Population shrinking, PLEASE do something

SerafinaWaterstar

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

PS EU Friday 5:20 pm



and

PS NA Friday at like 11:20 am because of like -6h Time difference.




I just look now how to cancel my eso plus, i will renew it when cross play is implemented, so probably never. Its what it is.

As I said previously, looking at Grey Host at the moment is no indicator as EP have such a huge lead hardly anyone in AD or DC are playing - PLUS there is an event on, and from where I am there are a LOT of players around on PS EU.

MISTFORMBZZZ

Theist_VII wrote: »

After playing Throne and Liberty, it’s so easy to see what ESO’s Game Director would need to do in order to keep the game relevant, but it’s too late.

Zenimax had until the latest round of new MMOs to innovate and they sat on their hands.

Now we’ve got great story, great gameplay, great personalization, and huge open-world PvP the likes of vanilla Cyrodiil… all from a different game.

Did I mention it’s full Crossplay?

Few of my guildmates are playing it, ill do it too on the first of october, cant wait. Aparently its really good

MISTFORMBZZZ

Theist_VII wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

It won't be "just nothing". It will at that point be likely that I will have to see accounts merged and delete characters. At which juncture I'll just go play something else.

I don't care if you get your console servers merged. Just leave pc servers alone.

I have never in all of my time gaming, seen a company wipe accounts to pave the way for cross-play post-launch.

Because its just nonsense what was wrote.

Closing the eyes of the options. Not have crossplay in 2024 is a no go and gladly other games make it better

MISTFORMBZZZ

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

PS EU Friday 5:20 pm



and

PS NA Friday at like 11:20 am because of like -6h Time difference.




I just look now how to cancel my eso plus, i will renew it when cross play is implemented, so probably never. Its what it is.

As I said previously, looking at Grey Host at the moment is no indicator as EP have such a huge lead hardly anyone in AD or DC are playing - PLUS there is an event on, and from where I am there are a LOT of players around on PS EU.

The Event is on on PS NA aswell but also there is a time difference of -6h on betwen the servers.

One Alliance alsways has a massive lead.

Sorry but i disagree, its a massive idicator.

Rkindaleft

ragnarok6644b14_ESO wrote: »

Rkindaleft wrote: »

darvaria wrote: »

ZOS should just add content and STOP these drastic changes/nerfs every 2 months. I'm sick of having to change builds. A lot of ppl will be leaving with U44.

TOO MUCH CHANGE.

I wish I could upvote this more than once.

My group running Dreadsail Reef is likely going to disband when U44 hits because Azureblight getting nerfed means we are going to have to learn and adapt to different strategies on the 2nd boss HM and go through significant re-progression of the trial which will potentially take weeks. The problem with this is that it happens almost every update and it’s extremely exhausting doing these gear and class changes every couple months, take Pyrebrand for example, a new set for Dragonknights which was meta for a short time, gets nerfed after a single patch after people spent hours and hours farming it. Who wants to waste their time doing that over and over again?

Once you combine that with the performance issues which are affecting almost everyone who are running PvE/PvP content, it’s very demoralising.

This is so interesting to me, just as a study of gaming in general.

One might think being forced to adapt and change is a fun and engaging activity, instead of discovering "one weird trick" and then... being done, I guess.

But I am not a Prog group member and am speaking out of my lane.

This is how I see it - I'm sure if these changes only happened once or twice to each person, they would get used to it.

You can only do the same thing so much before it becomes tedious. When big balance changes to skills or sets happen every 3 months, it is very tiring and most people get fed up with it because it feels like their time is not valued.

I'm sure we could come up with a strategy to get a clean Reef Guardian without Azureblight in a few weeks, but after those few weeks when we have a new strategy down the next PTS will come out and there will likely be some other thing that's ruined or nerfed, which means we have until the next update to get the achievement before we go through significant re-prog of the trial again developing strategies for whatever else gets ruined, and the cycle continues.

