ESO is losing interest. Any idea why?

Gilvoth · August 2017

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

please increase sneak speeds,
and cut sorcerer damge and shields in half,
and listen to the customers requests and game will increase subbs.

this ^

OutLaw_Nynx · August 2017

I'm just burnt out. I love ESO I think I just need to take a break.

kojou · August 2017

From my experience running trials got a lot harder after Morrowind. There are a lot of players that I played with regularly that left. It is now harder to get 12 people to run them consistently. For this I mostly blame the way combat has become sluggish, annoying, and uninteresting for a lot of it. They made a new heavy attack combat meta, but did very little to make the combat meta in general fun.

In my opinion the developers need to take a hard look at combat in general. Here are some things I would like to see:

Heavy attack animations don't actually match the duration, and in general make combat feel very slow and boring. They need to speed up the animations, give some resources back for partial heavy attacks, and reduce the movement "snare" while channeling a heavy attack. I think these fixes alone would go a long way to make combat feel better.

Animation cancelling wouldn't be a thing if the animations of skills matched the cool down. Instead we have animations which are known to go longer and can be canceled instead of waiting for them. It would also make combat feel more fast and fluid if the animations matched their cool down. This is a minor thing, but one that I feel needs to be addressed.

We have DoT and Buff durations that are all over the place. I know this adds to the "skill" of knowing the class, but if the developers really wanted to "raise the floor" they would standardize the durations of timed skills so that they were multiples of each other. e.g. 3 seconds for short duration, 6 seconds for medium duration, 12 seconds for long duration, and 36 seconds for Buffs. This would mean that I could spend less time thinking about my DPS rotation, configuring buff trackers, etc, and practicing on a dummy to maximize my DPS and more time having fun actually doing content.

I like a lot of the changes that were made for HOTR. I don't think the nerf to the Shadow mundus was necessary, and precise could still have been buffed, but that was a minor thing. Its just that while itemization is much better now combat still sucks.

The main thing for me is this:

I don't care which gear I run, or if everybody is running Burning Spell Weave or Julianos. I don't care if Sharpened is the best trait, or if I should be running infused now. I just want to get my character together practice my DPS rotations and go do content and have fun. If I have to change stuff around all the time to be able to do that then I get annoyed and lose my desire to play. I don't have time or energy to regrind and re-craft new gear every patch. I think its great if they want to introduce new gear and new mechanics to the game, but I would really like it if they could somehow leave the "old stuff" effective in the process so I can have fun playing without so much administrative overhead re-tuning my characters and DPS rotations.

zaria · August 2017

Ratzkifal wrote: »

I am highly suspicious how accurate that chart it.

As you can see it says "steam's players" and I am sure a lot of people don't play ESO over steam. I don't and I doubt that I am alone. Clearly these players are not represented in that statistic. With this unintentional bias the representativity of the statistic may be harmed. Don't trust this statistic blindly and treat it as facts.

Why the player base on steam is declining? Well, maybe other games got released which players switched to. It doesn't necessarily have to be ESO's fault, although I can imagine it being. To me, apart from pvp, the game seems to be in fairly good health and more alive than ever. Others might disagree.

Still it gives interesting data, 10 million copies sold, 1/3 on each platform, 1 million steam games or 1/3 of the pc sales.
Number of players on steam is a bit lower as eso don't need steam to start so real faction logged is likely 25-30%.

Note that this is active players at once, not the number of players who has played each day. EU and US players play at different times for one.

generalmyrick · August 2017

im betting nerfing the the infinite resources was like turning the difficulty from EASY to AVERAGE which made a lot of people sour.

THEN, the patch notes were released and a lot of people got there hopes up, and then the chair got pulled out from under them on patch day ---> which led to final rage quits.

mmolegends44 · August 2017

wow! now is that chart just for pc? cause those numbers are real low I agree it is losing interest even more now cause people talking about going to destiny 2 and play that until cod comes I play on console ps4 and it is really bad the pvp is just the worse words can't even describe it until you play it really.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · August 2017

stewhead2ub17_ESO wrote: »

I'm PC NA and my experience has been it's as strong as ever.

