The Great ESO Brain Drain

blktauna

Faulgor wrote: »

And I really struggle to see what's wrong with ESO in 2024 that wasn't wrong in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.

That's kinda the problem as its still the same things...

manukartofanu

Faulgor wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

manukartofanu wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Or, as is usually the case with every MMO or any online game ever in existence.. those very players/content creators just move on cuz life takes them in a different direction. Sometimes it's off to the next newest game/name in the industry. Sometimes it's other life events, like marriage, job promotion, children (college graduation is usually a biggie). And quite often, it's simply burnout/boredom.

In my experience, if it's due to lack of developer support, then those players/creators would have disappeared much much sooner.

The good news, is that quite often a new up and comer steps into the ring.

Content creators are people who spend thousands of hours studying a game. Yes, they study the game, not just play it. Viewers often don’t realize how much work actually goes on behind the scenes to create content, which leads to the false impression that switching to another game is something that can be done easily due to life circumstances—like changing jobs. But that’s not how it works. If such a change does happen due to life circumstances, it’s definitely not because of something like getting married or having a child. It would have to be something much more serious, like a catastrophic event resulting in a long and painful recovery or a battle for survival against a life-threatening illness.

And yes, out of boredom, someone might simply stop creating content. But if you see someone explaining why they’re leaving and giving their reasons, that’s a different story. For these people, this is a passion. They invest a huge amount of their time, and often money, into creating content for ESO. At some point, they may just become disillusioned with the state of things.

Creating content for ESO purely for money doesn’t make sense. People who create here do so out of a genuine passion for the game.

I don't see what is so dire about "the state of things" that people who have dedicated as much time as they have are leaving. What is so bad that a content creator switches to a new game, and why is it just now becoming a problem?

Don’t ask me. Maybe try listening to the creators who are leaving to hear what’s so bad about the state of things. Oh, wait—nobody’s listening to them, and that’s actually one of the reasons. Funny how that works. Why this is even a problem isn’t for me to answer. I wasn’t trying to judge the situation, just pointing out how the original message downplays what can really make a creator walk away from something they’ve poured so much into.

I tried listening to them for 10 years. Content creators leave all the time, and it's usually because they are burned out or don't see the changes they want, delivered in varying degrees from reasonable to whining. Because in the end, they are just players like you and me.

After a while you tune that stuff out and just rely on your own sense of enjoyment.

And I really struggle to see what's wrong with ESO in 2024 that wasn't wrong in 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and 2015.

Leaving because something you wanted wasn’t done and leaving because something you didn’t want was done aren’t the same thing. You think it’s harmful and explain why, but then you see more and more harmful changes. Honestly, I’d explain the psychological aspect of all this, but I got tired of it much faster than streamers who explained it for quite a while.

moderatelyfatman

Koshka wrote: »

It's not just streamers, a lot of veteran players are only logging in to raid with friends or taking a break from ESO.
It might be controversial,but the focus on attracting exclusively new and extremely casual (for the lack of a better word) players has done a lot of harm to this game. The game is doing a bad job keeping a dedicated playerbase that's interested in multiplayer stuff, be it pve or pvp.
I am organizing events in one very active and friendly social guild and that's what I see all the time: someone joins, they are excited about the game, we help them learn the basics, craft them gear... Everything's great until they hit cp and lose interest in the game because most of the content is mind-numbingly boring, vet dlc/hm content is too hard to approach and pvp... Well, I don't have to explain. At this point I must've removed 50 or so friends who stopped logging after cp160-300.

That and performance issues, of course.

I reckon favouring newer players has hit ZOS's bottom line pretty hard. Someone who has spent $20 on the game and plays for a few months before moving on (a typical newer player) isn't going to care about the latest Chapter, subscribe to ESO+ for a year, be willing to buy the new house for 10k crowns or drop $50 a month on crown crates.

I think the Crown Store peaked after patch 35 and has been dropping steadily since despite more aggressive monetisation. ZOS could have turned things around in patch 36 by admitting they made a mistake and rolling back 90% of the changes, but all we got was along the lines of 'we were surprised that patch 35 wasn't received with the level of appreciation we expected'.

