Xbox EU Active Population - do guild traders sell? (2022 Witches Festival)

SkaiFaith

In short: are your traders selling well? Event stuff?

The context:
I'm definitely not saying "game is dying", but...
I don't see many people doing the event daily.
When I go get my golden plunder skulls there's nobody around me.
My two guild traders (Craglorn and Auridon atm) are not selling any of the event stuff (Event Styles, Writs, Furnishings, Recipes...)
I've read on reddit that people is doing dragons, so I tried there but no one was around.
I tried playing at any hour of the day... Where are the people I can sell event stuff to?

Playing since early 2017 and I have always seen lots of people around, even more during events. This feels strange...
Genuine question: Am I just "unlucky" or is active population actually drastically decreased on Xbox EU lately?
Are your traders still selling well or is the market overly saturated?

I see ridiculous prices... the same item has the price split in half on the market: 50% sells it for 20.000gold and 50% sells it for 200gold (I'm throwing random numbers, it's only an example). Feels odd.
Also, does the "jewelry writ buyer" even exist? XD what's the point of trying to sell those?

- btw, yeah sure, I see a bunch of players, but generally they are always the same high level ones around Mournhold, Alinor, Vivec or High Isle, and that's it. At times, even Alik'r seems desert........ (Sorry)

White wabbit

Probably not doing the event as nothing really new dropping

Blinx

I do my Xbox EU chores after I'm done with my NA mains Endeavors/Event quests, it's always seemed eerily quiet to me, but I always attribute that to the time difference.
Depending on what time of the day I do log on, I see people, but that's mostly in the crafting hubs, out in the world, not so much.
I have purchased a few Event style pages, but NOT for those unrealistic prices.
I paid today 3k for the Jerkin, and 10k for the Shoes, yesterday I paid 3k for the Hat, a witches writ-I needed-I paid 7k.

I never buy jewelry writs, matter of fact if I get one I usually destroy it, not worth the use of the mats imo, and since I only do ESO+ every other, or every 2 months, I don't need them clogging up my inventory.

I don't play much on EU, it comes in waves as far as doing something other than Endeavors/Events, but CP 726 Sorcerer, and both WW/Vampire(thanks to the Armory) by hunting the NPC's, not asking for a bite-it gave me a goal to do.

I know quite a bit of EU people who actually play on NA due to the fact that there's more people tho.

SkaiFaith

@Blinx playing on NA while being in EU could be a smart move, but I've invested too much to start all over again - assistants and everything else.
Thanks for letting me know it's not only my impression. So it's actually low populated rn...

FluffWit

Xbox NA is stil going strong. The game being included with game pass and the Elder Scrolls name gets a steady stream of new players.

I'd suggest joining a trader in a better city.

@Blinx I don't think you can judge much by looking at off peak. By the time I've had dinner it's like 3am eastern and the servers are always pretty dead and always have been.

Blinx

@FluffWit I wasn't judging, I even wrote I always attributed it to the time difference, I was writing about my experience, thank you.

NettleCarrier

I'm on PC, but chiming in anyway. The reason you don't see many players participating in the event is like other people have pointed out - there's nothing new to really chase. The only new thing is the style page and these are just easier to buy from a g uild trader instead of trying to collect yourself. I farmed for an hour to offset costs of buying the full set, bought it, and now just kill a boss a day for tickets. Otherwise I'm playing the game as normal with the plunder skulls dropping from bosses as just an extra bonus when I run a dungeon or kill a delve boss. I still haven't killed the crow boss, I see no reason to even do it.

markulrich1966

EU is pretty dead since more than 2 years.
I am cp1800 and cp800 on EU, cp1700 and cp 800 on NA (2 accounts).

I mainly play EU during events, as this offers at least some chance to farm some rare style mats from worldbosses or level up quickly, while NA has become my server for general playing.

I find it extremely frustrating having to solo all worldbosses outside of events on EU, sales are at all time low. I CAN solo most bosses (or could before U35), but if it takes you 10 minutes of full concentration while it takes 2 minutes of relaxed mashing on NA, I prefer NA. Despite slightly longer loadtimes and more lag.
I even usually get into dungeons as DD on NA within 10 minutes, while I have to wait forever even as tank on EU pretty often.

I suggested already 2-3 years ago to add scaling to bosses, the more players, the harder it gets. Or the less, the easier. This might have brought back the last quitters like me, but it did not happen. Instead, the "solution" was oakensoul (or other mythics) to make such content easier, but to get them requires even more grind. I skip antiquities completely.

Playing NA is fine though, even at noon in germany when it is 6 am in the US, there are more players around than on EU at primetime.

(comparing population in cities and guild sales history, I think that NA has 5-10 time more players, lately maybe even more)

SkaiFaith

@markulrich1966 thank you for the explanation. Now I get it, and yeah on Xbox EU there's no one around doing World Bosses, and very few on Incursions too.
I have no doubt NA and PC in general are way more populated.
Sad for me. And I wonder why ESO doesn't appeal Xbox EU players... Who knows.
At this rate, give me another 1 or 2 years and I'll be playing a Massive Single Player Online game, which I like, don't get me wrong, but makes trading harder XD

markulrich1966

SkaiFaith wrote: »

@markulrich1966 thank you for the explanation. Now I get it, and yeah on Xbox EU there's no one around doing World Bosses, and very few on Incursions too.
I have no doubt NA and PC in general are way more populated.
Sad for me. And I wonder why ESO doesn't appeal Xbox EU players... Who knows.
At this rate, give me another 1 or 2 years and I'll be playing a Massive Single Player Online game, which I like, don't get me wrong, but makes trading harder XD

I think there were mainly 2 reasons.

