Any crossplay plans coming with the new servers changes?

Bokila

Since all platforms received new servers, are there any intentions to implement any kind of crossplay/crosssave feature in the game? I know this has been brought alot and mainly the reason why it was not possible was "that is not how the servers are structured". Well, now that we have new servers across all platforms, will it be possible to implement any type of crossplay? Did they have that in mind when they added the new servers?
Eso EU Xbox PVP is dead for example and it would benefit from such a change, even if it would be done to PVP only since they are instanced based and i suppose it would be easier to be done.

Blood_again

Just my guess.
If I planned any crossplay (like merging at least two platform servers), why would I update servers for both platforms separately?

Bokila

Blood_again wrote: »

Just my guess.
If I planned any crossplay (like merging at least two platform servers), why would I update servers for both platforms separately?

Idk because they are on different locations on earth? It's not like updating a software or something. They physically have to replace them.

RicAlmighty

This will never happen. The economies of each platform are so wildly different that there is no way to reconcile them without massive changes. No way Zos does this. Plus, Zos has a hard enough time with stable netcode on one platform, I cannot imagine them being able to pull this off seamlessly.

Bokila

RicAlmighty wrote: »

This will never happen. The economies of each platform are so wildly different that there is no way to reconcile them without massive changes. No way Zos does this.

Thought about this, that is why i mentioned pvp only change. It would benefit the dying servers such as Xbox EU.

RicAlmighty

Bokila wrote: »

RicAlmighty wrote: »

This will never happen. The economies of each platform are so wildly different that there is no way to reconcile them without massive changes. No way Zos does this.

Thought about this, that is why i mentioned pvp only change. It would benefit the dying servers such as Xbox EU.

It's not a bad idea in theory. I cannot see them ever letting EU and NA cross play, the connection differences would be tough to resolve. I know it took Bungie a long time to get cross-play working for Destiny 2 and they use peer-to-peer networking through Steam. So I'd think it would not be an easy thing for the current Zos to accomplish given that they run their own servers.

jaws343

Bokila wrote: »

RicAlmighty wrote: »

This will never happen. The economies of each platform are so wildly different that there is no way to reconcile them without massive changes. No way Zos does this.

Thought about this, that is why i mentioned pvp only change. It would benefit the dying servers such as Xbox EU.

It's been mentioned countless times before, but even for PVP this will never happen.

There is no way, with the way the game is built and segmented, for any interaction between platforms.

They can't even have interaction between servers on the same platform. Thinking this could happen across platforms is a pipe dream.

And the simplest factor that shuts this all down is account names. For example, my xbox account name is Jaws343. I have had that xbox account name for far longer than I have played ESO. That is literally my identity in the xbox ecosystem. If someone else has that same account name on PS or PC, 1 of us would be forced to make an ESO account change in order to be in the same database. Big no from me. Also likely a no from anyone else who would be forced to change their entire account name to accommodate.

freespirit

It would seem sensible to think about merging xbox-eu with xbox-na if the numbers on eu are really that low but the fact they are doing the upgrade work on eu right now it seems that isn't on their agenda atm.

One of the biggest issues always brought up in these type of discussion is name duplications, so until one platform's player base has shrunk so small that the forced name changes would be minimal I cannot see anything being done.

Bokila

Name duplications can be easly fixed by adding a platform icon next to the name and being able to select platform for some interactions like selecting it before sending a mail to someone.

ZOS_Kevin

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

tohopka_eso

Don't forget the add-ons with PC as well.

tohopka_eso

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

Since you posted at same time I did 😂
Benefit is finding groups, downside since PC can have add-ons there is possible griefing with console. Another game I play also has cross play but they try to also discourage add-ons and any harassment or griefing tends to lend to bans.

Braffin

tohopka_eso wrote: »

Don't forget the add-ons with PC as well.

That's where I see the main problem, yes.