@manukartofanu
[/quote] Leaving because something you wanted wasn’t done and leaving because something you didn’t want was done aren’t the same thing. You think it’s harmful and explain why, but then you see more and more harmful changes. Honestly, I’d explain the psychological aspect of all this, but I got tired of it much faster than streamers who explained it for quite a while.[/quote]

Since much of this is related to class balance, I think of this as:
Denying a request to buff or improveme a class: 'I'm not getting something that will make me happier..'
Nerfing a class: 'You are taking away something that has made me happy.'
The a person in the latter stage is far more likely to quit than the former who will grumble but keep on playing.

Toanis

Patch 35 was over 2 years ago, since then we had the economical impact of a pandemic, followed by a war-induced energy crisis, a wave of writers, artists and voice actors striking because they feel threatened by AI, and a silly culture war leaving scorched earth where once was a flourishing market, but sure it's the disgruntled content creators...

Like it or not, but every business, be it shops, pubs, utility companies or gaming studios, knows that there is more profit in catering to new customers, because A.) they outnumber the regulars and are easier to please, and B.) the current customers are either a nuisance anyway, or too lazy / caught in sunk cost fallacy to move on and start from scratch elsewhere.

The negative publicity caused by the Battlegrounds livestream clearly shows that ESO still has too many nuisance regulars.

Stamicka

Toanis wrote: »

Like it or not, but every business from shops to utility providers to gaming studios knows that there is more profit in catering to new customers, because A.) they outnumber the regulars and are easier to please, and B.) the current customers are either a nuisance anyway, or too lazy / caught in sunk cost fallacy to move on and start from scratch elsewhere.

What? You mention both how it’s more profitable to cater to new players and the fact that veterans got caught in the sunk cost fallacy. If veterans are getting caught in the sunk cost fallacy, doesn’t that literally mean that they are more profitable than a new player who can easily quit as soon as they see something they don’t like? Sunk cost isn’t just time investment, it’s very often thousands of dollars invested over the course of the game’s 10 years. That’s way more profitable than the new players who might play for 100 hours and quit.

It’s also not always a good business strategy and you can find many businesses who have ultimately failed in their pursuit to capture a “new” audience. It’s much riskier to make changes to attract people who don’t even play because you may alienate your core customer base. Most of what you said is just not true in any way.

Toanis

Stamicka wrote: »

What? You mention both how it’s more profitable to cater to new players and the fact that veterans got caught in the sunk cost fallacy. If veterans are getting caught in the sunk cost fallacy, doesn’t that literally mean that they are more profitable than a new player who can easily quit as soon as they see something they don’t like? Sunk cost isn’t just time investment, it’s very often thousands of dollars invested over the course of the game’s 10 years. That’s way more profitable than the new players who might play for 100 hours and quit.

Sunk cost fallacy means you will take a lot more abuse than someone who isn't as invested, so no more need to cater to you.

$2000 in 10 years is a bit more than a monthly sub, that's nothing to brag about. That's a regular customer who plays for a bit buys some stuff and then takes a break, a healthy relation for both sides. 95% of that is already gone and forgotten, all that counts is what you spent in this quarter.

$2000 every year still only means you are worth 10 casual customers, the question is whether providing you with stuff to pay for is worth it compared to the 10 new casual customers who still have 10 years of content to buy.

And frankly, someone spending $2k a year on story expansions and cosmetics might actually be happy with Update 35.

Koshka

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing? Lol, eso keys can be bought for as low as $5 or so, $20 if you buy it without discounts. And most new players do not buy eso+ or any fancy cosmetics before they actually feel involved.
If you look at all the "should I buy ESO" threads, most people say "sure, try the base game, it's a lot of content". And that is what new players do.

manukartofanu

Koshka wrote: »

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing? Lol, eso keys can be bought for as low as $5 or so, $20 if you buy it without discounts. And most new players do not buy eso+ or any fancy cosmetics before they actually feel involved.
If you look at all the "should I buy ESO" threads, most people say "sure, try the base game, it's a lot of content". And that is what new players do.

