty obvious that the game is cracking despite the wishes of people whom the game has failed personally.
I think as time goes on less and less attention will be payed to PVPers and the Raiding community, because lets face it they are and probably always will be unhappy no matter what and they are such a small percentage of the overall player base.
I know no one agrees with me from those communities but I think it's commendable of the Devs to keep trying to support those audiences especially considering all the hate they get. They could just as easily turn Cyrodiil into a PVE expansion and drop the expense of creating Trials...sure people would leave but the amount would be negligible and PVE expansion of Cyrodiil would bring in a lot of TES fans especially if it has the quality of say Orsinium.
But I don't want that I hope we keep all of our different communities. I just don't think it will happen which is sad.
Edited for sensitivity and clarity
Grizzbeorn wrote: »Kingsindarkness wrote: »
The two million people the game has picked up in the last year would like to have a word with you....also you realize you don't speak for everyone right?
if you look at steam charts
right, because everyone plays on Steam...
Shadesofkin wrote: »Grizzbeorn wrote: »Kingsindarkness wrote: »
The two million people the game has picked up in the last year would like to have a word with you....also you realize you don't speak for everyone right?
if you look at steam charts
right, because everyone plays on Steam...
I was just thinking about this...Ive been playing 8 years, I don't use Steam
DMuehlhausen wrote: »Yes cause the most played MMO in the world is going to go to Maintenance mode. Honestly where do these people come from.
Depends, are you a casual solo quester? If you are then ESO has a ton of stuff on the horizon I’m sure.
If you are a PvPer ESO is genuinely in maintenance mode. PvP hasn’t seen anything new or improved for like 5 years now. I suspect that endgame PVErs will start to see a similar lack of support soon.
tohopka_eso wrote: »Which is a small comparison still. As I said I don't play thru steam and my point still stands on a game in maintenance mode
UnabashedlyHonest wrote: »tohopka_eso wrote: »Which is a small comparison still. As I said I don't play thru steam and my point still stands on a game in maintenance mode
According to the poll results, 1/3 of ESO players responding say they play through steam. That means there are plenty enough data points to use that information as a reliable trend across the board.
Depends, are you a casual solo quester? If you are then ESO has a ton of stuff on the horizon I’m sure.
If you are a PvPer ESO is genuinely in maintenance mode. PvP hasn’t seen anything new or improved for like 5 years now. I suspect that endgame PVErs will start to see a similar lack of support soon.
Exactly this. ESO has been maintenance mode for PVP for years. End-game PVE is entering maintenance mode right now.
adriant1978 wrote: »The length of time we have gone without a new class or even a new weapon skill line makes me think that it's probably in maintenance mode at least as far as mechanics go.
Kingsindarkness wrote: »adriant1978 wrote: »The length of time we have gone without a new class or even a new weapon skill line makes me think that it's probably in maintenance mode at least as far as mechanics go.
Adding a new class throws a wrench in everything else....look at the state of combat, raid meta etc...
Now add a new class like say Druid. It would be absolute chaos. I think what they want to do instead is focus on the whole you can be any type of player you want (Wizard with a sword Spell slinging Dragonknght ) than hard and fast classes.
adriant1978 wrote: »The length of time we have gone without a new class or even a new weapon skill line makes me think that it's probably in maintenance mode at least as far as mechanics go.
spartaxoxo wrote: »adriant1978 wrote: »The length of time we have gone without a new class or even a new weapon skill line makes me think that it's probably in maintenance mode at least as far as mechanics go.
The mechanics have received constant balance changes, new gear, etc. Maintenance mode isn't defined that narrowly, and even if it were, it would still be wrong due to the aforementioned changes.
Maintenance mode would mean very little to no balance changes whatsoever.
Wanting a new class doesn't invalidate all other changes to the game
adriant1978 wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »adriant1978 wrote: »The length of time we have gone without a new class or even a new weapon skill line makes me think that it's probably in maintenance mode at least as far as mechanics go.
The mechanics have received constant balance changes, new gear, etc. Maintenance mode isn't defined that narrowly, and even if it were, it would still be wrong due to the aforementioned changes.
Maintenance mode would mean very little to no balance changes whatsoever.
Wanting a new class doesn't invalidate all other changes to the game
"Balance changes" aren't a feature that sells DLC or makes people want to roll a new character. That's just the general churn that goes along with running an MMO, buff this / nerf that, etc.
For example here's the updates Guild Wars 1 has had in the past year:
Update -- May 11, 2022: Server maintenance build
Update -- April 14, 2022: Game routing tables updated to provide access to new datacenter in Seoul, Korea.
Update -- March 30, 2022: Server maintenance build.
Update -- August 30, 2021: Fixed a bug where players with their territory set to Japan were prompted to enter a CD key but it was improperly rejected.
Update -- August 24, 2021: Fixed a server crash, Fixed a bug where players with their territory set to Japan could not enter a CD key.
Ghanima_Atreides wrote: »To be fair, SWTOR makes balance changes all the time, and that game has been in maintenance mode for years. Star Trek Online, another old maintenance mode game, still tweaks stuff as well.
martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »Maybe not maintenance mode but Steadyeddy makes some really incisive points here about the decline of endgamehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgidwlwpJBE
Grizzbeorn wrote: »
Do you know what statistic trends are?
Can you understand that if people are decreasing on Steam it means that they all decresing on all platform?
spartaxoxo wrote: »martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »Maybe not maintenance mode but Steadyeddy makes some really incisive points here about the decline of endgamehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgidwlwpJBE
A lot of endgamers will hate me for saying it, but I think a major issue is the normal vet is too hard on a lot of the endgame trials, which demotivates people from truly trying before they start leading to an unhealthy rate of replacement. A lot of games I've played there was a PUG scene for this stuff. PUGS were garbage and vast majority of the the players who did them preferred raids. But, it was something that decently skilled people could stay up late with some cans of red bull to try and get done. Sometimes they succeeded and sometimes they fell apart. In another game I played I'd estimate the top 10% of players did them and the top 1% we're good enough to do leaderboards and sell carries and the likes. The equivalent to being done hard modes in this game.
spartaxoxo wrote: »Depends, are you a casual solo quester? If you are then ESO has a ton of stuff on the horizon I’m sure.
If you are a PvPer ESO is genuinely in maintenance mode. PvP hasn’t seen anything new or improved for like 5 years now. I suspect that endgame PVErs will start to see a similar lack of support soon.
Exactly this. ESO has been maintenance mode for PVP for years. End-game PVE is entering maintenance mode right now.
Endgame PVE got a trial and new dungeons at their regular release cadence, so no, that's not true of endgame PVE. Only pvp entered maintenance mode.
spartaxoxo wrote: »martinhpb16_ESO wrote: »Maybe not maintenance mode but Steadyeddy makes some really incisive points here about the decline of endgamehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgidwlwpJBE
A lot of endgamers will hate me for saying it, but I think a major issue is the normal vet is too hard on a lot of the endgame trials, which demotivates people from truly trying before they start leading to an unhealthy rate of replacement. A lot of games I've played there was a PUG scene for this stuff. PUGS were garbage and vast majority of the the players who did them preferred raids. But, it was something that decently skilled people could stay up late with some cans of red bull to try and get done. Sometimes they succeeded and sometimes they fell apart. In another game I played I'd estimate the top 10% of players did them and the top 1% we're good enough to do leaderboards and sell carries and the likes. The equivalent to being done hard modes in this game.
Vet trials arent that hard. However... Ppl in this game have sooooo much problems with any mechanics. I cant tell how many times group was struggling just because 1 player didnt know anything and was wiping the group all the time.