EU had login issues maybe 3 years ago, so I created my first account on NA to be able to play at least a little. Not intended to become permanent, but once you start, you want to reach at least cp160, then cp810, etc...

Also cyrodiil on EU was affected more than NA as far as I know, more lag/crashes. So several PVPers left, guilds disbandonned.
I later met again the guildmaster of the former EU-guild Vindicta Vindici on NA, so I guess some migrated to NA, but most I never saw again. Since some weeks, I have the impression that there are more EU players on NA. But this is very subjective, and I don't have numbers.

Problem is, once such issues occur, you can get into a "death-spiral".
Some players quit (login/PVP issues), so there are less remaining to do bosses together.
People get creative, e.g. zonechat was very active in summerset for a while to get help.
But after a while, first people get tired that things got harder/more complicated (coordinating groups for a simple boss), so more quit.
In the end, even remaining high-level players just get tired that now all that is left is soloing give up.

And I think that this also is one reason, why we see so many events now. They try to bring back players by focussing "action" to specific weeks of the year, while people just do crafting writs the rest of the time.

SkaiFaith

Since the EU accounts don't get deleted, maybe next year when the servers will be updated people will return to EU...?
Do you think they'll be willing? @markulrich1966

markulrich1966

SkaiFaith wrote: »

Since the EU accounts don't get deleted, maybe next year when the servers will be updated people will return to EU...?
Do you think they'll be willing? @markulrich1966

It is hard to predict what players do, but I am sceptical.
To build up a playerbase from scratch is a challenge.

And they still have no worldboss-scaling.
Almost all zones feel dead.

The performance was worse in the past, the elsweyr release very bad with heavy staff attacks not firing in delves.. This was fixed after maybe 2 months, and currently PVE works fine for me. But this did not bring players back.

Cyro was worse, too, got better, main issue for me are constant crashes capturing keeps. But skills fire better than before. But campaigns still are empty, even grayhost rarely 3 bars.

I think in addition to upgrades they need such gameplay fixes, and more event-style stuff to attract players again.
But not simply "just more events".
For example, a "weekly featured DLC", where bosses drop extra loot.
This might help to focus players in one zone, making worldbosses playable again.

If they continue as now, we just will see short spikes of increased players, like during the High Isle event.

SkaiFaith

Thanks for helping me understand, I'll still hold on hope that next year(s) will help repopulate Xbox EU, but it seems Zos will have a lot of work to do to achieve that.

Kitziboo

I’m on XEU and XNA. My main main is EU so I tend to spend more time there and it is definitely quieter than a few weeks ago. I think there may be an element of event exhaustion as I was struggling by the end of High Isle. So much fighting with Undaunted event before that too, I am getting pains in my hands lol. I try to play each of my mains as evenly as I can during events so it gets very tiring.

I am currently unwell with flu so I’m just jumping in for tickets and some Endeavors. I’ve tried to continue with the High Isle dailies but have at times found no one at the WBs or vents and just given up. Not bothering with soloing FG1 twice a day either. So bored of that now!

SkaiFaith

@Kitziboo for the hands' pain I've found useful to remap buttons on the Xbox controller. In my case, constantly pressing the analog sticks to run and what else was hurting; I changed the Layout to C and then used the "Accessory App" to switch some more buttons. Now pain is definitely less heavy.

As for event fatigue, I can relate. I've played a lot lately, and with the upcoming events and DLC... I think my pause will come around February with Whitestreak Mayhem. Hope to get there without too much stress. I have 3 CP 1.600+ and 7 LV.14 characters. I was considering tanking those to 50 with all these 2XP weeks but I have no will strength left at the moment.

N3CR01

One thing I have noticed in the last few days is when I'm in Craglorn looking to join trial groups, theres far less LFG in chat then there was this time last year.

Kitziboo

Thank you Skaifaith, I will certainly give that a try 😺

I have not really had time to visit guild sellers this event when I usually browse a handful somewhere every day as I still have empty houses bought during the Zenithar event. I did manage a peek at Belkarth and Alinor and found a few cheap knick knacks.

I used High Isle to level three baby alts and was going to get the last three done this event but just don’t have the energy.

Hope every thing picks up again soon. In the meantime, I’ve been responding to zone requests for WB help instead of standing forlornly waiting for someone to turn up.

SkaiFaith

N3CR01 Yeah, I was happy having my trader in Craglorn but the zone seems empty even during the event. I thought there would have been traffic since there's the Indrik vendor, and the Impresario...

Kitziboo you're welcome, and good to hear you're helping out others with WB, it's an idea.
Personally I'm falling deep in the wormhole of trying to becoming rich. I have 4.5 millions circa, and I would want to reach at least 10, but I'm having an hard time doing so: outside of Explorer Event (in which I farm Public Dungeons) it seems doing antiquities in Artaeum is the most consistent method, because trading vary extremely and these days are meh. It will be a long way...

Lucozade85

Xbox EU here. I can't be bothered with the event (only do trials) but it does feel like there are less people about, even in the most populated areas.

SkaiFaith

Places like Vulkhel Guard and the nearby dolmen used to be packed with people, now I always find them empty.
The remaining people seems concentrated in High Isle... I wonder if new players don't bother much with base game zones if they purchased the Collection.

ZOS_Icy

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