ESO is losing interest. Any idea why?

vyndral13preub18_ESO · August 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

MarzAttakz wrote: »

I've recently gone back to Guild Wars 2 after a three year break brought on by a variety of reasons. I'm quite amazed by how much has changed and the 8 months I've spent in ESO has highlighted a number of things.

Where to begin? Here's my reasoning after 8 months in ESO in no specific order...
Too many meta altering changes in too short a space of time. In a nutshell everything since the lead up to Morrowind has left me with the impression of minimal progress on every one of the 7 characters I've levelled to CP315. That's not a good thing.

I still haven't found a non-trade guild that I can call home. Granted the onus is on me to do so but nothing in game pulled me in enough to dedicate and represent a guild. Without one running certain content becomes a PITA.

Too many bugs, too few fixes. Too much emphasis on crown related items.

The nightmare that is Group Finder. Toxicity experienced as a result. Lack of functionality. Bugs.

Crafting and the ludicrous material requirements for CP160 gear.

Abyssmal experience that is the trade system.

Absolute ludicrous pricing for crown items and the supposed expansion that is Morrowind. As contrast, last week I pre-purchased the upcoming GW2 expansion and got the first expansion, 2000 gems ($50 worth), a free character slot and a number of cosmetics thrown in for free. I've used 2/3 of those gems to purchase 2 account bound outfits, a bank stack upgrade and an extra 30 item bank space. I still have enough left over to make a clutch purchase when I want to. I've just set foot into the new OLD expansion which introduced a plethora of awesome things like character gliding, account bound specializations, an entire new zone made up of multiple areas, new weapon skins, new enemies and a metric kitten ton of new things. That is an expansion, unlike Morrowind.

Trash server performance has sealed it for me. Something is very wrong here.

There is a reason why the new GW2 expansion is so cheap and why they're giving all this stuff away: they're also bleeding players. GW2 is a game with just as many problems as ESO.

Agreed. I like both games and have played both games on and off over the last several years. Both forums are full of very similar complaints. But on the good side, when I press weapon swap in GW2, my weapons actually swap.

Palidon · August 2017

Losing interest because Zenimax is constantly making balance changes to to its existing content. Their balance changes make many gear and skill setups that were considered BIS ineffective or obsolete thus forcing the player to start his or her build from scratch all over again. The game is based almost entirely towards farming or doing the same content over and over again which at some point makes playing ESO boring and not very challenging. Zenimax for some reason has not been able to put a handle on the poor Game performance issues that continue to plague PvP play making it sometimes completely unplayable.

idk · August 2017

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

VirtualElizabeth wrote: »

IMHO Steam Players (or the ones I know) seem to suffer from Gaming ADD. Furthermore, if I took the advice of most of the steam player reviews...I would never play a game, ever again - they seem to hate them all.

Bottom line, I wouldn't use Steam players as a baseline when making these type of assertions about a game's popularity.

I'm a Steam player and I play ESO outside of Steam.

What a stupid generalization. The majority of PC gamers use Steam.

Yep, the information in the OP is almost meaningless.

vyndral13preub18_ESO · August 2017

Palidon wrote: »

Losing interest because Zenimax is constantly making balance changes to to its existing content. Their balance changes make many gear and skill setups that were considered BIS ineffective or obsolete thus forcing the player to start his or her build from scratch all over again. The game is based almost entirely towards farming or doing the same content over and over again which at some point makes playing ESO boring and not very challenging. Zenimax for some reason has not been able to put a handle on the poor Game performance issues that continue to plague PvP play making it sometimes completely unplayable.

The funny thing about that is, if they are successful with their equipment balances, they have actually just made this problem worse. You would at least farm different sets after balance patches of the past, trying to get the new best. But in a new balanced world, there isn't even a reason to do that. Oh a new set that is the same relative power as the set I already have? No thanks. So now the one thing people had to do after running the content once, no longer exsist. Here comes the boredom. That much fast.

Wifeaggro13 · August 2017

Kneighbors wrote: »

http://steamcharts.com/app/306130#6m

-15% every month during summer! Exactly same time year ago player pool was widening.

New patch kicks in, you would expect the game to gain interest? Nada. It isn't getting any more popular.

I know there are going to be people telling they feel no difference and game is very popular and it's just that most players playing directly through client.

But it feels the same ingame. I see exactly half of the player amount on line comparing to game peak times. It's normal to see 30/495 guildies online in our PvE oriented guild.

ESO devs are focused on making a churn based game ultra casual. something you can walk away from and return in two years and feel like you didnt miss anything. It does not foster a long term community that plays regularly. but it works like a vistors center with a gift shop. come in see everything there is in a realitivly short time , buy a bunch of gifts from the gift shop and go through the turn style. its why there is no end game community.they did very little to keep that player base and focused on selling more copies and creating content for the casual solo player. now you have a constant churn.

