Crossplay needs to be looked at more seriously for the health of ESO

IncultaWolf

It's never going to happen, and I'm glad it isn't

sabresandiego_ESO

Crossplay or free platform transfers are the only real solution to population issues

Tandor

sabresandiego_ESO wrote: »

Crossplay or free platform transfers are the only real solution to population issues

In theory, but not until all the servers have population issues which they do not currently - and by that point the game in practice won't be generating the revenue needed to meet the cost of creating, testing and implementing a crossplay/transfer system from scratch, and a free one at that.

Twohothardware

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's never going to happen, and I'm glad it isn't

I'd say most if not all of those stating they don't want crossplay are on PC.

LunaFlora

Lebkuchen wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

right now pc has advantages over consoles with add-ons. and we, all of us as the game is exactly the same without add-ons, already have aim assist though it's only for the Arcanist beams.

On consoles the aim assist setting is well hidden all the way down in "accessibility" and came with the arcanist, but it's not just for the arcanist. If you move the slider all the way to the left, all your aim assist will be deactivated. It always bugged me that the camera slows down a bit every time the crosshairs pass over a target. It made me mad while other players i talked to never noticed this. Now we can finally turn it off. And for me that's one of the best things that have happened to this game in 2023.

I would love being able to play with xbox players on my playstation. But i don't want to play with PC players. They have addons and cheat engines and hardware that would make it unfair for console players. Some people play on consoles because they don't want to deal with all the PC stuff. Crap like cronus max is already ruining some of the console spirit. Multiboxing farm bots too. I think it's important for competitive games that everyone is playing under the same conditions, with the same hardware, software and rules. Consoles were always able to provide that. Not anymore i know, but it's still better than on PC.

Crossplay wouldn't have to be for all parts of the game. They could test it in Cyrodiil, Battlegrounds and Imperial City. With new campaigns, so people can decide if they want to play with other consoles or not. Maybe even give them new servers that are just for PvP. Dedicated PvP servers could maybe handle a much bigger population with better performance, while not affecting the PVE zones.

They could deactivate trading between platforms while testing in PvP. So the economy wouldn't be affected.

ZOS is really bad at dealing with name changes, but that wouldn't be a problem. Playstation names could be marked with a playstation sign, while xbox players could be marked with an xbox sign. So no name changes necessary. Easy.

And if it all works out, they could test it with dungeons and trials next, and after that they could still do it for the whole game. Combined with a big PvP DLC that could focus on the war. Because of the war there could be hyperinflation or maybe even a new currency. Then the economy specialists would get some new content too.

That's just what came to mind in 5-10 minutes. I am sure big teams of professionals would be able to find better ways to make this work. But from what i have heard in interviews, they are not even thinking about it a little bit. For the population of the game it would be great, and soon it might even be necessary to keep the game alive.

aim assist is in accessibility settings on consoles and pc
what else besides Arcanist benefits from aim assist?

LittlePinkDot

Twohothardware wrote: »

A lot of the big name multi platform game titles releasing today have moved to being crossplay enabled including Call of Duty, Battlefield, Destiny, ect. Is this being looked at for Elder Scrolls Online?

For me one of the biggest selling points of ESO has always been the PvP side but on Playstation numbers, especially during non peak hours, have really fallen off the last couple of years. The main Cyrodiil Campaign used to be full population on all three Alliances all throughout the day and now that only happens during a few hours prime time at night. The rest of the Campaigns are completely empty. I believe it's even worse on Xbox.

Having a large active player base improves the PvE aspects as well because with more players it's easier to find a group for any type of content you want to run regardless of your skill level. It also feels more like a social game when you enter well populated zones instead of zones where you're the only player there.

Have Zenimax made any official comments for or against crossplay in the future of ESO?

As a console player I don't want to play with PC add on cheaters. It wont be fair.

On PS5 battlegrounds it seems alot of people use their own off meta builds.
I rarely see a rending slashes proc on by death recap.. We're all just having fun.

It won't be fun anymore when every match is flooded with PC masters DW/vatesheran users.

There's that saying "ignorance is bliss."
I would like to keep it that way.

