Stop talking about the "0.0001% combat-focused players" like they're an anomaly

Parasaurolophus

I very often see players on this forum talking about some tiny percentage of the playerbase that enjoys combat in this game. They usually throw out numbers ranging from 0.01% to 5%. Even when subclassing was announced on ESO Direct, Rich Lambert began by saying it was something for combat-focused players. Combat-focused... And lately, I find statements like that pretty upsetting. To me, they sound condescending — and, most likely, they are meant that way.

The Elder Scrolls Online is not a sandbox. It doesn’t have a vast seamless open world. There’s no deep or complex crafting, trading, sailing, or player-driven economy. Sure, I wouldn’t mind playing some kind of cheerful farming sim in the TES setting — but it seems like ZoS is deliberately avoiding adding more sandbox elements to the game (which I actually think is the right call).

Instead, ESO is an adventure game. And mechanically, that translates into a game about completing content. Clearing all the POIs, finishing zone storylines, running dungeons, getting achievements… and all of that happens through combat. Combat is the core gameplay.

Sure, I’m exaggerating a little. You don’t need elite combat skills to do overland content or questing. But that’s not the point. Almost all content in this game is either very limited in replay value — or outright one-and-done. When people say they’re “solo PvE players,” I honestly have no idea what that means. When a new zone releases, I clear it in a week. I have no idea what these people are doing afterward. Update 35 gave me a bit of a glimpse: some players just rerun the same zone on ten different characters — and even on two or three accounts. Okay, fine...

But in general, I find it ignorant and insulting to say that only 0.001% of players are interested in combat. I feel alienated just for playing the game the way it was clearly designed to be played. Please, stop doing that. Especially because:

You don’t have any real stats.

All coordination for endgame content happens in Discord — so of course you don’t see it in-game.

Again — one-and-done content. If you're not a weak player and just want, say, a skin from a dungeon, it’s incredibly hard to find people willing to help. Most players have already done that with friends and don’t want to run it again.

Yes, there are problems with endgame activity. A lot of people simply quit because there’s not enough fresh or varied content.

The average account lifespan is 6 weeks. Rich mentioned this once on a Twitch stream when talking about overland difficulty. It’s a very important piece of context for understanding how ZoS makes design decisions. Unfortunately, I have no proof or link to that stream — I don’t even know if it’s still available. But it does help explain why we get short-lived content every year and no one ever says that long-term players are a tiny minority or that the game is just for new players.

And honestly — it would be great if there were more high-end players. Especially since every power creep boom is usually met with open arms by the majority — those same solo PvE questers. Builds like Oakensoul completely opened the game up in new ways for a ton of players.

Anyway, this is already pretty long and kind of unstructured... I just want moderation here on the forums to pay closer attention when people start throwing around "0.0001% of players" — because, honestly, a lot of those posts are quite toxic.

Soarora

Even when people say .1% of players (meaning scorepushers). Uhh… scorepushers are one group that creates meta, sure. But people ignore the trickle-down of information. Scorepushers and tri players make meta, then fellow peers, hm proggers, even plenty of vet players follow along. Even then, strats and meta are always being updated.

Heck, even players in PuG dungeon runs aren’t all that terrible. They’re not guildmate level sure, but most of them are good enough.

And there’s no real barrier that separates people. Its not a different kind of person who does vets/hms/tris. Plenty of us started the same way as people on these forums. I have elder scrolls lore enthusiast in my signature for a reason. I used to think I’d never get a single trifecta. I quested and did overland and I did dungeons a lot but got kicked out for my terrible damage. Anyone who doesn’t have a severe barrier stopping them from playing at a higher level can do the same thing I did and become an endgamer themselves.