Mervyn · August 2017

gethemshauna wrote: »

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

i think the opposite ..

The more long-living MMOs mix and change things up every expansion. This keeps it somewhat fresh and engaging. Your brain otherwise gets bored when you do the same over and over. After a while it doesnt matter the scenerie and how the mob looks.
That is a problem for the lack of class distinction too in ESO. Everything feels the same (somewhat). Put a lot of AoEs and Dots on the target and weave all that with light/heavy attacks. In other games u have different styles of play : for example in WoW you have combo-stuff like the rogue, rage mechanics as warrior or stacking of Dots as Warlock. So you can switch up if things get boring with 1 playstyle. When i switch in ESO from one Stam-toon to another it doesnt seem something different (just look at yout Bow-backbar^^)

starlizard70ub17_ESO · August 2017

Orjix wrote: »

We can't have argonian slaves. plain and simple

This one would like Bosmer slaves, the women are cuter.

asuzab16_ESO · August 2017

I don't know the exact reasons why people are losing interesting in ESO but I can tell you mines. Just to give you an idea about the kind of player I am : I live in Australia and I played the beta and the release, stopped after a few weeks because the game felt too repetitive, started again about 4 months ago and leveled up all stam classes (currently cp 300). When I came back a few months ago, I was really excited about all the new features of the game but a lot of things are killing it. Here's a small list :

- Performances : the game's engine feels like absolute garbage. And I'm not saying that the game is. It is absolutely beautiful and we can feel the art inspiration but the performances are just horrible. No need to say more, there's a topic about it every single day.

- Network : not only the engine but also the servers feel like crap. The latency in PvP can be horrible and even just in PvE, there are too many issues for such a big game. They could be resolved if the skills were queued but it hasn't been implanted yet and people with low latency still get an insane advantage in PvP. One more problem that appeared past week is about the high latency and spikes for people playing from outside the US. I had a few months with 200ms and now, impossible to get under 400ms, making PvP almost impossible.

- The lack of challenge in PvE outside of the Vet content : My main goal was not to do trials. It was to explore the whole world. One thing stopped me right away : the ridiculous easiness of any content outside of the vet instances. I finished my faction quests and I was looking forward for new challenges but the others factions were even easier (huge difference with the release for me). I tried Morrowind : same. Craglorn ? Went from 4 secs to kill packs to 6 secs. Ok, then let's go for the worldbosses : probably some of the most boring fights I've ever done in MMOs. I play DK so it's simply dot dot dot, heal, heal, heal, dot dot dot, heal heal heal, etc... No mechanics, just huge bags of HP to take down in the most boring way possible.

There are others minor reasons (such as the lack of progression feeling after reaching cp 160) but those three are the main ones that made me cancel ESO+ even if I really like all the improvements made since the release.

ESO is a good game, it's actually really good, but there are still so many things absolutely unbelievable for such a modern MMO. If Zos could put some efforts in making the game stable (performance and network), I'm sure it would be even popular.

Trinity_Is_My_Name · August 2017

Probably sick of all the Nerfers calling for constant nerfs. "Can't beat it, Nerf it!"

MLGProPlayer · August 2017

Giles.floydub17_ESO wrote: »

MLGProPlayer wrote: »

VirtualElizabeth wrote: »

IMHO Steam Players (or the ones I know) seem to suffer from Gaming ADD. Furthermore, if I took the advice of most of the steam player reviews...I would never play a game, ever again - they seem to hate them all.

Bottom line, I wouldn't use Steam players as a baseline when making these type of assertions about a game's popularity.

I'm a Steam player and I play ESO outside of Steam.

What a stupid generalization. The majority of PC gamers use Steam.

Yep, the information in the OP is almost meaningless.

Not quite. We know that ESO has sold ~1.2 million copies through Steam, and we know that total PC sales are ~3.3 million. The Steam player base for this game is pretty substantial.

Crusades · August 2017

It's simple people who always cry nerf kill games

theultimatewarrior · August 2017

I myself cancel the subscription because its unappealing trying to do dungeon when its so buggie. Even oh my healer it takes many accepting queues . Even on compaign . After waiting like an hour and thirty minutes to have it cancel on you with no notice

Insanepirate01 · August 2017

The sustain nerfs did it for me. I didn't even rage quit. I did like the diversity it introduced i.e not every Magicka spec running bsw but the game just seemed lacklustre after morrowind. I've been trying to get back into it because of all the time and money I've invested but even when I do log on I don't last longer than 20 mins before logging off. It's just not fun anymore.