Amottica

Twohothardware wrote: »

IncultaWolf wrote: »

It's never going to happen, and I'm glad it isn't

I'd say most if not all of those stating they don't want crossplay are on PC.

I would also suggest those wanting crossplay are probably more of a console player or have friends on console.

On PC we know there is a large enough population and that console users would be at a huge disadvantage since they are not allowed to use add-ons and Zenimax will not be taking add-ons away from PC. The logic is sound.

It is also just a bad idea. Overwatch 2 tried to have cross-play between consoles and PC but they clearly has to disable the targeting aid consoles had when in crossplay. Console players could not hang so they eliminated crossplay except for groups that were a mix of console and PC players when they queued for a match.

https://youtu.be/0Mjz6j_CUzA

Tyrant_Tim

People want cross-play because they want to play with their friends, first and foremost. Quite often you will have a friend or two that transfer over to PC and all of a sudden you can’t play with them any more, and it’s unfortunate.

One way that cross-play could be supported, would be by having verified player mods that can be downloaded to your game, similar to what is present on Skyrim, or by disabling all of the reactive gameplay mods present on PC.

An argument could be made about how excessive mods have become on PC, and that having access to things of the nature like being able to detect when an enemy is in stealth nearby, or having mods that turn the hardest PvE content into tutorials, are too much and are borderline cheating.

Either approach, cross-play is a must in this day, and to not have it on a game like ESO, when MMOs like Black Desert have managed to pull it off successfully years ago, being much more competitive games, shows how far behind we are.

XSTRONG

If I remember correct Rich said something about cross saving, shouldnt that mean i can play on PC server with my playstation account? Or the other way around

LunaFlora

XSTRONG wrote: »

If I remember correct Rich said something about cross saving, shouldnt that mean i can play on PC server with my playstation account? Or the other way around

cross save in destiny 2 is being able to use your playstation, xbox, and steam accounts to play the game with the same characters as they're all linked to one bungie account, characters dont have names.

in eso i doubt that would work as there are 2 megaservers for all 3 platforms and you can have 20 characters on each.
all linked to one eso account
you could have 120 characters which could have duplicate names.
you would likely have to choose one platform's account to be the account everything is linked to? or maybe it would just default to pc if you've played on pc due to your eso account's name being your username on pc

i doubt it could work in eso

Amottica

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

People want cross-play because they want to play with their friends, first and foremost. Quite often you will have a friend or two that transfer over to PC and all of a sudden you can’t play with them any more, and it’s unfortunate.

One way that cross-play could be supported, would be by having verified player mods that can be downloaded to your game, similar to what is present on Skyrim, or by disabling all of the reactive gameplay mods present on PC.

An argument could be made about how excessive mods have become on PC, and that having access to things of the nature like being able to detect when an enemy is in stealth nearby, or having mods that turn the hardest PvE content into tutorials, are too much and are borderline cheating.

Either approach, cross-play is a must in this day, and to not have it on a game like ESO, when MMOs like Black Desert have managed to pull it off successfully years ago, being much more competitive games, shows how far behind we are.

How excessive or not excessive add-ons on PC are is irrelevant. All that is relevant is PC has add-ons and it is clear consoles are not intended to have them. Also, Zenimax is not going to take them away or disable them to make crossplay happen.

Even then, There is no way for a mod or add-on to make crossplay happen. Add-ons for ESO are very different than mods on Skyrim and the two games have a very different design.

Lebkuchen

LunaFlora wrote: »

aim assist is in accessibility settings on consoles and pc
what else besides Arcanist benefits from aim assist?

I would say aim assist has no benefits at all in this game. That's why i am so glad i can turn it off now.

On consoles it has always been active. For years, maybe even since this game came out. So when you were in a fight and wanted to aim at another target, the aim assist would stick to some random target, and make aiming a nightmare. Even turning around would never be smooth, because some enemy would always pull on your crosshairs like a magnet. Like when you are looking at the map, and want to zoom in somewhere, but the aim assist pulls you in the wrong direction.

It doesn't say in the patch notes for necrom and it's not clear from the tooltip, but when you turn it off "for the arcanist", it's completely gone for all your aiming. You can aim smoothly on consoles now. Except the map, that's still an annoying mess. We can't even really zoom in on playstation... But that's for another discussion.