Getting the same 12 players to commit to a roster multiple times a week is already a hassle, then finding 12 players with the capabilities to achieve things like Planesbreaker or Swashbuckler Supreme is already microscopically low, then you add in random nerfs to things that cause a delay in progress, then you add in lag and performance issues preventing progress, there's only so long people can do that for before some of them decide it's no longer an enjoyable experience.

Grizzbeorn

Twohothardware wrote: »

Crossplay between all platforms would make a big difference in boosting active population.

Nope. That will never happen.

Pelanora

One of zos issues, I think, is they do everything in secret. They spent two years on the new arcarnist class before they announced it, two years redoing BGs before they announced it. We had no idea.

So it looks from the outside they're doing nothing but the very usual, and they know they're busy rebuilding hard things, and so there's a huge disconnect.


They don't help themselves not issuing roadmaps.

manukartofanu

spartaxoxo wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

Interpreting the requests to fix bugs as demands for less content is quite a stretch, to say the least.

No. Not really. Many of these posts volunteered content as tribute unprompted by the developers and openly stated they'd rather have bug fixes than content. When they first announced they were cutting the content, a lot of us who said this was bad and bug fixing should be happening simultaneously were disagreed with and people said they'd rather have a more polished game than new content.

So, I think there was a pretty clear demand for devs to stop making so much new content and focus on fixing performance.

Well? With the passage of time, it can now be said with certainty that those people were insightful and foresaw that if the bugs weren't fixed, what has happened to the game now would eventually happen. You know what your problem is? You don't want to admit that resources are finite, and developers' time is limited. If it were possible to just snap your fingers and fix all the bugs while also releasing a large amount of content, it would have been done. But in reality, that will never happen, because sometimes there aren’t enough resources even to fix the bugs, even when you don't need to release any content at all. So, people chose a priority: to fix the bugs. Are they fixed? No. The game is in a terrible state right now.

Sailor_Palutena

I get the new chapter, beat the story and stop playing until next chapter. I have no will to to start over with alt characters. If this game ever comes to N. Switch 2 with cross-save, I would play there.

Warhawke_80

Sailor_Palutena wrote: »

I get the new chapter, beat the story and stop playing until next chapter. I have no will to to start over with alt characters. If this game ever comes to N. Switch 2 with cross-save, I would play there.

That's pretty much the way the game was intended to be played...IMHO

Theist_VII

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

After playing Throne and Liberty, it’s so easy to see what ESO’s Game Director would need to do in order to keep the game relevant, but it’s too late.

Zenimax had until the latest round of new MMOs to innovate and they sat on their hands.

Now we’ve got great story, great gameplay, great personalization, and huge open-world PvP the likes of vanilla Cyrodiil… all from a different game.

Did I mention it’s full Crossplay?

Few of my guildmates are playing it, ill do it too on the first of october, cant wait. Aparently its really good

Can confirm.

In my first 24 hours playing T&L I have experienced joy, sadness, anger, and glory. The game has phenomenal character development with great gameplay. Haven’t been this captured by a game in awhile.

MISTFORMBZZZ

Warhawke_80 wrote: »

Sailor_Palutena wrote: »

I get the new chapter, beat the story and stop playing until next chapter. I have no will to to start over with alt characters. If this game ever comes to N. Switch 2 with cross-save, I would play there.

That's pretty much the way the game was intended to be played...IMHO

That wozld be sad af :,(

vsrs_au

Pelanora wrote: »

One of zos issues, I think, is they do everything in secret. They spent two years on the new arcarnist class before they announced it, two years redoing BGs before they announced it. We had no idea.

So it looks from the outside they're doing nothing but the very usual, and they know they're busy rebuilding hard things, and so there's a huge disconnect.


They don't help themselves not issuing roadmaps.

You mean like these?
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap

moderatelyfatman

Pelanora wrote: »

One of zos issues, I think, is they do everything in secret. They spent two years on the new arcarnist class before they announced it, two years redoing BGs before they announced it. We had no idea.

So it looks from the outside they're doing nothing but the very usual, and they know they're busy rebuilding hard things, and so there's a huge disconnect.