WhoSlappedThePie · August 2017

I wish Zeni would read this because it is a great game they just need to keep it fresh; new trials, more stable servers, decent creative employees, balancing, listening to feedback, more events, a new 2-man vDSA/vMA, pvp segregation, activity finder with min level search in trials etc. Employ me! I gots the ideas.

EnglishTea123 · August 2017

Hmmm.... PC NA is not "stronger than ever" because it has seen reduction in player number. When it was really filled, back when vet zones and normal zones were separated, both vet and normal zones were crawling with players. And PvP campaigns were all full.

As to why I think people lose interest in ESO is, first of all, server instability. Secondly, it provides little to no playstyle variety in PvP. When grinding my lowbie, I always see new players going like, "Oh, I want to make this character an ice mage type" ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT in PvP, you can't exactly succeed with such playstyle. And then get called a cheese ball by competitive players running actual cheese ball. You can be an "ice mage" in the sense that you run frost staff instead of inferno, but if ya want to be really good at this game, then ya better fold up that dream like a blanket you don't need and put it up on the top shelf of your wardrobe or wherever.

Toc de Malsvi · August 2017

EnglishTea123 wrote: »

Hmmm.... PC NA is not "stronger than ever" because it has seen reduction in player number. When it was really filled, back when vet zones and normal zones were separated, both vet and normal zones were crawling with players. And PvP campaigns were all full.

As to why I think people lose interest in ESO is, first of all, server instability. Secondly, it provides little to no playstyle variety in PvP. When grinding my lowbie, I always see new players going like, "Oh, I want to make this character an ice mage type" ONLY TO FIND OUT THAT in PvP, you can't exactly succeed with such playstyle. And then get called a cheese ball by competitive players running actual cheese ball. You can be an "ice mage" in the sense that you run frost staff instead of inferno, but if ya want to be really good at this game, then ya better fold up that dream like a blanket you don't need and put it up on the top shelf of your wardrobe or wherever.

I agree.

Balance changes happen in all MMOs. However Server stability issues are far worse here imho. And the lack of true variety is abhorrent.

Same weapons same skills, stamina is worse than magicka in that regard but both suffer from similar issues and I actually think it's better in PVP, PVE is even more cookie cutter.

Goshua · August 2017

yeah well they had us all thanks to lack of other games to play, that's all changing and rather rapidly.

I can see why they were in such a hurry to fleece everyone with more detritus for its pretty yet ..

altemriel · August 2017

Anne_Firehawk wrote: »

altemriel wrote: »

people come and go, fans stay

Except when you play since 2014 and realise it's only getting worse each patch.

I do play since 2014, sure major changes pissed many people off and made them leave, but the population is still very high and new people join too

akl77 · August 2017

Friday night on ESO twitch, all new players and noobs, all elites are gone, none.

LadyDestiny · August 2017

gethemshauna wrote: »

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

I agree. Too many changes to close together. I am still playing, but not happy about some things. I quit upgrading or farming gear till zos gets their **** together. This one is gonna play some Destiny 2 for a bit.

NecroEnzo · August 2017

Lel

Because path of exile is better

Because smite is better

Because heroes of the storm is better

Because wow is better

Because gigantic is better

Because "insert stable game here" is better.

TelvanniWizard · August 2017

Lag, crates, rng, lack of trial group finder, lack of important decisions through quests (why have i to help that filthy argonian become a telvanni?), rng again, bots, only-dungeon dlc's... And lots of things that had already been said hundreds of times.

Axoinus · August 2017

Kneighbors wrote: »

http://steamcharts.com/app/306130#6m

-15% every month during summer! Exactly same time year ago player pool was widening.

New patch kicks in, you would expect the game to gain interest? Nada. It isn't getting any more popular.

I know there are going to be people telling they feel no difference and game is very popular and it's just that most players playing directly through client.

But it feels the same ingame. I see exactly half of the player amount on line comparing to game peak times. It's normal to see 30/495 guildies online in our PvE oriented guild.

What are you talking about? Even according to your link there are like double the players since July 2016. Declining...maybe, but still far more net players. People are playing less as they fininsh off the new content. OP is bad at data.