And that's without mentioning that some answers will be: "No, better try a different game, and here are 10 reasons why," coming from ESO veterans.

Toanis

Koshka wrote: »

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing?

For a business over 10 years? Yes it is. That money is spent, all that matters today is what you are willing to pay today and what you expect in return. It makes no economical sense to neglect new customers over an existing one who already has bought most of your products, they're not going to buy the rest of it and also may not like what you plan to sell next.

Not that I wouldn't like being favoured as a loyal customer, but that's the reality we live in.

Still, the overlap between wealthy cosmetics enjoyers and those that care about gameplay issues enough to stop playing might be smaller than you think.

Asys

Rohamad_Ali wrote: »

We discussed these problems long ago around 2016 and came to the conclusion zos is profit driven first, community second. When they dropped the subscription model and created the loot boxes and store, that was the signal we would end up here. More dedication goes into cosmetics then gameplay because profit always wins. Happens to all modern AAA mmo's eventually.

Koshka

Toanis wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing?

For a business over 10 years? Yes it is. That money is spent, all that matters today is what you are willing to pay today and what you expect in return. It makes no economical sense to neglect new customers over an existing one who already has bought most of your products, they're not going to buy the rest of it and also may not like what you plan to sell next.

Not that I wouldn't like being favoured as a loyal customer, but that's the reality we live in.

Still, the overlap between wealthy cosmetics enjoyers and those that care about gameplay issues enough to stop playing might be smaller than you think.

Most successful multiplayer games in the reality we live in make joining the game cheap/free and earn they money from loyal customers who buy skins, lootboxes, subs, whatever. New players are not really that profitable, same with people who try the game for a week or two and then leave. They, of course, also help the game by participating in the ingame activities and boosting statistics, but developing a fully fledged mmo around new players doesn't make any practical sense.
ESO is not a single-player game where selling the base game is the main goal. It is a live service, and keeping the servers going and developing new content costs money. A lot of money, actually - mmos are notoriously expensive to make. And let's be real, a player who bought ESO on Steam sale is not going to instantly buy those $100 houses. If they decide to stay, they might, but in many years of playing ESO and helping newbies I've not seen even one person who starts immediately buying crates and houses after joining the game. While endgame players often have tons of cash shops cosmetics, houses and stuff. ESO' monetisation plan is clearly based around those hefty "microtransactions", and they are not something they can effectively sell to new and not very invested players.

Then there's also a social aspect. This game is 10 years old, and the amount of content and options is overwhelming for someone who's just getting started. New players kinda need veterans that could help them, teach them how to play their role, share tips and tricks, craft sets etc. And it's even more important in vet content. Beating a new dlc trial on vet (or even on normal in some cases) is difficult for a new player. Without training runs, guides and such very few people would be able to participate in that content. So pushing veteran players away is not very good for the community, even if we focus on new player experience.

And yeah, $2000 over 10 years is still much, much more than $5 over 10 years.

manukartofanu

Toanis wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing?

For a business over 10 years? Yes it is. That money is spent, all that matters today is what you are willing to pay today and what you expect in return. It makes no economical sense to neglect new customers over an existing one who already has bought most of your products, they're not going to buy the rest of it and also may not like what you plan to sell next.

Not that I wouldn't like being favoured as a loyal customer, but that's the reality we live in.

Still, the overlap between wealthy cosmetics enjoyers and those that care about gameplay issues enough to stop playing might be smaller than you think.

These arguments are more relevant to a hammer seller than to the gaming industry. Just look around and see who is more valuable to entertainment industry services: new spontaneous buyers or subscribers?

Vaqual

Toanis wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing?

For a business over 10 years? Yes it is. That money is spent, all that matters today is what you are willing to pay today and what you expect in return. It makes no economical sense to neglect new customers over an existing one who already has bought most of your products, they're not going to buy the rest of it and also may not like what you plan to sell next.

Not that I wouldn't like being favoured as a loyal customer, but that's the reality we live in.

