Population shrinking, PLEASE do something

LatentBuzzard

manukartofanu wrote: »

But on the other hand, what exactly was going on with this game's development that, even with entire quarters dedicated solely to fixing bugs, it still ended up in a barely playable state?

It was never about fixing bugs, it was about making the right noise to placate the playerbase and to allow ZOS to put in even less effort. I was actually excited for the first time that ZOS was going to dedicate a quarterly update to QoL and bug fixes and got hyped when Gina started going on about how many pages of patch notes needed to be compiled. Then the update dropped and it turns out those pages were half filled and with the proverbial double spaced lines outlining the "fixes" of the lowest of low hanging fruit. An entire quarter's update barely giving a fraction of what it was supposed to. Fast forward to this years quarterly "QoL and bug fixes" and they've put in even less effort and released even less QoL and bug fixes.

So by this point it should be clear that this change wasn't actually to fix the game and that's why it's still broken. This change was purely to allow them to put in less effort.

Aurielle

VDoom1 wrote: »

As a crafter and someone who loots like everything, inventory management is a nightmare. Bank cut in half, housing cut in half. I feel like I can't game "properly" without ESO+ because my inventory has reduced to the size of a shoe box.

I felt that way too, but it’s really not that bad (on PC, where you have addons to help with inventory management). A lot of the stuff we loot in this game is simply automatic vendor trash — and that includes a lot of the crafting materials we pick up. Have you ever looked at all the provisioning materials you have in your craft bag, for instance? Likely thousands upon thousands upon thousands of each ingredient. You don’t NEED any more. Just sell that stuff to vendors or players when you pick it up and don’t have ESO+.

As for sets, I haven’t felt any need to hold onto sets since the advent of the sticker book system. All my alts carry their dedicated sets, and any shared sets just sit in my bank.

Re: bank slots, I typically have 60 slots open to work with at any given time. I also have something like 200 empty slots in my housing chests and nothing to fill them with.

Long story short, once I realized hoarding every single crafting material and piece of loot was pointless, inventory management became a whole lot easier.

As for the topic at hand, I’m still playing regularly, but have also noticed fewer people online than usual. I guess people are getting fed up with the abysmal ping spikes / disconnects of the last few months and are voting with their feet. They may also be getting fed up with the yo-yo balancing of sets they’ve grinded recently (e.g. Pyrebrand). I don’t blame anyone walking away from the game at this point. I often ask myself these days why I even bothered returning to ESO. It was fun for a little while getting caught up after my long break, then the same old issues that drove me away to begin with reared their ugly heads again.

Shara_Wynn

Well I still enjoy playing ESO.

I only joined the game in 2022 and I won't be leaving to play anything else until the next decent MMORPG comes out (which as far as I'm concerned, isn't happening anytime soon).

MISTFORMBZZZ

robwolf666 wrote: »

I like it when it's quiet, I don't feel like I'm having to compete with other players while questing. It's kind of annoying to be doing a quest when loads of other people are doing it at the same time, or you go somewhere and there's nothing to fight because everything is already dead - or worse, someone is sitting on a location farming XP etc. Quiet is good in my book.

Eso is an MMO. Its not the point to be quiet. I dont think the devs want it quiet. Quiet means less people = less people spending money.

Maybe have a look at Skyrim

Silaf

Lack of content is definitly an issue.

The whole reward structure based on collecting usless non meta sets is becoming quite boring. Even as an old player i can only do so many infinite arkive...

And with the new event we will farm even more sets for the trial.

Oh and the gifting of items previously sold in the store for free is annoying too.


I'm hoping for some new content that will not follow the same old structure with the same elements on the map again and again.
And finally i want a progression for my character. Let the story continue i'm tired of being stuck in time because we need to cater to new players.

Elsonso

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

It’s funny how whenever people talk about the significant population decline on PC EU, there's always someone who jumps in to say that Steam numbers are irrelevant and that actually, somewhere out there on consoles and other launchers, everything is just fine.