LunaFlora

Lebkuchen wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

aim assist is in accessibility settings on consoles and pc
what else besides Arcanist benefits from aim assist?

I would say aim assist has no benefits at all in this game. That's why i am so glad i can turn it off now.

On consoles it has always been active. For years, maybe even since this game came out. So when you were in a fight and wanted to aim at another target, the aim assist would stick to some random target, and make aiming a nightmare. Even turning around would never be smooth, because some enemy would always pull on your crosshairs like a magnet. Like when you are looking at the map, and want to zoom in somewhere, but the aim assist pulls you in the wrong direction.

It doesn't say in the patch notes for necrom and it's not clear from the tooltip, but when you turn it off "for the arcanist", it's completely gone for all your aiming. You can aim smoothly on consoles now. Except the map, that's still an annoying mess. We can't even really zoom in on playstation... But that's for another discussion.

i've never seen aim assist control my aim before update 38.
for the arcanist beams i think it just pulls my beam towards an enemy even when i'm not fully facing them

Altruz

jaws343 wrote: »

The moment I risked forced name changes due to database merges I'd be done with the game.

Cross play should never happen.

Who cares about characters names when you could find more ppl for any pve content/also revive PvP activity ?

XSTRONG

LunaFlora wrote: »

XSTRONG wrote: »

If I remember correct Rich said something about cross saving, shouldnt that mean i can play on PC server with my playstation account? Or the other way around

cross save in destiny 2 is being able to use your playstation, xbox, and steam accounts to play the game with the same characters as they're all linked to one bungie account, characters dont have names.

in eso i doubt that would work as there are 2 megaservers for all 3 platforms and you can have 20 characters on each.
all linked to one eso account
you could have 120 characters which could have duplicate names.
you would likely have to choose one platform's account to be the account everything is linked to? or maybe it would just default to pc if you've played on pc due to your eso account's name being your username on pc

i doubt it could work in eso

Then can some1 explain to me what Cross saving is?

LunaFlora

XSTRONG wrote: »

LunaFlora wrote: »

XSTRONG wrote: »

If I remember correct Rich said something about cross saving, shouldnt that mean i can play on PC server with my playstation account? Or the other way around

cross save in destiny 2 is being able to use your playstation, xbox, and steam accounts to play the game with the same characters as they're all linked to one bungie account, characters dont have names.

in eso i doubt that would work as there are 2 megaservers for all 3 platforms and you can have 20 characters on each.
all linked to one eso account
you could have 120 characters which could have duplicate names.
you would likely have to choose one platform's account to be the account everything is linked to? or maybe it would just default to pc if you've played on pc due to your eso account's name being your username on pc

i doubt it could work in eso

Then can some1 explain to me what Cross saving is?

https://www.gamesradar.com/cross-play-cross-platform-cross-save-cross-gen-cross-progression-explainer/

Tyrant_Tim

Amottica wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

People want cross-play because they want to play with their friends, first and foremost. Quite often you will have a friend or two that transfer over to PC and all of a sudden you can’t play with them any more, and it’s unfortunate.

One way that cross-play could be supported, would be by having verified player mods that can be downloaded to your game, similar to what is present on Skyrim, or by disabling all of the reactive gameplay mods present on PC.

An argument could be made about how excessive mods have become on PC, and that having access to things of the nature like being able to detect when an enemy is in stealth nearby, or having mods that turn the hardest PvE content into tutorials, are too much and are borderline cheating.

Either approach, cross-play is a must in this day, and to not have it on a game like ESO, when MMOs like Black Desert have managed to pull it off successfully years ago, being much more competitive games, shows how far behind we are.

How excessive or not excessive add-ons on PC are is irrelevant. All that is relevant is PC has add-ons and it is clear consoles are not intended to have them. Also, Zenimax is not going to take them away or disable them to make crossplay happen.

Even then, There is no way for a mod or add-on to make crossplay happen. Add-ons for ESO are very different than mods on Skyrim and the two games have a very different design.

UI overlay differences that aren’t reactive would be considered a zero hindrance to cross-play, which is in complete relevance to the topic.