Still, the overlap between wealthy cosmetics enjoyers and those that care about gameplay issues enough to stop playing might be smaller than you think.

I think this part of the discussion is pretty pointless without concrete numbers. I imagine many new and especially younger players aren't even willing to spend anything beyond the range of 5-20 $ in total before dropping the game (as heard from personal encounters), so the quoted 200 $/year can be absolutely worthwhile for the company. In the end these are fantasy numbers, we know nothing about the real traffic and actual spending habits.
A common error that many video game economists have made is to assume that their market includes newer generations and the customers just keep coming in constant proportions. But it isn't like this, as the last decade has shown. People aren't strictly deciding on games by objective preference, its also a question of their social environment. People play what their friends play, what they perceive as trendy, what is marketed to them as innovative. They stay in the games where they enjoy themselves, where they make meaningful connections and where they feel their time is well spent.
Many older single player games are effectively not bought by newer generations in significant numbers, even though the gameplay isn't bad - they just lack the other motivating factors I mentioned. Promotion through content creators can make a difference here, but the experience in game is what matters most. This is why it is important for online games such as MMOs to maintain an ecosystem with active veteran players. Seeing others making a long term commitment is comparable a "seal of quality". Having sufficient players to play through all available group content (independent of the pace) is also immensely important for the game to feel alive.
I have recently been re-playing two older MMOs that I played in the past. The player base in both is very small, but they each have very very dedicated veteran players. One group has been organizing non-stop weekly raids on 3-4 days per week for the last 9 years. This is the type of player you want to retain. You don't need to provide an endless treadmill for these people to run through, just steadily improve the game that they already like. Don't make it worse in the hopes of attracting less dedicated audiences. That is all it takes. The rest will follow.

Whether content creator XY made a video about a 20 % nerf to a bow ability is inconsequential to 99 % of new and veteran players. Most new players wont understand what that even means and most veterans know what is up without watching the video. I think this type of content is mostly relevant to the (to use the current terminus) "chronically online" social media-using fraction of the player base (which is probably overrepresented here). The knowledge shared in those videos matters far less than the publicity they bring to the fact that there are people who care about the game.

Neugeniko

I started playing eve online again after the big crash. I'm not a content creator but do host a lot of pug vet dlc trials.

Sakiri

Vaqual wrote: »

Toanis wrote: »

Koshka wrote: »

Mmos need a constant population to exist, though. And unlike, say, bars, the amount of money veterans spend compared to newbies is pretty insane. $2000 is nothing?

For a business over 10 years? Yes it is. That money is spent, all that matters today is what you are willing to pay today and what you expect in return. It makes no economical sense to neglect new customers over an existing one who already has bought most of your products, they're not going to buy the rest of it and also may not like what you plan to sell next.

Not that I wouldn't like being favoured as a loyal customer, but that's the reality we live in.

Still, the overlap between wealthy cosmetics enjoyers and those that care about gameplay issues enough to stop playing might be smaller than you think.

I think this part of the discussion is pretty pointless without concrete numbers. I imagine many new and especially younger players aren't even willing to spend anything beyond the range of 5-20 $ in total before dropping the game (as heard from personal encounters), so the quoted 200 $/year can be absolutely worthwhile for the company. In the end these are fantasy numbers, we know nothing about the real traffic and actual spending habits.
A common error that many video game economists have made is to assume that their market includes newer generations and the customers just keep coming in constant proportions. But it isn't like this, as the last decade has shown. People aren't strictly deciding on games by objective preference, its also a question of their social environment. People play what their friends play, what they perceive as trendy, what is marketed to them as innovative. They stay in the games where they enjoy themselves, where they make meaningful connections and where they feel their time is well spent.
Many older single player games are effectively not bought by newer generations in significant numbers, even though the gameplay isn't bad - they just lack the other motivating factors I mentioned. Promotion through content creators can make a difference here, but the experience in game is what matters most. This is why it is important for online games such as MMOs to maintain an ecosystem with active veteran players. Seeing others making a long term commitment is comparable a "seal of quality". Having sufficient players to play through all available group content (independent of the pace) is also immensely important for the game to feel alive.
I have recently been re-playing two older MMOs that I played in the past. The player base in both is very small, but they each have very very dedicated veteran players. One group has been organizing non-stop weekly raids on 3-4 days per week for the last 9 years. This is the type of player you want to retain. You don't need to provide an endless treadmill for these people to run through, just steadily improve the game that they already like. Don't make it worse in the hopes of attracting less dedicated audiences. That is all it takes. The rest will follow.