Absolutely agree. It's quite amusing because I encountered a very similar situation just a few days ago on a popular French-speaking forum dedicated to ESO. A guy was claiming that the Steam numbers were irrelevant and that the game was gaining 2 million new players each year. When we pointed out (he was the only one backing this claim) that this number was largely due to players farming accounts during the free play period, he just couldn't accept it and he kept coping for pages lmao.

If the guy is using ZOS numbers as the basis for the 2 million claim, ZOS did say that the trial accounts are not included in their numbers.

JanTanhide

I think the player base is definitely going down as ZOS nerfs more and more classes into the ground. I guess they didn't learn from Update 35 not to do that again but here we are. Nightblade's Cloak being turned into a toggle function is ludicrous. It's the main ability of that class that defines it. But here we are after what? Ten years and now it's gotta be changed. Not just NB's but every class has seen horrible changes that no one asked for. Templar jabs? Really? Necro changes so bad most seem to be parked forever now. The list goes on and on and on.

My main guild from years and years ago use to have at least 80 people on every night to run dungeons, trials, etc. Ever since U35s it's a ghost guild. They all logged off and never came back with a few exceptions, me being one of them. I just do my daily's now in the morning then log off till the next day.

JiubLeRepenti

Elsonso wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

It’s funny how whenever people talk about the significant population decline on PC EU, there's always someone who jumps in to say that Steam numbers are irrelevant and that actually, somewhere out there on consoles and other launchers, everything is just fine.

Absolutely agree. It's quite amusing because I encountered a very similar situation just a few days ago on a popular French-speaking forum dedicated to ESO. A guy was claiming that the Steam numbers were irrelevant and that the game was gaining 2 million new players each year. When we pointed out (he was the only one backing this claim) that this number was largely due to players farming accounts during the free play period, he just couldn't accept it and he kept coping for pages lmao.

If the guy is using ZOS numbers as the basis for the 2 million claim, ZOS did say that the trial accounts are not included in their numbers.

I've been searching for sources and found these:

https://insider-gaming.com/elder-scrolls-online-24-million-players/
https://news.instant-gaming.com/en/articles/4391-the-elder-scrolls-online-has-attracted-24-million-players

I didn't find any mention of the exclusion of trial accounts. They probably mentioned it in a stream? I would be very interested if you had a source for that. 😊

Aside from that, even if it’s true, I really wonder where these 2 million new players are. I mean, I can’t recall all the threads I’ve seen complaining about how empty the console megaservers are in certain instances or PvP zones.

The only reliable figures would be how many people are simultaneously logged on each megaserver, but I'm afraid ZOS will never share that information.

MISTFORMBZZZ

The two million players are deffo not on ps eu i can tell ^^

Imo zos really needs to do something urgently.

Bring crossplay at least, most of us dont enjoy playing an mmo alone..

tom6143346

Well less content , not enough rewards, more and more milking even the last possible cent from the player with putting all the nice things into the crow store( look at the mount you can earn while doing the next upcoming event , what even is this ? ) , buggs that really in for years still not fixed and last but not least, for years ZOS barley give players what they really want / asked for . Combine all of that and people slowly but surely start to get away especially if other games start to do the exact things way better. Does it surprise me, not at all. My friendliest gets more empty every month. It’s a bit sad bc the game itself has a great potential to make healthy money in the long term for the devs.

Elsonso

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

It’s funny how whenever people talk about the significant population decline on PC EU, there's always someone who jumps in to say that Steam numbers are irrelevant and that actually, somewhere out there on consoles and other launchers, everything is just fine.

Absolutely agree. It's quite amusing because I encountered a very similar situation just a few days ago on a popular French-speaking forum dedicated to ESO. A guy was claiming that the Steam numbers were irrelevant and that the game was gaining 2 million new players each year. When we pointed out (he was the only one backing this claim) that this number was largely due to players farming accounts during the free play period, he just couldn't accept it and he kept coping for pages lmao.

If the guy is using ZOS numbers as the basis for the 2 million claim, ZOS did say that the trial accounts are not included in their numbers.