Mods on Skyrim can meet a variety of types, including UI overlay, which makes up the majority of the ones allowed on ESO, when is the last time you’ve sifted through the modding categories?

evan302

I think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. I've played an MMO on console where cross-play was enabled. At the higher levels especially, console players were at a huge disadvantage.
Want to check your dps? Console player had a timed 'trial' hitting a target dummy, while PC players had full analysis of their play in the actual instance, plus figures for everyone else in their party.
Even the market board had add-ons that made buying and selling more efficient and profitable for people on PC.
It was nice playing with friends but I got tired of feeling like a second class citizen and trying to compete when I had very few tools by comparison and all of them were inferior.
Keeping PC players and console players separate does mean PC players enjoy a better quality of life, but it ensures both groups have an even playing field.

Apart from the issue that some people might not want cross-play, you also have to look at the chances of something going wrong. I doubt enabling cross-play would be cheap or simple.
If things didn't go to plan, every single player would be affected and sorting it out would cost the company even more money along with a loss of reputation. Going forward, any issues with the game would affect everyone, whereas now, usually only one group of players is affected.

If population is becoming an problem, I think it might be less risky and more cost effective for ZoS to look at player retention. I have quite a few friends who used to play ESO, not one of whom was playing when I started earlier this year.
I've seen lots of suggestions here as to how the new player experience might be improved, but while getting the DLC NPCS to disappear until level 6 is an improvement, it's really only tinkering at the edges of a much larger issue.

jaws343

Altruz wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

The moment I risked forced name changes due to database merges I'd be done with the game.

Cross play should never happen.

Who cares about characters names when you could find more ppl for any pve content/also revive PvP activity ?

Account names are the larger issue. They are unique to each platform. So someone in each platform can have the same account name.

But for consoles, those account names are our system names. They apply to every game we play online and are our profile tags. Essentially, they are our identity in our individual platform ecosystem.

The potential of having to change that to accommodate crossplay is a deal breaker. The potential of things breaking to avoid that forced change is enormous

I'll reiterate, apparently it seems that just by introducing the kill 20 arcanist's quests they fundamentally broke quest progress for players in the game.

If that 1 simple quest addition potentially broke the game, I can't imagine what something so complex as crossplay could/would do.

Tyrant_Tim

evan302 wrote: »

I think the potential risks outweigh the benefits. I've played an MMO on console where cross-play was enabled. At the higher levels especially, console players were at a huge disadvantage.

Being the type of game ESO is, it’s actually much easier to play with a controller than m&k, which is why some of the top PvP players from even the earliest points of the game, like Sypher, would use a controller. I can attest to this personally as well, as I’ve fought some of PC’s highest tier PvP players on the PTS, as an Xbox player, and there was very little, if any, difference in the levels of play.

If mods are creating an unequal playing field due to how trivial they are making content, like having reactive gameplay indicators in trials… that’s something that needs to be addressed in general for leaderboard competition as it creates an unequal raiding environment. Other than leaderboards, PvE is cooperative, so a slight advantage in it for PC doesn’t hurt console, it helps.

evan302 wrote: »

Going forward, any issues with the game would affect everyone, whereas now, usually only one group of players is affected.

Every game breaking patch that PC gets, lands on console too, that is a misconception people make due to the patch certification process that console goes through. ZOS usually creates a two week gap to make sure they can meet their DLC deadline stress-free, not to make sure bugs are isolated and patched before console gets them.

evan302 wrote: »

If population is becoming an problem…

Population hasn’t been a problem on Xbox NA, and I don’t foresee it ever becoming one. Due to Microsoft partnering with Zenimax, ESO has been getting a lot of advertisement on the home page of Xbox and a flood of players hitting the game every update. Being someone who plays both PC and Console, the difference in population is staggering. There are way more people on Xbox in town than I ever come across on PC NA, no matter the time of day.

In summary, cross-play would benefit everyone as that would mean a more social and connected experience for each platform included.

RodneyRegis

There are so many reason why this will never happen.

Braffin

RodneyRegis wrote: »

There are so many reason why this will never happen.

I agree. And to be honest: I don't see any need to implement it.