Daoin

is a good thing 1% are harcore eso chatters, nothing worse after a hard day listening to them chat or roping youu into some dumb coversation about meta

ZhuJiuyin

These top 1% of players are usually the ones who provide the meta, write tutorials, and guide new players.
They are the reason for the longevity of the game, and it is because of their efforts that new players can grow more efficiently.
Imagine what would happen to the game without these high-level players? Want to complete the trial? Sorry, there is no relevant guide, or no qualified tank/dps/healer. Want to play PVP? Sorry, PVP is also dead because everyone is a low-level player, so the only factor that determines the outcome is the number of people. When the players who wrote the tutorial disappear, the rest can only continue to stumble and grope in the dark until another new batch of high-level players emerge.
I don't deny that some high-level players are too arrogant and think that everyone should chase the meta, but more high-level players are not extreme meta chasers, and they are even happy to use some rare, not the top-level construction challenge trifecta.
In addition, there are indeed "real statistics", namely eso logs. Many players who want to improve themselves will adjust their own construction by referring to logs, and team leaders will also adjust team members based on the experience of others.
But if we follow the current anti-elitism trend, and every time a group of high-level players emerge, there will be a group of casual or even super-casual players who demand to ignore them, simply because the concerns raised by the high-level players about the current balance are seen as "restricting the casual players from playing the game as they want", then it won't be long before the game dies due to the effect of bad money driving out good money.

Xarc

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

These top 1% of players are usually the ones who provide the meta, write tutorials, and guide new players.
They are the reason for the longevity of the game, and it is because of their efforts that new players can grow more efficiently.

^
and more

loaganb16_ESO

I lost interest in combat when overland became so easy that just looking at something made it die and Hardmode became just for some skin or titel. I don't care about that. I wan't sets and items. I want it to make me stronger. It does not however or only the last 5% or maybe for chasing down the meta items. So it's not worth the effort. I can farm what feels like 99% without doing the more taxing stuff - if I wanted to.

Telvas

I totally agree about "ESO is an adventure game" part, but totally disagree about "combat is core" in this.
For me combat is "that small annoyance that I have to overcome to progress the adventure". I do not want to focus on combat - and if I want (from time to time, but that's rare for me), I go to trials with PUGs.

I have way over 2000 hours in ESO (probably like 20-30% less, as some of that is idling while doing some chores) and I spent maybe 30-50h on trials and PvP. And still have 3 or 4 zones barely touched Sure, some of that game time is stupid running around doing event quests or golden pursuits (which I do not like TBH, as I do not like to be "forced" to do something in-game in a limited time with FOMO looming around).

Apart from that, I just do not rush the game like it's a task at work...

Daoin

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

These top 1% of players are usually the ones who provide the meta, write tutorials, and guide new players.
They are the reason for the longevity of the game, and it is because of their efforts that new players can grow more efficiently.
Imagine what would happen to the game without these high-level players? Want to complete the trial? Sorry, there is no relevant guide, or no qualified tank/dps/healer. Want to play PVP? Sorry, PVP is also dead because everyone is a low-level player, so the only factor that determines the outcome is the number of people. When the players who wrote the tutorial disappear, the rest can only continue to stumble and grope in the dark until another new batch of high-level players emerge.
I don't deny that some high-level players are too arrogant and think that everyone should chase the meta, but more high-level players are not extreme meta chasers, and they are even happy to use some rare, not the top-level construction challenge trifecta.
In addition, there are indeed "real statistics", namely eso logs. Many players who want to improve themselves will adjust their own construction by referring to logs, and team leaders will also adjust team members based on the experience of others.
But if we follow the current anti-elitism trend, and every time a group of high-level players emerge, there will be a group of casual or even super-casual players who demand to ignore them, simply because the concerns raised by the high-level players about the current balance are seen as "restricting the casual players from playing the game as they want", then it won't be long before the game dies due to the effect of bad money driving out good money.

god forbid i upset a top 1%er and get a lecture about actually learning something for myself. laughs and walks away, maybe one day they could help eso stop sending everyone in circles with the constant changes and resetting and changing of the rules as we go game plastyle lol. waits and thinks but there is meta we are forced to listen, to or not if you can simple avoid the top 1%ers which a player cannot always. so again thank god its only 1% feels about 90% too me though. and this is a self serving post and yours a self serving reply

Narvuntien

Look, we kind of all think that Sub classing will be fun, even the combat players.

The issue is that, already, very few abilities are ever used; people look up what is apparently good and just use that and then go about their merry way. Subclassing will narrow that even more to not even having classes any more, just the 10 best abilities, and that will be all anyone ever uses. That isn't going to be fun any more for anyone.

On the PTS most people aren't even called subclassing a mistake, what they want is some actual thought into balancing so that there might actually be some interesting combinations, even straight classes worth playing, due to synergies between skills and passives or weapon skills etc. That is a process that cannot be done in a single PTS patch cycle.