I've been searching for sources and found these:

https://insider-gaming.com/elder-scrolls-online-24-million-players/
https://news.instant-gaming.com/en/articles/4391-the-elder-scrolls-online-has-attracted-24-million-players

I didn't find any mention of the exclusion of trial accounts. They probably mentioned it in a stream? I would be very interested if you had a source for that. 😊

Aside from that, even if it’s true, I really wonder where these 2 million new players are. I mean, I can’t recall all the threads I’ve seen complaining about how empty the console megaservers are in certain instances or PvP zones.

The only reliable figures would be how many people are simultaneously logged on each megaserver, but I'm afraid ZOS will never share that information.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25699

JiubLeRepenti

Elsonso wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

It’s funny how whenever people talk about the significant population decline on PC EU, there's always someone who jumps in to say that Steam numbers are irrelevant and that actually, somewhere out there on consoles and other launchers, everything is just fine.

Absolutely agree. It's quite amusing because I encountered a very similar situation just a few days ago on a popular French-speaking forum dedicated to ESO. A guy was claiming that the Steam numbers were irrelevant and that the game was gaining 2 million new players each year. When we pointed out (he was the only one backing this claim) that this number was largely due to players farming accounts during the free play period, he just couldn't accept it and he kept coping for pages lmao.

If the guy is using ZOS numbers as the basis for the 2 million claim, ZOS did say that the trial accounts are not included in their numbers.

I've been searching for sources and found these:

https://insider-gaming.com/elder-scrolls-online-24-million-players/
https://news.instant-gaming.com/en/articles/4391-the-elder-scrolls-online-has-attracted-24-million-players

I didn't find any mention of the exclusion of trial accounts. They probably mentioned it in a stream? I would be very interested if you had a source for that. 😊

Aside from that, even if it’s true, I really wonder where these 2 million new players are. I mean, I can’t recall all the threads I’ve seen complaining about how empty the console megaservers are in certain instances or PvP zones.

The only reliable figures would be how many people are simultaneously logged on each megaserver, but I'm afraid ZOS will never share that information.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25699

Thanks for the link!

He says:

Please note that this number does NOT include beta players (who played the game before we launched) and it also does not include players from our free trial (Xbox-only, in December of 2015). It all boils down to one thing: a LOT of people have purchased and played the game during the last two years, and we are grateful for each and every one.

It would be intriguing to find out if the same applies to other trial periods. However, I still wonder where are all these 2 million new players who join ESO each year.

MISTFORMBZZZ

tom6143346 wrote: »

Well less content , not enough rewards, more and more milking even the last possible cent from the player with putting all the nice things into the crow store( look at the mount you can earn while doing the next upcoming event , what even is this ? ) , buggs that really in for years still not fixed and last but not least, for years ZOS barley give players what they really want / asked for . Combine all of that and people slowly but surely start to get away especially if other games start to do the exact things way better. Does it surprise me, not at all. My friendliest gets more empty every month. It’s a bit sad bc the game itself has a great potential to make healthy money in the long term for the devs.

Some of the new skill colours will be also just aviable behind a paywall, like the winter skills styles , seen and checked on pts.

N00BxV1

There's just not a whole lot to do in ESO these days since they've been releasing less content, especially if we've played for a long time and have already completed everything. And the constant changes (that most people hate), bugs, and server/performance problems does not make people feel good about playing the game.

ESO has simply become a "drop in, drop out" type of game for me. I'll play a little bit here and there when I feel like it or if there's something meaningful to do, but in the meantime I'll be playing other games where I don't have to deal with all of the problems.

I'm getting tired of all the problems and tricks with Live Service and MMO types of games. For a while there's been some trends happening... Calling a content release "overdelivery" so that next time they can deliver less content, charging the same price (or more) while delivering less content, labeling bug fixes and performance improvements as "free content updates", and just trying to get by with as least effort as possible while charging us an arm and a leg... Well it's no wonder why people go crazy over games like Elden Ring, God of War, Black Myth: Wukong, etc. because those games are all fun without any of the tricks or problems.

karthrag_inak

Khajiit thinks the solution to this is actually quite easy, really.