Lebkuchen

LunaFlora wrote: »

i've never seen aim assist control my aim before update 38.
for the arcanist beams i think it just pulls my beam towards an enemy even when i'm not fully facing them

I know some people never noticed it. Like some people don't see the lag in Cyrodiil. Or bugs in the game. Good for them. All i wanted to say was that we always had some sort of annoying aim assist on console and now we can deactivate it, and that's great.

Back to the real topic, i still think crossplay would be great. At least between consoles. If you don't think people would benefit from it, ask Xbox EU players how they feel about ESO at the moment (Xbox EU is dead). If it works for other games, why would it not work for ESO? All the problems are for skilled professionals to fix. I mean, we pay them for their work, we don't have to do it for them.

Braffin

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Back to the real topic, i still think crossplay would be great. At least between consoles. If you don't think people would benefit from it, ask Xbox EU players how they feel about ESO at the moment (Xbox EU is dead). If it works for other games, why would it not work for ESO? All the problems are for skilled professionals to fix. I mean, we pay them for their work, we don't have to do it for them.

I think merging xbox eu with xbox na could be a solution for this problem, as the latter community is thriving and surpasses even pc na by lengths according to some players on both servers. That would indeed be easy to do.

Lebkuchen

Maybe Xbox NA is "thriving" at the moment because so many Xbox EU players are starting over on NA? (Because they still have the old servers)

After playing on Playstation NA for a while (because Gray Host on Playstation EU was broken for about 6 months last year) i noticed that it would not be a good solution to merge EU and NA. The time zones are different, the connection is worse, the culture is different and there are many more reasons why i started playing more on EU again after performance got better.

Perfect solution for me would be to allow Xbox EU and Playstation EU to play with each other. But after reading all the negative comments here, and hearing what the devs have to say about it, i fear it's not going to happen.

Braffin

Lebkuchen wrote: »

Maybe Xbox NA is "thriving" at the moment because so many Xbox EU players are starting over on NA? (Because they still have the old servers)

After playing on Playstation NA for a while (because Gray Host on Playstation EU was broken for about 6 months last year) i noticed that it would not be a good solution to merge EU and NA. The time zones are different, the connection is worse, the culture is different and there are many more reasons why i started playing more on EU again after performance got better.

Perfect solution for me would be to allow Xbox EU and Playstation EU to play with each other. But after reading all the negative comments here, and hearing what the devs have to say about it, i fear it's not going to happen.

I don't think there are many players which oppose crossplay between different consoles. The problems most of us have are related to crossplay between pc and console, as we're indeed talking about very different gaming experiences here, especially regarding addons.

Another problem would be account- and characternames. But that's also something to solve quite easily, if we aren't talking about too much affected players. I don't know the amount of players on ps eu, but if it's similar to xbox, it could be doable.

I have now idea tho, if the involved companies are interested in something like that, especially as microsoft and sony aren't "best buddies".

Zastrix

Dagoth_Rac wrote: »

We can't even get crossplay between PC-NA and PC-EU! The PTS has to flip back and forth between NA and EU, as well. And the addition of PC characters to XBOX/PS was when it launched and ZOS stated it was because the XBOX/PS databases were completely empty. There are clearly very serious database key conflict issues when attempting to integrate megaservers.

I doubt it has anything to do with names. It is more likely primary database keys. Like JoeSchmo on PC-NA is character id 8625689214 and character JaneSchmaan on PC-EU is also character id 8625689214. But then that character id is also referenced on thousands and thousands of other database tables, linking inventory and achievements and CP and skill morphs and houses and collectibles and wayshrines unlocked. And it likely cascades. Character 6535683 is under Account 4679467964 and Account 4679467964 owns a particular instance of Grand Psijic Villa 4998723758 and Furnishing 806575735798 is linked to that house 4998723758. And so on and so on.

So you would have to traverse entire tree of database keys and set them all to new numbers to avoid conflicts but do it without breaking any existing links or accidentally duplicating links. No one wants to go to their Grand Psijic Villa and find that their storage container they keep their gold gear in had a database key conflict, got lost in the shuffle, and is no longer attached to their instance of Grand Psijic Villa. Or the container database key got doubled up and attached to two different Grand Psijic Villas and some random player suddenly had all your gear in their storage chest.