Whether content creator XY made a video about a 20 % nerf to a bow ability is inconsequential to 99 % of new and veteran players. Most new players wont understand what that even means and most veterans know what is up without watching the video. I think this type of content is mostly relevant to the (to use the current terminus) "chronically online" social media-using fraction of the player base (which is probably overrepresented here). The knowledge shared in those videos matters far less than the publicity they bring to the fact that there are people who care about the game.

Younger players can't justify buying the game to begin with. That generation I've found complains mobile games have ads but then refuse to pay to unlock the premium version.

My nephew and cousins kids are all like this.

They also can't be bothered to play a pc game. Slightly older youngsters might have a console, but most under 25 or maybe even 30 are hooked on mobile gaming.

alpha_synuclein

Vaqual wrote: »

I think this part of the discussion is pretty pointless without concrete numbers. I imagine many new and especially younger players aren't even willing to spend anything beyond the range of 5-20 $ in total before dropping the game (as heard from personal encounters), so the quoted 200 $/year can be absolutely worthwhile for the company. In the end these are fantasy numbers, we know nothing about the real traffic and actual spending habits.

Considering how they seem to try and change the direction, I suspect the numbers are quite as we think they are.

Vaqual wrote: »

A common error that many video game economists have made is to assume that their market includes newer generations and the customers just keep coming in constant proportions. But it isn't like this, as the last decade has shown. People aren't strictly deciding on games by objective preference, its also a question of their social environment. People play what their friends play, what they perceive as trendy, what is marketed to them as innovative. They stay in the games where they enjoy themselves, where they make meaningful connections and where they feel their time is well spent.
Many older single player games are effectively not bought by newer generations in significant numbers, even though the gameplay isn't bad - they just lack the other motivating factors I mentioned. Promotion through content creators can make a difference here, but the experience in game is what matters most. This is why it is important for online games such as MMOs to maintain an ecosystem with active veteran players. Seeing others making a long term commitment is comparable a "seal of quality". Having sufficient players to play through all available group content (independent of the pace) is also immensely important for the game to feel alive.
I have recently been re-playing two older MMOs that I played in the past. The player base in both is very small, but they each have very very dedicated veteran players. One group has been organizing non-stop weekly raids on 3-4 days per week for the last 9 years. This is the type of player you want to retain. You don't need to provide an endless treadmill for these people to run through, just steadily improve the game that they already like. Don't make it worse in the hopes of attracting less dedicated audiences. That is all it takes. The rest will follow.

On point. ESO is 10 years old. It's a great game and it is unique in many ways, but the novelty effect is gone. It's not a bad thing, but trying to make it appealing to more and more of new players feels a bit like a guy with middle age crisis whistling on teenagers.

moderatelyfatman

@Sakiri
I call this the TikTok effect: TikTok had way better viewership numbers than youtube and much younger (and more impressionable) so advertisers flocked to it in the expectation that it was going to be the next big pot of gold.
The problem was that while the TikTok viewership was much younger and more plentiful than YouTube, they had very little money compared to the over 35 crowd!

@alpha_synuclein
Everyone goes on about ESO being 10 years old but GW2 is 12 years old, FF14 is 14 years old and WoW is 20 years old. If ZOS has put serious effort into maintaining their games and keeping the players happy, most of us would still be around for ESO's 20th Anniversary!

tsaescishoeshiner

If you look for ESO builds on YouTube, a lot come up. People also host builds on Discord.

The game has been popular long enough that we're seeing some content creators are moving on, especially since some were successful enough to expand into other popular games. There are a lot of smaller creators, maybe some of whom will be more known in a year or so.