Devs must look at internal metrics offering playtime stats and then just follow the recipe. Since khajiit does not have access to such a thing, he is going to use Steam Charts to illustrate.

First :

1. Notice the months with positive growth in number of average players.
2. Investigate what was done right before then.
3. Do that again.

and, tails entwined with this, also :

1. Notice the months with negative growth (loss) in number of average players.
2. Investigate what was done right before then.
3. Do not ever do that again, and perhaps even undo it.

Obviously the biggest single jump came when Greymoons was released back in 2020, and that was the Skyrim Effect(TM) that would probably not be able to be duplicated.

But in general, it is not hard to see what players want - new fun stuff to do.

karthrag_inak

They definitely need to never take things out of the game, though. That is the opposite of giving folks "new fun stuff to do". Add new systems - this is great! Expand existing systems - also great!

For example, the removal of the 3 team battleground system is grievously misdirected, in khajiit's view. Adding the 2-team battleground configurations and new maps is delightful, but removing the existing system is a bad choice.

Khajiit is just a single person, it is known (well 19 khajiit and 1 argonian with fluffy delusions) but this single person has nearly 20k steam hours in game (15k actual played hours based on in-game stats) and a good portion of that was playing 3-team battlegrounds. The 3-team component made this otherwise mundane pvp more interesting - temporary allies/enemy of khajiit's enemy/"sneak win while they fight" type situations allowing for much more interesting strategies.

Khajiit has much less interest in the 2-team version. This is just boring mundane rock-em-sock-em robot style, and frankly is done much better than ESO could possibly do in other games.

AzuraFan

VDoom1 wrote: »

ESO+ just does not feel worth the price. Without ESO+ for me personally, the game feels almost unplayable.

As a crafter and someone who loots like everything, inventory management is a nightmare. Bank cut in half, housing cut in half. I feel like I can't game "properly" without ESO+ because my inventory has reduced to the size of a shoe box.

It sounds like ESO+ is worth the price for you if your gaming experience is terrible without it. I started to think that ESO+ wasn't worth it, so I cancelled it. Then I was spending too much time managing inventory that I could be spending on playing the game. I also didn't like passing up on loot. So I realized that ESO+ is worth the price for me. I resubbed and have been happily picking up everything since then. And I spend almost no time on inventory management. I do go to the bank occasionally, but that's it.

Anifaas wrote: »

I'd happily keep paying and playing even with the enormous amount of bugs and stability issues. But there's nothing to work on or look forward to.

I agree about happily keep playing and there being nothing to look forward to for a year at a time (well, companions in the coming Q4, but they won't keep me busy long). Fortunately I still have lots to do in-game because I hardly touched dungeons until a couple of months ago. But once those are done and I've completed the achievements I care about, I'm not sure what I'll do.

BXR_Lonestar

I think people are just busy playing that insane new game, Concord....

MISTFORMBZZZ

I have spoken to guildmates on my server (PS EU) about the undaunted event.

Even during prime time the group finder for pledges was unuseable because queue times for over 30 minutes.

Even when people did fake queues as tank or healer.

You got crazy good rewards, you could unlock new skill colours, mofits and all these keys.

And still yet group finder wasnt in many cases able to find other 3 people to do pledges with you, during a PLEDGE EVENT lol.

PVP in the past 12 days was also no option because it was 1-2 bars during prime time on greyhost, because there is no population.

Its so frustrating.