I personlly just want it limited to one subclass, because then at least you will see some diversity with your core class still intact, but dropping an unused tank or healing skill line.

Which brings up the other issue of the newer classes being better at subclassing as they are based on what the skills do rather than thier theme the way the original classes did.

peacenote

I am here for combat. When I talk about ESO I say "it's time to go kill stuff." A lot of the other content (housing, ToT, questing, antiquities) I mildly enjoy, but it is not remotely what keeps me here.

I also am not so full of myself as to think I'm super unique and special. So, I would agree with the OP that there is no way the people interested in combat are such a low percentage.

The thing is, even if ZOS is trying to make this assessment about the playerbase, it is unlikely that this can be done with metrics. I am not sure if my time spent in game over the years, percentage-wise, would show this, because I do surveys, writs, etc to support my combat habit. I go through all of the quests. I have spent some time in ToT. I have spent hours fishing. When there is an event, I might log in every day to get tickets and do writs, and while only 2 hours of my week are spent raiding, that time is why I stick with the game. Really the only way to know what motivates people, imo, is to survey them and ask the question properly. Because time spent per activity in an MMO does not necessarily translate into "favorite activity in game."

licenturion

There is only one constant in gaming: a big part of the playerbase will always flock to the things that give the most reward with the least amount of effort. And sometimes fun comes second place.

That is not an ESO thing, but a gaming thing in general. It also doesn't matter if this is subclassing, scribing or another feature either.

The same will happen if overland difficulty becomes a thing. If the rewards are not high enough or take too much effort, people wont play it (even if they are asking for it for years). If the rewards are too high a big part of the player base will move over and look for the most broken setups so they can clear content as fast as possible for the highest rewards as possible. And the cycle will start all over.

Erickson9610

Combat is a large part of the game, but it's not the only part of the game.

Yes, some players do treat ESO like a sandbox. That's how they treated previous TES games, at least. You can do a lot of activities without combat as the main focus, like roleplay, fishing, housing, and so on. Believe it or not, some players enjoyed TES V: Skyrim best when they were out in the wilderness picking flowers.

So it should be no surprise that so many players run past enemy encounters or use stealth or invisibility to avoid them entirely. Some players just aren't "combat-oriented" the way others are, and it would be a bad move to force more combat on them if that's not what they're here in ESO to play.

sleepy_worm

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

When a new zone releases, I clear it in a week. I have no idea what these people are doing afterward. Update 35 gave me a bit of a glimpse: some players just rerun the same zone on ten different characters — and even on two or three accounts. Okay, fine...

Do you mean Update 33 (Account-Wide-Achievements)? I'm not sure what the reference to Update 35 is doing here otherwise.

xylena_lazarow

When I hear .01% type comments I take that to mean elite score pushers, elite tournament duelers, etc. Not an insult or anything just making it clear that they are the top of the top, not just a combat enjoyer. Plenty of combat enjoyers do take a sandbox-like approach making wacky theme builds rather than being ruthlessly efficient.

spartaxoxo

xylena_lazarow wrote: »

When I hear .01% type comments I take that to mean elite score pushers, elite tournament duelers, etc. Not an insult or anything just making it clear that they are the top of the top, not just a combat enjoyer. Plenty of combat enjoyers do take a sandbox-like approach making wacky theme builds rather than being ruthlessly efficient.

It depends on the tone of the post for me. But I think you're right that this is quite often the case, certainly I think it's the type of thing that Rich is referring towards. I think he was just acknowledging there are different subsets of players and those groups have different needs and wants. I don't find that condescending, even when it comes bundled with opposition to an idea that I'd like (as in the case with players).

I only find it condescending when it comes with stuff like making requests or holding positions that seem to be only about penalizing vet players, questioning why someone plays the game for no reason then they made a reasonable feature request, and other such things. But, that doesn't make every mention of the different players groups that sort of commentary.

Not everyone in this game enjoys combat. For such players, combat is not the core of the game. And they've gone on record that there's actually quite a lot of people in this game who do stuff like this run/sneak past mobs, read lore books, decorate houses, etc. For those players that don't engage in combat a lot, they may not be as into subclassing. 🤷🏿‍♀️