WOW has something like 100 realms in the U.S.A. It was designed from the beginning that people might transfer to one of the other servers. The ESO megaserver technology was supposed to abstract this away. There might be 100 servers in the background, but it would all appear as 1 single megaserver and "travel to player" would essentially move you between different realms/servers/instances transparently. Because of this, I feel like ESO was not built with the concept of server transfers.

There are no licensing or addon issues stopping PC-NA and PC-EU from having crossplay, or XBox-NA and XBox-EU, or PS-NA and PS-EU, and yet we have never seen even a hint of it happening. Until we see transfers or crossplay between different regional servers of same platform, I cannot imagine transfers or crossplay between different platforms.

Sure you can, you do have to set one database as the primary one and then check if the keys exist. If the database is only indexed via one long value that's not a problem. Just run checks if it exists in DB A and then update it in DB B. Double check that that's no join between character and user ID in both of the database and merge.

This would probably be a process of at least a week of downtime, but most people would probably be okay with that if it means way more players and being able to play with friends (I'd be happy to play with my little brother who only has an Xbox).

Amottica

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Tyrant_Tim wrote: »

People want cross-play because they want to play with their friends, first and foremost. Quite often you will have a friend or two that transfer over to PC and all of a sudden you can’t play with them any more, and it’s unfortunate.

One way that cross-play could be supported, would be by having verified player mods that can be downloaded to your game, similar to what is present on Skyrim, or by disabling all of the reactive gameplay mods present on PC.

An argument could be made about how excessive mods have become on PC, and that having access to things of the nature like being able to detect when an enemy is in stealth nearby, or having mods that turn the hardest PvE content into tutorials, are too much and are borderline cheating.

Either approach, cross-play is a must in this day, and to not have it on a game like ESO, when MMOs like Black Desert have managed to pull it off successfully years ago, being much more competitive games, shows how far behind we are.

How excessive or not excessive add-ons on PC are is irrelevant. All that is relevant is PC has add-ons and it is clear consoles are not intended to have them. Also, Zenimax is not going to take them away or disable them to make crossplay happen.

Even then, There is no way for a mod or add-on to make crossplay happen. Add-ons for ESO are very different than mods on Skyrim and the two games have a very different design.

UI overlay differences that aren’t reactive would be considered a zero hindrance to cross-play, which is in complete relevance to the topic.

Mods on Skyrim can meet a variety of types, including UI overlay, which makes up the majority of the ones allowed on ESO, when is the last time you’ve sifted through the modding categories?

@Tyrant_Tim

I did not suggest the comment was irrelevant to the topic. My comment was clearly the excess or lack of excess of add-ons itself was irrelevant as in it was a moot point because Zenimax will not be taking away add-ons from PC. Plain and simple.

Further, I made it clear that mods/add-ons were not the solution to making crossplay happen because it simply would not work which was suggested in the second paragraph. This is not a simple single-player game.

Ragnarok0130

Overamera wrote: »

Didn't they say it's pretty much impossible? I've also heard one of the reason they don't wanna do is because of the difference in economy. For me that's a bad reason for not wanting crossplay. Every single console player I've asked would die for crossplay even if it would mean the economy being ruined. Myself id rather be in a server full of players than in a dead server in the cost of ruining the economy.

Yes and ZoS also said alliance change tokens were impossible until they implemented them so ZoS saying something is impossible doesn't mean it can't or won't happen. I am a huge fan of crossplay in games. If a game company can allow all of their players to interact then it's better for the playerbase (and by extention their own quarterly financial reports) and the game over the long term. I don't care for anti-crossplay arguments citing "the economy" because the economy will self correct and equalize after a short time of turbulance.

The addon situation could be solved by ESO implementing a system similar to Fallout 4 and Skyrim SE's Creation Club where a selection of popular vetted addons could be freely available via a free section of the crown store.

blktauna

I see a lot of people here who have no idea what a heavy lift it ould be to deal with the myriad tables in these disparate dbs.

Everything about this code is fragile which is why I'm so sad they have backed away from doing a real re-write. That's the only way they will be able to get the systems robust enough to make and improvements happen. As to cross play... I have a big feeling there are contractual reasons that it isn't happening along with the mass horror of doing anything with their antiquated, cranky DBs