As far as articles and written build guides? It's the fault of content creators for making poor quality content. This is a trend that started 5-6 years ago.

What we've seen is a lot of sites that only focused on making money, spammed search results with search engine optimization (instead of letting the "better build" win), added too much content for ESO and expanded to other games to make more money, and now they have a high quantity of low quality content, all while pushing out better creators who actually care about the game.

It's self-exploding entrepreneurship at its best.

I don't think it's about ESO's popularity or any change in player count, because popular games like Diablo 4 and other MMOs have a similar problem (if you ask players who know What's What). You need to know who's worth listening to, which can admittedly be rough (or require scanning subreddit arguments lol).

I'm personally more in favor of fan websites than people trying to create monetized low-quality content with video ads all over the page.

alpha_synuclein

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@alpha_synuclein
Everyone goes on about ESO being 10 years old but GW2 is 12 years old, FF14 is 14 years old and WoW is 20 years old. If ZOS has put serious effort into maintaining their games and keeping the players happy, most of us would still be around for ESO's 20th Anniversary!

I don't know about GW, but the other seem to be much better in supporting their current players over time (tbh my new player experience in FF14 was so great that I'm back here xd). New players are important, but I think that ESO have spend too much time focusing on attracting new players without the ability to keep them in. If you add ignoring the concerns of the players that were already there to the point when they start to leave, it ends up where we are. ESO really is a great game, but it took way too many avoidable [snip] on the way.

[edited for profanity bypass]

moderatelyfatman

alpha_synuclein wrote: »

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@alpha_synuclein
Everyone goes on about ESO being 10 years old but GW2 is 12 years old, FF14 is 14 years old and WoW is 20 years old. If ZOS has put serious effort into maintaining their games and keeping the players happy, most of us would still be around for ESO's 20th Anniversary!

I don't know about GW, but the other seem to be much better in supporting their current players over time (tbh my new player experience in FF14 was so great that I'm back here xd). New players are important, but I think that ESO have spend too much time focusing on attracting new players without the ability to keep them in. If you add ignoring the concerns of the players that were already there to the point when they start to leave, it ends up where we are. ESO really is a great game, but it took way too many avoidable [snip] on the way.

Funny you say that but I'd say that the beginner experience with GW2 is far worse than ESO. So far, the endgame experience for me in PvE hasn't seemed as good as ESO in it's prime (in terms of dungeons and trials) but is absolutlely off the chart for overland experience.

The biggest difference in my opinion is the playerbase: both games have overwhelmingly good people but one is lively and the other is not. In my current GW2 guild based in Australia-NZ I do PvP raids twice a week and Trial and dungeon training runs once per week plus addition ASAP activities that pop up. Currently we are in an event and one of the leaders is running regular event activities during our nights.

Currently I belong to three ESO guilds in the Aus-NZ region and they are struggling to get once a week events such as trials to occur. One guild was once primarily a PvP guild with raids into Cyrodiil and Imperial City going 4 days a week but has dropped off to zero in the last year. Trials are also struggling to get numbers for their weekly run because players don't know whether they can stay logged in long enough to finish.

So going back to the issue of Activity Leaders and the Brain Drain: ESO has lost most of their PvP leaders and PvE leaders are reaching a critical level, possibly past the point of no return. This is not normal for a MMO in a healthy state.

[edited to remove quote]

alpha_synuclein

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

The biggest difference in my opinion is the playerbase: both games have overwhelmingly good people but one is lively and the other is not. In my current GW2 guild based in Australia-NZ I do PvP raids twice a week and Trial and dungeon training runs once per week plus addition ASAP activities that pop up. Currently we are in an event and one of the leaders is running regular event activities during our nights.

The question is where is that difference coming from and what we can do about it.

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Currently I belong to three ESO guilds in the Aus-NZ region and they are struggling to get once a week events such as trials to occur. One guild was once primarily a PvP guild with raids into Cyrodiil and Imperial City going 4 days a week but has dropped off to zero in the last year. Trials are also struggling to get numbers for their weekly run because players don't know whether they can stay logged in long enough to finish.

