MetallicMonk wrote: »A guild dying has no bearing on the entire population of a game. What goes on in the very narrow slice of the game that any one of us sees is just that, a very narrow slice of the game. It is hard to find a smaller slice than a guild.
The fact remains that the game is not dead or near its death bed and the majority of players are still here.
Games don't die instantly most of the time, it's a drawn out process with jarring changes that slowly bleed out players; which is exactly the path the game is on right now.
If you truly believe since U35 the game hasn't been losing players and the general feeling of the game from player's perspectives hasn't gotten much worse you must be in some sort of extreme echo chamber.
So far people have been declaring ESO dead or dying since 2014. That is a very slow death.
You are correct that some players will have the perspective that the game has died or is dying or has gotten much worse for them but it is based on the very small segment of the game each of us can see. The example the OP privdes is a tiny 500 member guild. Such things often do not measure up with the realities of the playerbase as a whole.
In fact, the only actual information we have access is the Steam charts. While it is not a true sampling of PC it is unbiased and it does show much more than a tiny 500 member guild and is unbiased. The average number of players for the last three months is greater than it was for the same months in 2019, the last time those months were not affected by COVID. So no, I am not in an echo chamber but I also ignore hyperbole.
I am not saying I like U35. I am merely pointing out that the only real information have about the health of the games population says the game is not even trending towards dying. Please provide unbiased data that shows a large swath of the games population that shows the population of the game is trending downwards significantly since U35.
Regards,
As you already mentioned, Steam's chart "is not a true sampling of PC" whether or not it's unbiased, it's also not proof that the game is not dying. There is no way to tell if the game is dying or not, other than one's personal opinion, and for someone who has played since 2015, I could tell there is less players that I frequently visit like Glenumbra and Wayrest bank, Belkarth, etc than before. Before regardless if the map has expanded, the number of players is noticeably less than say 2017. So YOU cannot tell me that the game is not dying, because you also can't provide data that it isn't, right?
I can only speak for my own perspective and communities, but things have definitely quieted down since U35. My prog group is on infinite hiatus, social guilds struggle to fill even casual runs, and a lot of players have swapped to other games. The game is not dead by any means, but the constant combat chages and U35 in particular have chased away a lot of people or at the very least impacted their playtime (sending courage to templar mains ). At least ZOS listened and the changes this patch were minimal, but I don't know if it was enough to bring people back.
Seeing how many players are in a particular bank is so insignificant it is virtually meaningless. So while the Steam charts is a not a true sampling it is a significantly better source of data than what a player sees because it is looking at a much larger slice of the game. A player sees dozens of other players whereas steam sees thousands of players.
The only real data we have that is fairly unbiased is the Steam Charts. When eliminating the two years concerning COVID we see the game has slightly more players than it did for August, September, October, and for the past 30 days compared to November of 2019. While Steam data is not a perfect sampling, it is far better data than anything that has been presented in this thread.
That is why it is very much speculation that the game's population is in decline. If you have some valid data that is reflective of the player base and actually demonstrates the game is in decline please do present it as the thread could use such valid information
Most guild ads I see in zone chat (PC/NA) are either casual social PvE guilds or RP guilds, and they are the same guilds I see over and over again. Nothing wrong with those guilds per se, but where are the PvP guilds, the end game PvE guilds, the trading guilds?
doesurmindglow wrote: »Seeing how many players are in a particular bank is so insignificant it is virtually meaningless. So while the Steam charts is a not a true sampling it is a significantly better source of data than what a player sees because it is looking at a much larger slice of the game. A player sees dozens of other players whereas steam sees thousands of players.
You repeat this over and over as if repetition can make something that is false true. It's not actually the case, though. Steam charts are very large sample -- tens of thousands -- and you've presented no persuasive argument as to why a sample that large would not be sufficiently representative.
For the rest of us, mere humans living in a world where large sample sizes are generally representative of the population from which they are sampled, we actually do have the data we need here to make conclusions about the trend in the game's playerbase. It's becoming increasingly clear in this discussion that no amount of data will satisfy you, as you want to continue to make the claim "there isn't enough data" regardless of how much data there actually is, let alone what that data is clearly telling us.
I guess the way I see Steam charts is that the majority of players on PC use the client launcher and not even through Steam... thus, Steam charts severely under-represents the player base. Further, it doesn't even count console players. If you watch any streamers, if they use Steam charts for census, they even state exactly that. It's just a small fragment of the ESO population.
I remember years ago players were dissuaded from buying the game on Steam because of how bad the Steam version worked; there were always tons of problems with players using Steam. It obviously got better over the years, and perhaps now more players are using Steam, but I'd say a majority of vet players do not use Steam at all.
I guess the way I see Steam charts is that the majority of players on PC use the client launcher and not even through Steam... thus, Steam charts severely under-represents the player base. Further, it doesn't even count console players. If you watch any streamers, if they use Steam charts for census, they even state exactly that. It's just a small fragment of the ESO population.
doesurmindglow wrote: »I guess the way I see Steam charts is that the majority of players on PC use the client launcher and not even through Steam... thus, Steam charts severely under-represents the player base. Further, it doesn't even count console players. If you watch any streamers, if they use Steam charts for census, they even state exactly that. It's just a small fragment of the ESO population.