Technical problems aside, I personally wouldn't mind some sort of crossplay, if the support for addons we're used to on pc isn't changed.

So the only possibilities I see for crossplay is between consoles.

Bokila

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

1. It would fix the low activity problem on Xbox EU (not sure if the activity is an issue on any other platform but even if the playercount will drop on any other platform it would not feel noticeable in a crossplay setting.)
2. It would allow us to play with friends from different platforms. I recently had an irl friend that moved from Xbox EU to PC EU and would like to play together. We still share achievements between each other but it's not as good as playing together.
3. With the addition of a cross save feature i would be able to play eso on my account anywhere i wanted. You might have noticed that the handheld market is raising. I have a steam deck and it would be amazing to play eso on my account on the go but unfortunately i am limited by the platform i am playing on. I can't just carry the xbox and a monitor everywhere i go.
4. Having universal prices to any game related item. Item prices (even crown store item prices) are being given a price tag depending on the platform. I have seen alot of content creators either sharing tips on how to make gold, either just stating prices of things generally and it does not reflect the prices of the other platforms. Players could avoid getting scammed if there would be an overall price platform wise for anything and it won't happen without crossplay. Of course, it would be a major shift but would help in the long run.

SerafinaWaterstar

tohopka_eso wrote: »

Don't forget the add-ons with PC as well.

This.

This is one of the fundamental problems with the idea of cross platform play. (Id also an issue as addressed by others above)

Could understand cross server play within platforms, or even cross console sharing.

But pc - no. Because of add ons

ghost_bg_ESO

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

my beta monkey from PC - support said they can't give it to me on XBOX

pain points, hmm...:
> crowns (sadly platform shop locked)
> crown store purchases (same)
> mount training (probably longest "grind" without purchasing lessons)
> accumulated cosmetics through events or even streams (at least streams could be tracked and activated)
> gold and mats - this i can't see to happen without breaking console economy...
> probably for most people having only one account - how much it will take to level up and do again all quests (which is actually couple of months)
(> leveling skill lines on multiple characters without purchase from crown store)

Bokila

tohopka_eso wrote: »

Don't forget the add-ons with PC as well.

Personally, add-ons don't bother me. I see why it would be a problem for some people but just being able to have eso on the go on a steam deck as an xbox player would outmatch any "disadvantage" brought by the add-ons.
I also think that it would be amazing for casuals because generally they don't care about add-ons.

Ingenon

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

At this time, I am not running into any pain points that this would help solve. My play is PvE only on PS/NA, split between overland solo/duo questing, crafting, trials with guild, dungeons with either PUG or guild. There are enough folks on PS/NA now that I am able to find folks for groups (trials/dungeons).

Please do not implement cross-play between PS/NA and PC/Any, because of the PC add-ons. Unless of course you want to implement the popular crafting and combat add-ons for console!

ShawnF

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

What pain points are you running into that this would help solve?

To be honest, if Bethesda goes forward with their plans to have Starfield and ES6 be Xbox/PC only, I might finally invest in something other than a PS5 - but I wouldn't play ESO on that new system, because (a) the friends I want to play with aren't there, and (b) the chapters I've purchased, characters I've created, gear I've farmed, houses I own, etc. aren't there either.

If you can implement console cross-play, it would be a motivator for me to invest in hardware to try Starfield or any future non-playstation Elder Scrolls games.

I can see a solid argument for avoiding PC vs console cross-play. The advantages that come with PC addons would make that a real mess (both in say, pvp, but also things like PC players carrying console players through trials) and the economies are wildly different. I see PC guild store prices are sometimes 10x console prices, I assume because gold is more plentiful due to... automation? If I could have all 10 characters do their daily crafting writs automatically I'd be loaded. Maybe some sort of cross-play where you can adventure with anyone but only trade with players from the same platform? I'm sure that's not a coding challenge at all

Failing all of that, syncing account-wide bound purchases (chapters, crown store items, in-game houses) and CP level would be a win. I might need to start new characters from scratch and farm new gear on xbox, but if I had access to bankers and didn't need to re-earn 2000 CP it would be slightly more appealing.