They don't help themselves not issuing roadmaps.

I think secrecy is a way to protect themselves from failure: the playerbase cannot hold them accountable for not achieving their aims if they don't know about them.

JiubLeRepenti

vsrs_au wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

One of zos issues, I think, is they do everything in secret. They spent two years on the new arcarnist class before they announced it, two years redoing BGs before they announced it. We had no idea.

So it looks from the outside they're doing nothing but the very usual, and they know they're busy rebuilding hard things, and so there's a huge disconnect.


They don't help themselves not issuing roadmaps.

You mean like these?
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap

A yearly roadmap...

Better than nothing, but I think the mate was speaking about a middle/long-term roadmap, which would clearly show their projects and intentions for the future of the game.

Aurielle

Theist_VII wrote: »

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

Theist_VII wrote: »

After playing Throne and Liberty, it’s so easy to see what ESO’s Game Director would need to do in order to keep the game relevant, but it’s too late.

Zenimax had until the latest round of new MMOs to innovate and they sat on their hands.

Now we’ve got great story, great gameplay, great personalization, and huge open-world PvP the likes of vanilla Cyrodiil… all from a different game.

Did I mention it’s full Crossplay?

Few of my guildmates are playing it, ill do it too on the first of october, cant wait. Aparently its really good

Can confirm.

In my first 24 hours playing T&L I have experienced joy, sadness, anger, and glory. The game has phenomenal character development with great gameplay. Haven’t been this captured by a game in awhile.

After watching an awesome huge scale GvG PVP video... yeah, I think I'm done with ESO for a little while. No one's disconnecting, no massive lag spikes that leave everything standing still on your screen... just smooth, fun-looking MMO gameplay. Performance might be different on full free to play launch with higher player numbers, but we'll see.

I'll probably keep logging into ESO for my writs and stuff like that, but I'm not bashing my head against the ping spikes and disconnects in Cyrodiil, dungeons, and trials anymore when there are stable alternatives out there. I'll play ESO again if and when the team fixes performance.

Ocelot9x

PsEU cyrodiil is really sad at the moment, this week ive never seen 3 bars, finding a fight has become harder and harder and zos decides that is a good idea to split the population even more with bgs... It feels like they have given up on what made ESO really special for a lot of us.

MISTFORMBZZZ

Ocelot9x wrote: »

PsEU cyrodiil is really sad at the moment, this week ive never seen 3 bars, finding a fight has become harder and harder and zos decides that is a good idea to split the population even more with bgs... It feels like they have given up on what made ESO really special for a lot of us.

And split the already low population with one event after each other

Darkstorne

Loss of Q4 zones is the point I mostly stopped playing. Still have yet to buy Gold Road as a result of my loss of interest.

Partly because I loved knowing I was never more than 6 months away from the next exploration content (and if it was a full 6 months away, that meant I was busy playing the zone that had just released, so really it was more like a 3 month wait at worst if I was itching for more exploration content). But also because I thought it was pretty insulting of them to spin that as a positive thing for us. Calling Q4 story DLC "one and done content" that none of us really want. And then simultaneously saying the Q3 dungeon pack is also being replaced with a QoL pass and bug fix focus, as though the devs who work on asset creation, combat design, and narratives are the same devs who work on engine code updates.

And on top of that significant reduction in content, no change to ESO+ pricing. So we drop from two dungeon packs and a Q4 zone to... a single dungeon pack. Makes it pretty clear where their priorities are.

So now I'm trying to figure out if:
1) They're mostly done with ESO, have moved most of their team onto their new MMO, and will just ride out ESO in its current form until we all stop playing it. Or...
2) They're working hard behind the scenes on a big engine and base game update, setting ESO up for another decade of support with a solid refresh like we've seen FF14 receive, and WoW receive multiple times over.