I agree! ^ +1

Irylia · August 2017

1. Zos should cut out the dead campaigns and slightly lower population cap on 30 day campaigns.

2. Make shor a 30 day cp

3.Make xarxes a miniature map of cyro the size of the emp ring inwards for groups of 4-8 (pick 4, 6, 8 cap) and make it free for all with no objectives guards siege. Just new terrain and thins to fight in or on.

4. Revamp cyrodiil by adding new types of quests to the quest board such as escort missions, capture a "flag" on an unused portion of the map, or a caravan mission from a to b. Then give the other factions the option to not only go on these quests but to also accept a quest to counter or stop the opposing faction from being successful. These "mini games" could benefit the campaign and your faction by providing cheaper siege cost, stronger walls/guards or vice versa making your enemy keeps weaker siege cost more etc for x minutes.

(Use unused portions of the map for these so players spread out. Cap mission quest size groups depending on the quest.)

5. Create more towns like bruma but make them play an integral role in taking nearby keeps. If your faction owns the town your keeps are stronger and enemy ones are weaker.

(People will be forced to spread out because now they can't all go to the town to capture because then an enemy faction could siege down their keep quickly. There would need to be more of a median on splitting up to achieve a goal and that really gets a larger guilds rocks off. Strategy, coordinating with another ally guild in your faction and doing something to benefit your alliance.)

6. Generate a new map full of new terrain for us to explore and play on. I remember when I just started playing and everything I ran past was exciting to discover. Finding great bomb spots, get aways, chokes, 1vx terrain, could inspire more players to come back and spark people's interest once more.

Nestor · August 2017

mmolegends44 wrote: »

wow! now is that chart just for pc? cause those numbers are real low I agree it is losing interest even more now cause people talking about going to destiny 2 and play that until cod comes I play on console ps4 and it is really bad the pvp is just the worse words can't even describe it until you play it really.

@mmolegends44

That is for people who play through Steam. Add in that Steam sales were delay by 6 to 12 months after release, it is a small part of the over PC player base. Plus, Steam does not really do anything for the game so I don't see much of a desire to have the game through Steam other than those who just want one interface to all their games.

Jhalin · August 2017

It's losing interest cause there's nothing for endgame players to do. They made combat unfun with sustain changes, and their attempts at "balancing" have all been failures.

Once you get BiS gear, get all the ingame collectibles, those achievements, what else is there to do. Hardly any questing leaves a meaningful impact. PvP is so drastically different from PvE it's hard to transition. The endless bugs that still exists (after 3 years) don't do any favors. The story's not very substantial, and they sure as hell don't seem eager to expand on it. BOTH major DLCs, Wrothgar and Morrowind, have only hinted at a larger story. Besides those hints, they may as well be simple zones with equally uninspiring quests.

Surak73 · August 2017

Maybe someone has counted the total time he played on all of his characters, as I did, and ran away scared...

Elsonso · August 2017

Kneighbors wrote: »

It's a cool theory. Too bad there are other 100 games with booming popularity during the same days
http://steamcharts.com/app/578080#6m

Guys, turn it around the way you want: ESO popularity is going down. I understand many try to find positive sides and look at the graph from different angle. Or the wish to believe that statistics for players directly through client is different. Well, steam graph on pc represents 1/3 of players, most chances other 2/3 looking identically. If there's huge decrease in steam players together with steady increase on game client it means players from steam rebuying the game with own client. Would be a really dumb theory to believe in, but if you like to leave that hope in yourself go on continue to believe in that.

No matter how you turn it, the game popularity is on a decline. I feel it within the game. I feel it in myself. I feel it in my friends who left the game. I feel it in my guild running less and less trials. It's everywhere on EU PC server. There's even less of bot activity because a year ago 1 million gold was sellling for 50$-70$ on grey market and now it is only 10-20$.

A negative impression of the game population will result in a negative interpretation of the numbers. The opposite is also true. Since ESO player counts tend to cycle, it is important to not get too focused on a specific month out of context.

Regarding the monthly average players on Steam...

Year to year, ESO has shown considerable growth for the month of July.
It is not just July, either. Except for November 2016 and December 2016, July 2017 is better than all of the months in 2016, all of the months in 2015, and all of the months in 2014.
July 2017 is less than the monthly average (average of the average) for the year to date.
July 2017 is greater than the monthly average for 2016 and 2015 by a factor of at least 2x.
Growth during 2017 is still positive, based on the average of July compared to January, but the monthly rate of increase is not as good as it was in 2016. or 2015.
August looks to be a decline, but not as much as in July.