I honestly even wonder what im doing here, im the only one person in my eso friend circle who uses the forum, everyone is just like there is no point anyway and tbh it feels like its true.
I just wanna play and enjoy my favorite game, but instead im here and hoping for better times

Grizzbeorn

method__01 wrote: »

i cant believe what im reading here...players asked for less content? and if so,zos choose to listen to those ppl?
un believable

I've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years here wherein people demand that ZOS take a break from producing new content in favor of bug fixes and QOL.
I don't know if you were being sarcastic toward my statement, but those threads I just referenced exist.
And when ZOS laid-out their new plan with the coming of the Necrom chapter last year, it certainly appeared that ZOS caved to those "less content" demands... we no longer get the second dungeon DLC in Q3 (which is now devoted to QOL}, we get only the Q1 dungeon DLC, and the Chapter release (which many perceive as getting smaller) in Q2, and no more Q4 Story DLC, in favor of a "new system."

LootAllTheStuff

Elsonso wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

It’s funny how whenever people talk about the significant population decline on PC EU, there's always someone who jumps in to say that Steam numbers are irrelevant and that actually, somewhere out there on consoles and other launchers, everything is just fine.

Absolutely agree. It's quite amusing because I encountered a very similar situation just a few days ago on a popular French-speaking forum dedicated to ESO. A guy was claiming that the Steam numbers were irrelevant and that the game was gaining 2 million new players each year. When we pointed out (he was the only one backing this claim) that this number was largely due to players farming accounts during the free play period, he just couldn't accept it and he kept coping for pages lmao.

If the guy is using ZOS numbers as the basis for the 2 million claim, ZOS did say that the trial accounts are not included in their numbers.

I've been searching for sources and found these:

https://insider-gaming.com/elder-scrolls-online-24-million-players/
https://news.instant-gaming.com/en/articles/4391-the-elder-scrolls-online-has-attracted-24-million-players

I didn't find any mention of the exclusion of trial accounts. They probably mentioned it in a stream? I would be very interested if you had a source for that. 😊

Aside from that, even if it’s true, I really wonder where these 2 million new players are. I mean, I can’t recall all the threads I’ve seen complaining about how empty the console megaservers are in certain instances or PvP zones.

The only reliable figures would be how many people are simultaneously logged on each megaserver, but I'm afraid ZOS will never share that information.

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/25699

The blog post that last link points to is dated 2016. Things might have changed since then.

AzuraFan

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

I've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years here wherein people demand that ZOS take a break from producing new content in favor of bug fixes and QOL.

I remember those threads too. There were even polls about it where fixing bugs and QoL changes came out on top or pretty close. I'm with the others who say that bug fixes should be happening all the time. I've never played an MMO where the devs say they won't release content so they can fix bugs, and frankly ZOS hasn't said that either. They said QoL changes, but those changes have been disappointing, for the most part. Certainly not worth giving up a Q4 DLC for.

Having said that, I'm not sure ZOS was influenced by forum posters asking for a pause in content for bug fixes/QoL changes. The game is 10 years old, they're working on another MMO, and they know that when TES6 drops, this game's population will dip considerably and will never reach the same heights as before. IOW, the game always had a "best before" date on it. So while the game isn't in maintenance mode, you can tell by the systems they're releasing and the smaller chapters that the dev resources aren't what they used to be.

Given that, and the fact that the population is dropping (I agree with a post above that wait times in the dungeon queues during the undaunted event were pretty long, considering), ZOS needs to start thinking about making some changes for when groups are difficult to find. Otherwise this game will die quickly when people can't do the content they want to do during prime time, because they can't find anyone to group with. They need to make all dungeons soloable (no mechanics requiring two people), and they need to introduce a real easy mode for instanced content.

(from my own anecdotal experience on PC/NA, I belong to two active PvE guilds. In one of the guilds, the attendance for PvE events has considerably dropped. Sometimes we'd need to form multiple groups. Not anymore. Just recently, only 2 people showed up for a weekend event, and one event had to be cancelled for the first time because they couldn't fill a group.)

nbksaske

They're going to have to do something, with T&A and NW coming to console soon ESO will have some competition.

Nardvark

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

I currently have over 7,000 hours on ESO. I also know a lot of people, through guilds, Discord channels, forums, who used to be endgame/PvP players with over 5,000 hours or even 10,000 hours. Many of them have simply stopped playing. Because ZOS has been stuck in the same content loop for years now.