Braffin

Bokila wrote: »

tohopka_eso wrote: »

Don't forget the add-ons with PC as well.

Personally, add-ons don't bother me. I see why it would be a problem for some people but just being able to have eso on the go on a steam deck as an xbox player would outmatch any "disadvantage" brought by the add-ons.
I also think that it would be amazing for casuals because generally they don't care about add-ons.

I can agree with you on that: If addons stay untouched, I'd personally support crossplay options. Unfortunately the upcoming balance-discussion seems inevitable, so I remain sceptical.

phaneub17_ESO

I do miss Stadia for the convenience of playing it on my phone from anywhere. It was sort of crossplay that I can play the game on another device without my addons. Steamlink still requires my PC running to stream it, I'm not keen on buying a steam deck yet.

Xandreia_

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

honestly, cross play would be the worst thing to happen to ESO, the servers would simply collapse under the strain. the state of the game as it is would have to be completely reworked and re coded to facilitate cross play which would open up other issues too. Addons would have to be completely removed from pc or there would have to be a way to access them on console, removing addons from pc would not go down well with pc players.

over all the game is not and should not accommodate cross play. while people are constantly asking for it, i dont think they fully understand the logistics and issues that would come with adding cross play, the game just simply is not made for it, its too old.

Sn00ps

@ZOS_Kevin The main issue that Crossplay would resolve is lower player population on say our Xbox EU servers as one primary example, if you combined NA and EU into one server you would have much larger population spread accross multiple timezones meaning there would be more people to play with 24 hours a day. If it is something that is possible Zos should explore implementing it. By the way thanks for upgrading our Xbox EU servers finally today after such a long wait, I hope they fix all the issues we have been having I look forward to playing and testing performance after the maintenance.

TaSheen

Xandreia_ wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

honestly, cross play would be the worst thing to happen to ESO, the servers would simply collapse under the strain. the state of the game as it is would have to be completely reworked and re coded to facilitate cross play which would open up other issues too. Addons would have to be completely removed from pc or there would have to be a way to access them on console, removing addons from pc would not go down well with pc players.

over all the game is not and should not accommodate cross play. while people are constantly asking for it, i dont think they fully understand the logistics and issues that would come with adding cross play, the game just simply is not made for it, its too old.

This is pretty much how I feel as well. Right now, the game runs really well for me (no endgame or pvp - not part of my playstyle/idea of fun) - except when there's a free to play thing, combined with events; with crossplay that would be how it would run all the time, and sorry, but I'm not a masochist.

I'd go back to Skyrim and Oblivion, and hope TES 6 releases before I'm too old to play computer games.

Xandreia_

Sn00ps wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin The main issue that Crossplay would resolve is lower player population on say our Xbox EU servers as one primary example, if you combined NA and EU into one server you would have much larger population spread accross multiple timezones meaning there would be more people to play with 24 hours a day. If it is something that is possible Zos should explore implementing it. By the way thanks for upgrading our Xbox EU servers finally today after such a long wait, I hope they fix all the issues we have been having I look forward to playing and testing performance after the maintenance.

agreed, combining NA and EU servers on each separate platform would make more sense than having cross play between every platform.

Ishtarknows

freespirit wrote: »

It would seem sensible to think about merging xbox-eu with xbox-na if the numbers on eu are really that low but the fact they are doing the upgrade work on eu right now it seems that isn't on their agenda .

Why would merging NA and EU servers be sensible? One continent would be greatly disadvantaged by lag and the time differences would mess with things like prime time and maintenance scheduling, not to mention things like double the number of guilds bidding on guild stores with not enough to go round etc

kmilky

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

Thanks for asking!