So, when looking at the big picture, ESO is still growing, although not as fast as it has in the past. More than that, ESO is still doing quite well and is attacting a larger number of players than has been typical in past years, even if it is flagging here in the middle of 2017.

I really don't care what you "feel" in the game. If you were here in the middle of 2015 and 2016, then the game should "feel" considerably busier. Like, two to three times busier.

Megabear · August 2017

Not much progress in terms of content and stability. Also this MMO is aging and people like "prettier" character models. I think ESO is still beautiful, but it's definitely not flashy like those new MMO's. I like what they're doing with balances though.

Oreyn_Bearclaw · August 2017

gethemshauna wrote: »

Because people love stability, and last few patches forced us to change gamestyle atleast twice?

@gethemshauna
I wont say this is the complete cause, but it was my first instinct as well. The last few patches I have had to spend more time adapting and testing builds then ever before. It has also been an enormous drain on resources (gold, mats, etc.) It means I am spending my spare time beating on a target dummy instead of playing the new content. I still havent even finished half of morrowind.

I am all for trying to find a nice balance, and admittedly, I think we are seeing more class/build variety on the PVE side of things recently, but if the plan is to continue to flip the game on it's head every three months from here on out, I wont be impressed. I also wont be shocked if a lot of the games core community calls it quits.

Edit: Also, I am not convinced that the sky is falling. It's hard to know what data to trust in terms of population. That said, my quarterly friends list purge of AFKs seem to be getting bigger.

sadownik · August 2017

@Nestor again - around 1/3 of copies sold on PC is too small number for observing tendencies?

notimetocare · August 2017

sadownik wrote: »

@Giles.floydub17_ESO , @notimetocare small? unkown?

https://steamspy.com/app/306130

Around 1/3 copies sold on steam when it comes to PC.

So yes, it is the smaller demographic.
Unknown is what percent is people that wanted Skyrim online.
Closing, put no stock in steam stats (especially from a website in beta with bugs)

jlboozer · August 2017

It must be a PC thing...console seems to have more players than ever. I'm constantly seeing new players everywhere, in on ps4 NA btw...

Demycilian · August 2017

They arent exactly showering us with engaging content or fun game systems. Now, its been a while since ive been obsessing over something ESO-related. Games become shallow, lacking any experience of story continuity and im having a hard time ignoring the feeling that ZOS is fairly uninspired & badly underfunded/understaffed. Mores the pity.

xaraan · August 2017

I don't think the game is struggling as much as some make it sound. I'm on PC and not connected to steam (in fact a lot of PC players are that were around from the start of game b/c it wasn't on steam then and some of us never connected to it when it did come out on steam).

BUT, I do think they play a dangerous game with structuring the game to casual players over hardcore players as those guys will move on b/c there isn't anything to keep them there end-game. I'd say I notice a lot more "leveling" players and casual players than end-game content players vs. the number out there a few years ago. That's not a bad thing I guess, but I worry casual players won't support the game the same way as dedicated ones unless they keep that constant flow of new players coming in, which eventually will end. I guess, if you consider the game has a limited lifespan in terms of years it will be around, it might be sustainable as it's going now.

Fact is, the real numbers are never really shared with us, it's usually players trying to make assumptions based on some random report, or occasionally someone from zos sharing some numbers they cherry picked.

Only thing that should matter is, are you having fun playing the game? And are your friends (so you'll still have people to play with). I am for now. Less so than I was before MW patch, but it's still enjoyable.

vyndral13preub18_ESO · August 2017

Megabear wrote: »

Not much progress in terms of content and stability. Also this MMO is aging and people like "prettier" character models. I think ESO is still beautiful, but it's definitely not flashy like those new MMO's. I like what they're doing with balances though.

Honestly to me it isn't so much aging, as poor in game customization. Now before people jump on me please remember people like different things. For example to me I'd say a good 90% of the equipment in this game is ugly. I don't want to farm it, I don't want to wear it. Oh goodie, I can cover it with an almost equally ugly costume from the crown store. A whole costume. I can't even wear parts of.