So going back to the issue of Activity Leaders and the Brain Drain: ESO has lost most of their PvP leaders and PvE leaders are reaching a critical level, possibly past the point of no return. This is not normal for a MMO in a healthy state.

That's what you get if you keep pissing of your vets. My guilds (well, Discords rather than guilds really) are active, but I've seen way to many collapsing, especially since U35. I wouldn't say we are past the point of no return, but we need changes and we need them fast.

Sakiri

Tbh, I played before U35 as well. Combat wasn't exactly perfect and intuitive to the average player then, either.

They could have simplified it without the homogeneity added by hybridization. I prefer the current scheme to the old though. But it's not for everyone. They did too much all at once. Eq2 also had a combat system revamp and it was also hated. Been there, too.

However, what I don't understand, is why they felt the need to change it to begin with. I wasn't here at the time of the update.

alpha_synuclein

[quote="moderatelyfatman;c-
Everyone goes on about ESO being 10 years old but GW2 is 12 years old, FF14 is 14 years old

Sakiri wrote: »

Tbh, I played before U35 as well. Combat wasn't exactly perfect and intuitive to the average player then, either.

They could have simplified it without the homogeneity added by hybridization. I prefer the current scheme to the old though. But it's not for everyone. They did too much all at once. Eq2 also had a combat system revamp and it was also hated. Been there, too.

However, what I don't understand, is why they felt the need to change it to begin with. I wasn't here at the time of the update.

They said the idea was to simplify rotations by making them more spammable based instead of DoT based (so DoTs got elongated and majority got a nerf). And to reduce the impact of LA weaving on damage (so nerf to LAs, buff to heavies and HA build support).

Djennku

Update 35 was one of the best additions to the game aside from One Tamriel. Being able to use any skill or ability regardless of your build and still getting the most effect out of it was a game changer.

Before, if you were a stamina build, you wouldn't get much power from a magicka skill and vice versa, and had to spec into max stam and weapon damage to benefit the most. Now, you have so much more choice for how to build a character that it doesn't matter much what skills you use, or even if your scaling of max mag/stam and weapon/spell damage.


Another thing; content creators ARE just players. The only real difference is they share their builds to the public. That's it. Yes, that means that not all of them are experts and gurus on any game they play. Only the game(s)' creators are the ones with guaranteed knowledge on how their creation works, regardless of how some people want to validate themselves by screaming that the devs don't understand their own game.

Aurielle

Djennku wrote: »

Another thing; content creators ARE just players. The only real difference is they share their builds to the public. That's it. Yes, that means that not all of them are experts and gurus on any game they play. Only the game(s)' creators are the ones with guaranteed knowledge on how their creation works, regardless of how some people want to validate themselves by screaming that the devs don't understand their own game.

There are some problems with this statement that I won’t go into in detail, but let’s just say the idea that the devs have “guaranteed knowledge” on how their creation works is definitely not a given — at least not in every case, as has been proven very recently. Some content creators out there are obviously not experts, because any ol’ Joe can upload a video to YouTube and call it a day, but the good ones who actually develop a following (e.g. Skinnycheeks, hyperioxes, etc.) absolutely know the game and their roles inside and out. Their content is incredibly valuable to players who are new to endgame content and even to veteran players who don’t have the time or patience to extensively test out new builds every time there’s an update. Dismissing them as “just players” is not a fair representation of what they do for the community.

alpha_synuclein

Djennku wrote: »

Update 35 was one of the best additions to the game aside from One Tamriel. Being able to use any skill or ability regardless of your build and still getting the most effect out of it was a game changer.

Before, if you were a stamina build, you wouldn't get much power from a magicka skill and vice versa, and had to spec into max stam and weapon damage to benefit the most. Now, you have so much more choice for how to build a character that it doesn't matter much what skills you use, or even if your scaling of max mag/stam and weapon/spell damage.

If that was the goal, it could be achieved just as easily without nefring DoTs and LAs.