> Cross-Save

I started playing ESO before One Tamriel on Xbox. 2-3 years later, I got a gaming PC and moved over. I'd love to get some of my old achievements, mounts, collectibles, etc. merged to my PC account. This account merge feature would honestly be my number one hope/prayer/goal from any kind of cross-platform integration.

> Cross-Play

I have friends who play on consoles and I'd love to help them level, do trials, dungeons, etc. Many of them don't have PCs and can't justify the cost, and I don't keep up w/ the DLC, my account progress, etc. on console. I'd be awesome to remove that barrier and let more people play together.

spoqster

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

Speaking from the perspective of one of the smallest servers (xbox eu), there are many situations where it’s not easy to play efficiently.
- Empty Cyrodiil
- Empty Imperial City
- Non-instantaneous ToT queues
- Long wait for dungeon queues

(I was actually very surprised ToT didn’t launch as a global service.)

Another big advantage would be that the experience for non-primetime users would improve. Yes, during primetime I want to play with users from my time zone. Yes, I want to prog trials with users from my time zone. But what if I want to play at 4am for some reason. My timezone is dead, but somewhere else in the world thousands of users are online. What about people who can only play during morning hours, etc.

Being able to fire up the game on pc as a console player can be interesting for testing purposes. Even though I prefer to play with fewer addons, it’s sometimes very important to use them for testing purposes, as the game communicates many mechanics very poorly to the player. (Great that you show us our dps after parsing for 3 mins, why not show us a full cmx-like results screen, so we can actually see where we are missing damage. Bind it to an expensive pro dummy and you don’t have to worry about a casual ever getting confused by it.)

Also there is a big difference between merging servers, enabling crossplay for certain content, and just enabling cross save. The latter two would be tremendously less complex and dangerous than merging servers, but give many of the same benefits.

Cross-save: Just being able to log in with my toons on xbox na or pc eu would already solve some of these issues.

Cross-play: Being able to queue into dungeons or tot games with players from other servers, or making pvp zones from other servers available to us would vastly improve much of the gaming experience.

Bo0137

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

My main necessity for crossplay is to actually access PC NA while away from home (on my mobile phone and other small devices). I just want to do my daily and weekly endeavors, minor tasks like event dailies, checking sold items, getting the daily passives bonuses and maybe doing a few daily quests.

I don’t want to spend that much money into Steam Deck or Rog Ally.

Right now I’m abroad for the next 30 days so that means I will waste a whole month of ESO Plus, endeavors and so on.

To put it clear: we have a really really good and easy to use cloud system already and… it’s Xbox server only. That is.. painful. And to make things worse, no other cloud system is allowed to run ESO for you (not that I know).

So we are tied to either: 1. carry our laptop around (assuming you have one); 2. migrate to Xbox server (which would have you abandon your pre existing account); 3. buy a very expensive handheld gaming machine. None of these seem ok to me.

Also, thank you Kevin for the always caring work. We really appreciate it!

zaria

Crossplay without merging databases would be hard, it depend a lot on how the architecture is set up. Do they copy part of the account data to the physical servers or is all using one huge database?
In the later no, they have to merge, if not it might be possible but hard.

simonjadis

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

While we don't have any news to share about cross-play or cross-save functionality at this time, we want to acknowledge that we do see this request often. We'd like to hear your thoughts on the reasons why you would like to see this functionality in ESO. What pain points are you running into that this would help solve? The feedback here is helpful for us to share with the team.

I would love to play with friends who only play on console. On a similar note, I would love to be able to bring a friend over to tour one of my houses or to give them rides to key wayshrines even if they play on EU PC servers, things that simply creating characters on the other server cannot address.

I realize that there are probably incentives on ZOS' end against unifying collectibles/accounts across all platforms and servers but even just allowing us to keep collectibles between servers and between linked accounts might encourage people to try new platforms and convince more friends to play. If cross-play isn't viable, what about cross-save?