Because it's especially jarring when I take a break to play something like Morrowind, Skyrim, or WoW, then come back to ESO and have to adjust to a lot of really objectively bad systems, some as simple as basic movement animations, and how awful something as simple as jumping feels in this game where it doesn't factor in your current movement speed. Or the low draw distance. The kind of systems you get used to after playing for a while but for new and returning players really stands out as weak.

Elsonso

vsrs_au wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

One of zos issues, I think, is they do everything in secret. They spent two years on the new arcarnist class before they announced it, two years redoing BGs before they announced it. We had no idea.

So it looks from the outside they're doing nothing but the very usual, and they know they're busy rebuilding hard things, and so there's a huge disconnect.


They don't help themselves not issuing roadmaps.

You mean like these?
https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/roadmap

ZOS roadmaps are more like those signs on the side of US interstate highways that tell what services are available at the next exit. They are rather short term and include "please stand by for more information" when they shouldn't. The "stand by" material should be for NEXT year, not the current year.

MISTFORMBZZZ

Darkstorne wrote: »

Loss of Q4 zones is the point I mostly stopped playing. Still have yet to buy Gold Road as a result of my loss of interest.

Partly because I loved knowing I was never more than 6 months away from the next exploration content (and if it was a full 6 months away, that meant I was busy playing the zone that had just released, so really it was more like a 3 month wait at worst if I was itching for more exploration content). But also because I thought it was pretty insulting of them to spin that as a positive thing for us. Calling Q4 story DLC "one and done content" that none of us really want. And then simultaneously saying the Q3 dungeon pack is also being replaced with a QoL pass and bug fix focus, as though the devs who work on asset creation, combat design, and narratives are the same devs who work on engine code updates.

And on top of that significant reduction in content, no change to ESO+ pricing. So we drop from two dungeon packs and a Q4 zone to... a single dungeon pack. Makes it pretty clear where their priorities are.

So now I'm trying to figure out if:
1) They're mostly done with ESO, have moved most of their team onto their new MMO, and will just ride out ESO in its current form until we all stop playing it. Or...
2) They're working hard behind the scenes on a big engine and base game update, setting ESO up for another decade of support with a solid refresh like we've seen FF14 receive, and WoW receive multiple times over.

Because it's especially jarring when I take a break to play something like Morrowind, Skyrim, or WoW, then come back to ESO and have to adjust to a lot of really objectively bad systems, some as simple as basic movement animations, and how awful something as simple as jumping feels in this game where it doesn't factor in your current movement speed. Or the low draw distance. The kind of systems you get used to after playing for a while but for new and returning players really stands out as weak.

I hope its 2 but i feel like its 1

Maitsukas

Instead of making a new thread about crossplay every other week (which is something that has happened lately in the past month), just start a poll to see how many people here in the forums would support that. And make the answers a very simple "Yes" and "No."

ESO_player123

Maitsukas wrote: »

Instead of making a new thread about crossplay every other week (which is something that has happened lately in the past month), just start a poll to see how many people here in the forums would support that. And make the answers a very simple "Yes" and "No."

I think those options would have to be either clarified or expanded. For example, I would not support crossplay between PC and consoles if that would mean loss of addons for PC. However, I would support crossplay between consoles since it does not affect PCs.

AngryPenguin

ESO_player123 wrote: »

Maitsukas wrote: »

Instead of making a new thread about crossplay every other week (which is something that has happened lately in the past month), just start a poll to see how many people here in the forums would support that. And make the answers a very simple "Yes" and "No."

I think those options would have to be either clarified or expanded. For example, I would not support crossplay between PC and consoles if that would mean loss of addons for PC. However, I would support crossplay between consoles since it does not affect PCs.

Agreed. Never do crossplay between PC and consoles. That would be a nightmare. I think the console players with no add on's would be pretty upset about it if PC players could use add ons and they couldn't, and I think PC players would just quit playing if their add ons were taken away.

Einar_Hrafnarsson

My personal issue with ESO is that it has not much long term Endgame after you did all your PVE Achievements and the only Endgame it has is being butchered. Cyrodiil gets no updates and the countless nerfs to healing resulted in everyone running Tanky builds. Even Coldfire Balistas which used to be DEADLY are now just a minor annoyance at most. Meanwhile: Healer Gameplay is dead.