People say this all the time but it ignores one of the most important aspects of the Steam population: that it is very large, and very likely representative of the playerbase as a whole.
In other words, yes, while Steam doesn't actually capture every. single. ESO. player. it does in fact provide data that is likely to be relevant to the playerbase as a whole; if the playerbase sampled by Steam is in decline, chances are very high that the playerbase as a whole is as well. This is because the Steam playerbase is so large (10,000+) that its threshold for statistical significance is fairly robust.
So, ESO is of course not dead. Nor do I want it to be dead. But it's declining. Maybe substantial. Maybe less so. But the next steps of ZOS will determine the future. And in contrast to some posters, I am sceptical towards that.
doesurmindglow wrote: »So, ESO is of course not dead. Nor do I want it to be dead. But it's declining. Maybe substantial. Maybe less so. But the next steps of ZOS will determine the future. And in contrast to some posters, I am sceptical towards that.
Yeah, I appreciate the support and I don't want it to be dead or declining either. I'd much rather my data be as limited or irrelevant as the people here want to say it is.
But my chief concern with all of this data denial going on in the thread is that these are people who are actively working to make the game worse: by ignoring and the denying the decline, and by downplaying the real concern many players are having and voicing about the game's direction, they are advocating for the developers to not take their consumers' input seriously, and to deliver a less competitive, less responsive, and ultimately less valuable product.
I instead prefer the approach that looks at what the game's competitors are doing quite well and replicate those -- Final Fantasy for example actually has an exhaustive in-game tutorial that is much better than the table scraps offered to new players in ESO, and also puts up orientation videos to the game on its official channels, where ESO essentially outsources this work to content creators they barely compensate.
I also prefer the approach that recognizes the people who play the game might have important feedback for how to make it better. Players have put forward some excellent ideas for how to better deliver on the developers' stated goals for the game -- an example is SkinnyCheeks's suggestion for a mythic that removes the damage from light attacks but in exchange grants a powerful buff or series of buffs to abilities, which seems far closer to a "level playing field for players who can't light attack weave" than anything that was proposed or implemented with Update 35. I'd like to see player feedback given more real airtime, and for the frustrations around a buggy or ill-received content launch to result not in a free pet no one asked for but instead in less buggy and less ill-received content launches with better, more performant, and more engaging features.
Basically by insisting "we don't have enough data" to support the arguments that either of these avenues have serious merit, these players are instead building support for the argument that the decline and frustration in playerbase being observed through both anecdotal experience and more scientific datasets is not important and should not be responded to. They are ultimately proposing the game stay on a detrimental course that devalues its playerbase and threatens its longevity. They are, in essence, asking for a weaker product that is less enjoyable and a worse use of our time and money.
It's not a good perspective that should be listened to by anyone. Arguing that the game is not suffering the impacts players observe and that is evidenced by these data, and rather that it "not only survives but thrives" is asking that the game remain exactly as it is, which is a worse experience for all of us who play it than it could be if our concerns and the data that substantiates them were actually taken seriously.
doesurmindglow wrote: »So, ESO is of course not dead. Nor do I want it to be dead. But it's declining. Maybe substantial. Maybe less so. But the next steps of ZOS will determine the future. And in contrast to some posters, I am sceptical towards that.
Yeah, I appreciate the support and I don't want it to be dead or declining either. I'd much rather my data be as limited or irrelevant as the people here want to say it is.
But my chief concern with all of this data denial going on in the thread is that these are people who are actively working to make the game worse: by ignoring and the denying the decline, and by downplaying the real concern many players are having and voicing about the game's direction, they are advocating for the developers to not take their consumers' input seriously, and to deliver a less competitive, less responsive, and ultimately less valuable product.
I instead prefer the approach that looks at what the game's competitors are doing quite well and replicate those -- Final Fantasy for example actually has an exhaustive in-game tutorial that is much better than the table scraps offered to new players in ESO, and also puts up orientation videos to the game on its official channels, where ESO essentially outsources this work to content creators they barely compensate.
I also prefer the approach that recognizes the people who play the game might have important feedback for how to make it better. Players have put forward some excellent ideas for how to better deliver on the developers' stated goals for the game -- an example is SkinnyCheeks's suggestion for a mythic that removes the damage from light attacks but in exchange grants a powerful buff or series of buffs to abilities, which seems far closer to a "level playing field for players who can't light attack weave" than anything that was proposed or implemented with Update 35. I'd like to see player feedback given more real airtime, and for the frustrations around a buggy or ill-received content launch to result not in a free pet no one asked for but instead in less buggy and less ill-received content launches with better, more performant, and more engaging features.
Basically by insisting "we don't have enough data" to support the arguments that either of these avenues have serious merit, these players are instead building support for the argument that the decline and frustration in playerbase being observed through both anecdotal experience and more scientific datasets is not important and should not be responded to. They are ultimately proposing the game stay on a detrimental course that devalues its playerbase and threatens its longevity. They are, in essence, asking for a weaker product that is less enjoyable and a worse use of our time and money.
It's not a good perspective that should be listened to by anyone. Arguing that the game is not suffering the impacts players observe and that is evidenced by these data, and rather that it "not only survives but thrives" is asking that the game remain exactly as it is, which is a worse experience for all of us who play it than it could be if our concerns and the data that substantiates them were actually taken seriously.