Koshka

Djennku wrote: »

Update 35 was one of the best additions to the game aside from One Tamriel. Being able to use any skill or ability regardless of your build and still getting the most effect out of it was a game changer.

Before, if you were a stamina build, you wouldn't get much power from a magicka skill and vice versa, and had to spec into max stam and weapon damage to benefit the most. Now, you have so much more choice for how to build a character that it doesn't matter much what skills you use, or even if your scaling of max mag/stam and weapon/spell damage.


Another thing; content creators ARE just players. The only real difference is they share their builds to the public. That's it. Yes, that means that not all of them are experts and gurus on any game they play. Only the game(s)' creators are the ones with guaranteed knowledge on how their creation works, regardless of how some people want to validate themselves by screaming that the devs don't understand their own game.

That is an illusion of choice, though. This update effectively cut the amount of builds/archetypes in half, before it we had mag/stam versions for each class, and now we only have the same hybrid stuff across the board.

shezof

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I imagine this will be an unpopular opinion, but...

Maybe losing creators of "high-end" builds might not be such a bad thing? Maybe there's too much copying of other players' builds without understanding the whys and whynots? If someone understands the whys and whynots, shouldn't they be able to come up with their own "high-end" builds?

it helps sustain a certain qualified player base, nowadays its very difficult to actually raise a noob to a veteran player, easily accessible content like that made sure at least just by interest of research most people were able to get semi good. now its either questers & casuals or hardcore players that are leaving soon. eso has a population drain issue. unless ZOS does something about it fewer and fewer play will keep playing ESO.

Ph1p

Djennku wrote: »

Update 35 was one of the best additions to the game aside from One Tamriel. Being able to use any skill or ability regardless of your build and still getting the most effect out of it was a game changer.

Before, if you were a stamina build, you wouldn't get much power from a magicka skill and vice versa, and had to spec into max stam and weapon damage to benefit the most. Now, you have so much more choice for how to build a character that it doesn't matter much what skills you use, or even if your scaling of max mag/stam and weapon/spell damage.[...]

Wasn't that kind of hybridization introduced in Update 33, not Update 35?

As others have mentioned, Update 35 decreased the tick frequency of many DoTs and other skills (notably Templar jabs). Among other things, it also reduced the damage of light attacks, changed Empower to exclusively buff heavy attacks, and added it to the Oakensoul Ring.

Personally, I wonder to what extent these changes actually contributed the addition of the Arcanist and other new features. I recall Matt Firor mentioning somewhere that on last-gen consoles the current game "wouldn't run unless we had done a lot of engine optimization and changes, because it is just too big at this point". I think at least some of the negative backlash and player exodus probably wouldn't have happened, if they had given this as part of the rationale.

Koshka

shezof wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

I imagine this will be an unpopular opinion, but...

Maybe losing creators of "high-end" builds might not be such a bad thing? Maybe there's too much copying of other players' builds without understanding the whys and whynots? If someone understands the whys and whynots, shouldn't they be able to come up with their own "high-end" builds?

it helps sustain a certain qualified player base, nowadays its very difficult to actually raise a noob to a veteran player, easily accessible content like that made sure at least just by interest of research most people were able to get semi good. now its either questers & casuals or hardcore players that are leaving soon. eso has a population drain issue. unless ZOS does something about it fewer and fewer play will keep playing ESO.

This, pretty much.
Another problem is that there is a small but vocal population of casual players who do not do any endgame content and are not even interested in it (they might be interested in the rewards/titles, but not the process of progging trials). That on its own is of course a legit way of playing the game. The problem with this small but vocal group is that they seem to think that the entire game must be build around their playstyle and people with different tastes (such as raiders and pvpers) are automatically evil, elitist and must be punished or, better yet, driven away from the game.
Obviously, not every casual player is like that, and probably not even 1 in 1000. But the problem of so-called "toxic casuals" and tribalism has affected the community over the years. When the endgame community is continuously being neglected and smeared as "elitists" and "nolifers", it's kinda hard to grow a healthy mid- and endgame population.