Nothing Dying and everybody having to run the same build kills the fun in Cyro which clearly shows. Even on Pc most Campaigns are dead and Grey Host, while apparently being full for maybe 2 hours in the evening, has nothing going on except Ball groups bullying some poor Sods in a Keep.

Just a few issues among many more, one of the biggest being permanently increased ping for many players. (I believe they cut some of the server ressources to save costs)

If ZoS does not act fast they really might get into trouble.

Twohothardware

Einar_Hrafnarsson wrote: »

Just a few issues among many more, one of the biggest being permanently increased ping for many players. (I believe they cut some of the server ressources to save costs)

I’m starting to think this may be true because I’ve played ESO since 2016 and I’ve done it on Verizon 4G and now T-mobile 5g internet which isn’t the greatest for gaming but these last few months is the first time I’ve ever experienced noticeable persistent lag like this in PvE.

LadyGP

They have built up so much technical debt that their performance issues are finally catching up with them.

PvP has been like this for 5 years now and it's creeping into PvE now.

Population is shrinking, in large part, due to the performance issues. I know of two 300+ person guilds that cancelled their subs and left the game because of performance and overall direction ZoS took ESO with recent updates.

It's a shame. I'm sure devs have been very vocal about issues for many years now.

The entire leadership at ZoS should be required to read The Phoenix Project. I've yet to work with a management team who has read that book and not done a 180 and addressed underlying issues.

It may be to late for ZoS to make said changes but I hope future studios/devs/leadership take note.

You can brag about making billions in 10 years but your game is melting to the ground right now.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/658253/zos-massive-spike-in-ping-lag-in-recent-days-what-gives#latest

Performance aside - I think this years updates have been received very poorly.

The housing update was basically just an add-on that was added natively into the game with a sparkle of pizzazz thrown on top.

Then you move from that update into the PvP update where expectations were managed so poorly that Gina literally had to go off script and address the criticism mid stream - something I've never seen a studio do.

If leadership is not having an all hands on deck style meeting internally right now then what little hope I have left for the game is gone.

This is not in any way an attack on anyone at ZoS. The devs are great people and having worked in software dev for many many years now I can only imagine the frustration they must feel. No one intentionally makes a buggy game or poor performing game. I just hope there is enough time/resources left for ZoS to save this sinking ship.

This is one of the greatest games I have played... I've had so many amazing memories with friends... and it hurts to see it falling to the ground like this.

LadyGP

Aylish wrote: »

method__01 wrote: »

so if i understand correct,ZOS have no plans for new content till next year?correct ?
so im forced in Gold Road till next summer? do what exactly ?

Well, the story is told. They shut every door to tell it further, which was a bad decision if you ask me.
I‘d like more story content and zones either.
Also, I am tired of “engine limitations“.
Well, if it‘s not possible now, make it possible.
The game will slowly die if they won‘t manage to increase engine performance.

Bingo.

Technical debt continues to build due to the limitations of the engine.

IMO it's been built up so much that to begin to unwind it would require so much time/money/effort that it's difficult to see any leader giving the green light - especially given what we know about resources being shifted to upcoming games Zenimax is working on.

XSTRONG

Population can be shrinking because people have been playing this game for to long now.

For the past 1 or 2 month im only login in to Eso because of my guild if it wasnt for my guild i would probably be afk now.

The game is not bad in my opinion but there is so many more better games out there then doing same old over and over again in Eso.

MISTFORMBZZZ

XSTRONG wrote: »

Population can be shrinking because people have been playing this game for to long now.

For the past 1 or 2 month im only login in to Eso because of my guild if it wasnt for my guild i would probably be afk now.

The game is not bad in my opinion but there is so many more better games out there then doing same old over and over again in Eso.

Many of these games releasing at the same time ar the moment and pulling the population of eso.

PS EU feels like a ghost town already