I think a lot of players got tired of asking for the same things over and over again, without ever really being listened to. I could easily list over fifty suggestions that have been made by the community over the years and never implemented by ZOS.

ZOS keeps hiding behind the “technical limitations” of its servers and game engine to justify its lack of innovation/meeting expectations. This is all very well. But gamers (in general, not just the ZOS community) simply don't care. Just do it. Fix the servers and the game engine. Or let the game slowly but surely die.

And don't feel sorry for the game. We're literally paying for it. I've personally spent over 5,000 euros on this game over the years. But I'm not investing another cent. The game and its new content simply don't deserve it.

I agree with you 100% I keep checking in to see whats going on but... they never seem to improve just add crap no one cares about..

and Arcanaist just completely killed the game for me.. why play any other class when arcanist can do it better.. classes feel homogenized and have zero identity.. its just sad

MISTFORMBZZZ

nbksaske wrote: »

They're going to have to do something, with T&A and NW coming to console soon ESO will have some competition.

Dont forget PalWorld
Not my type of game but it has its hype and will drag people of eso.

And a lot of these games have cross play.

Go with the time or be gone in no time

method__01

Grizzbeorn wrote: »

method__01 wrote: »

i cant believe what im reading here...players asked for less content? and if so,zos choose to listen to those ppl?
un believable

I've lost count of the number of threads I've seen over the years here wherein people demand that ZOS take a break from producing new content in favor of bug fixes and QOL.
I don't know if you were being sarcastic toward my statement, but those threads I just referenced exist.
And when ZOS laid-out their new plan with the coming of the Necrom chapter last year, it certainly appeared that ZOS caved to those "less content" demands... we no longer get the second dungeon DLC in Q3 (which is now devoted to QOL}, we get only the Q1 dungeon DLC, and the Chapter release (which many perceive as getting smaller) in Q2, and no more Q4 Story DLC, in favor of a "new system."

unfortunately im not ,i feel the same way ,icant do much about it but i already reduced my sub to 6 months from year
and will go down to monthly and stop all crown store purchases, till i get a clearer picture of whats about to happen

Theist_VII

They can no longer afford to ignore our problems, next month we have five games demanding our attention, make no mistake they will be directly eating off of ZOS’s plate.

• Throne and Liberty
• Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred
• New World: Aeternum
• Dragon Age: The Veilguard
• Ashes of Creation Alpha 2

Then we have a constant drip feed of new fantasy titles coming with four of the listed games directly competing with Elder Scrolls as first person titles…

• Avowed
• Path of Exile 2
• Kingdom Come Deliverance II
• Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon
• Fable
• Alkahest
• ArcheAge: Chronicles
  ect…

We’re about to turn the corner into a new golden age for medieval fantasy games and if ESO is to stay relevant, that takes investment.

JiubLeRepenti

Btw, it's very... Ahem... Active this evening in group finder on PC EU...

Trials

Arenas

Dungeons

It's 9:20PM here in Belgium (same for France, Netherlands, Germany)... and 8:20PM for the UK.

It was slighly better an hour ago (three trials groups, one arena group, two dungeons group).

MISTFORMBZZZ

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Btw, it's very... Ahem... Active this evening in group finder on PC EU...

Trials

Arenas

Dungeons

It's 9:20PM here in Belgium (same for France, Netherlands, Germany)... and 8:20PM for the UK.

It was slighly better an hour ago (three trials groups, one arena group, two dungeons group).

on ps eu nothing at all.

Cyro 1 bar AD , 2 bar ep, 1 bar dc

great game

Daiyanae

It use to be; I loved more things about this game than not, so I subscribed to ESO+ and played for years.

Then; Changes came along and I disliked more things than I loved, so I unsubscribed.

Finally; It became a grind and actually I was no longer happy playing, so I quit altogether.

And after more than a year, I've read forums and watched newest Youtubes, hoping to find again that game that I absolutely adored to no avail.

But I've found two games now, that I can love!

So, here's to a Happy Ending!