I don't need the newest high end graphics. Heck I'm playing swtor right now. But good lord I can wear anything in that game. Mix and match anything. Just wear the helmet of a costume from the crown store. The things you customize in that game is sweet. It actually makes me sad when I log onto eso and try to find a look I like. And the graphics in ESO are way better, which is why it is sad.

I know supposedly they are working on some sort of transmog system here, which will be a great addition. But with so many sets already looking so bad, I even have a hard time getting to excited about that.

gard · August 2017

On twitch:

Morrowind 478 viewers
World of Warcraft 25,759 viewers

And WoW is not that good a game. In fact I bet most of us probably played and then abandoned WoW at some point.

Resfeber · August 2017

This is interesting to see in comparison to the fact that ESO's general score on Steam has gotten a lot better. ESO had been in the meh so-so but okay grade for ages and is finally at a point of "mostly positive" which is surprising.

Nestor · August 2017

sadownik wrote: »

@Nestor again - around 1/3 of copies sold on PC is too small number for observing tendencies?

Where do you get that Steam is 1/3 of the PC Sales? Do you know how many copies were sold through ZOS? Amazon? Any of the other 30 or so etailers authorized to sell the game?

And, for the tendencies, all I see is the same Summer time slump that we have seen every year this game has come out. It's summer time, people play video game less as there are other things to do.

Rohamad_Ali · August 2017

We shed some Proctato weight which is good in the summer . Game feels healthier .

Balamoor · August 2017

Steam isn't the end all be all of metrics...many people including myself loathe steam, however if there is a drop my guess would be the influx jerks due to the Laissez-faire community moderation.

When you have a toxic community folks leave.

sadownik · August 2017

http://steamspy.com/app/306130

almost 1.3 mln units sold.

Look dont get me wrong, although i dont log in much anymore i wish all the best to both fans of the game and developers, who im sure work very hard (although i do not agree with so many of their design and balance decisions).

The sky is certainly not falling for ESO but the fact that Morrowind chapter didn't caused big noticeable spike in population is a warning imo, even with all the hype and millions put in advertising.

FoolishHuman · August 2017

Demolitionary wrote: »

Really?! People are still salty about that last minute change in HoTR to a few numbers?
It is not like they removed gear, they didn't MAKE people use different gear in any way at all, the whine about some DPS loss is like their lives ended pmsl.
Let me guess, all that were salty about the last minute change farmed like hell on statistics from PTS and not from the actual live release. Guess what? That gear still works as intended, derp.
Yourselves to blame, not ZoS.

There is actually quite a lot playing. Going by steam statistics alone does not determine anything as Steam is not the SOLE launcher or SOLE way to get this game, Steam is just a third party. In-fact, as some have said, those statistics show an increase since 2016 not a decrease. Monthly by monthly data is also a bad thing to go by, depending on geographic region this time of year is peak holiday season.

It seems some people want the game to fail to prove that they are right and that the devs should only listen to them.

maboleth · August 2017

Some people are internally frustrated, negative and ignorant and reflect that on their views of the game (and life). And most are smarter and wiser than the entire team of dedicated professional developers that work probably more than 10 hours a day.

Yeah, the sky is falling, we are doomed.

Morrowind is a great chapter, so full of little details, lore and rich fantasy. ALL content DLCs to date have been great, in fact. The entire game is full of details - IF you care or want to look.

Graphics is fantastic, the last two updates have been great in terms of CP points, monster sets, mundus stones and various quality-of-life game changes.

I can find Battlegrounds matches even at 4am EU time within 5 or so minutes, sometimes even in less than 2 minutes.

But to whom am I talking? People believe what they want to believe, and this thread is - we are doomed, take cover.

Trashkan · August 2017

I think what is happening is older guilds are dying out. Member activity for all my guilds are at an all time low and people are real clicky. Do I use to post for a dps or something for trials and it would get filled pretty fast. Now it takes forever and 9 out of 10 times that player you picked up is new and needs training.

GDOFWR420 · August 2017

They catered to the casuals and not the vets, you know the ones who kept this game alive by subbing and grinding, running trials to sell or gear up a guildy with the rewards. Not to mention they nerfed all classes except nightblade and sorc. There has been no promised balance at all.

I myself haven't played more than 5 hours in the last month.