Mettaricana · August 2017

Im bored plain and simple new dungeons are nonexsistant boss helms not worth it. The meta hasnt really changed in ages so driving force to do content is minimal. The slow and steady nerf to temper extraction rates has made the desire to grind and harvest abysmal. The lack of transmog and lack of crafting viability after 3 years kills any desire to hunt motifs. Events are pathetic aside from halloween rest have been 2x exp which in a wide view isjust normal eso with more exp not exactly omg must do worthy. Why not a dpuble gold drop double temper chance 3x gear drop rate event for dungeon sets kill a boss get 3 peices of gear id be all over that as incentive. But as it stands now i dont need another set of viper and kraghs dont need skins pvp is a wreck a god awful mess. Trials are non exsistant literally only trial people running ia maw and halls everything else is a fight to get started and 2 hours later you start everyone has to leave for this thing called life. Theres no minigames time killers like a once teased horse races which i feel we'll never see added. Im just bored game is stagnant as hell

Blackbird_V · August 2017

frateanu.luiseb17_ESO wrote: »

Steam Charts don't represent all the player base but mean something.

The huge sustain changes and all the nerfs made many players quit or take a break.

Also the lack of communication between devs and the players it is an issue .

They add patches on PTS for player testing purpose...and for feedback...but dont listen to community feedback.

They added on the last minutes huge changes untested . There are many differences between 3.1.4 and 3.1.5 versions ..

The balance changes implemented in the last minute made many people left or take a break until they fix these problems.

Also they introduced many new bugs , the group finder still have issues and the servers are laggy ...( not talking about Cyro ...)

Until we see an improvement of the servers and redo some unpleasant changes ..people will still leave .

Unfortunately I see maximum 100 people online on my 5 guilds at peak hours...( before HOTR or even Morrowind my guids had 160-200 people online )

I am a fan of ES Universe . I like ESO so much ...but don't like the actual direction.

English is not my native language.

I legitimately couldn't even tell.

chibear85 · August 2017

Because the pvp is garbage when only like 5% of people in it are able to not be killed and can kill with one hit everytime nobody wants to play with bullcrap like that rather go play something where people can actually have a chance and enjoy their game that's why I won't spend anymore money on eso no membership no extras I can afford them but why should I for a game that's pretty much rigged for the elite few

SnubbS · August 2017

I only read the first page and everyone is spewing utter trash—HURRRRRR IF U LUUK AT DUH NUMBUHS FRUM MARCH16 2 MARCH17 CLERLY EZO IS DOIN BETTR DEN EVR.

As much as I love what this chart shows, because it backs up what I always say about ESO player population (being low and declining) it has an inherent problem being that it's steam and steam is not truly indicative of true population numbers on PC because not everyone has/plays ESO through steam. The fact that people may believe that ESOs PC population tripled going from Oct 16' to Nov 16' is laughable.

However, this is indicative of two basic things—barely anyone plays ESO, and the population is declining. I'd love to say that this is because of some of the horrid changes over the last couple of patches, but it's more likely to just be the normal cycle a game goes through as it slowly dies off. The player-base is undoubtedly small and getting smaller by the month, no singular metric will disprove this—but added together, the numbers are not favorable.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox

33rd most played game on Xbox, losing to the likes of 2K16—the 2K from 2 years ago.

No presence on twitch, the game just doesn't get viewership because there's no buzz, there's little interest and there are few players.

Zo$ has the numbers, the numbers likely aren't good for them and that's why they aren't released, and why they speak in generalities when asked about population #7millionPlayers. Perhaps a shake-up is in order, something that drastically alters the game for the better—something which creates buzz. That's at least my hope, because the game is stale.

Elsonso · August 2017

SnubbS wrote: »

I only read the first page and everyone is spewing utter trash—HURRRRRR IF U LUUK AT DUH NUMBUHS FRUM MARCH16 2 MARCH17 CLERLY EZO IS DOIN BETTR DEN EVR.

As much as I love what this chart shows, because it backs up what I always say about ESO player population (being low and declining) it has an inherent problem being that it's steam and steam is not truly indicative of true population numbers on PC because not everyone has/plays ESO through steam. The fact that people may believe that ESOs PC population tripled going from Oct 16' to Nov 16' is laughable.

However, this is indicative of two basic things—barely anyone plays ESO, and the population is declining. I'd love to say that this is because of some of the horrid changes over the last couple of patches, but it's more likely to just be the normal cycle a game goes through as it slowly dies off. The player-base is undoubtedly small and getting smaller by the month, no singular metric will disprove this—but added together, the numbers are not favorable.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox

33rd most played game on Xbox, losing to the likes of 2K16—the 2K from 2 years ago.

No presence on twitch, the game just doesn't get viewership because there's no buzz, there's little interest and there are few players.

Zo$ has the numbers, the numbers likely aren't good for them and that's why they aren't released, and why they speak in generalities when asked about population #7millionPlayers. Perhaps a shake-up is in order, something that drastically alters the game for the better—something which creates buzz. That's at least my hope, because the game is stale.

Wait a second. Elder Scrolls Online shows up on the first page in the XBox most-played games list, and that is a sign of failure? Also the first page of the top paid games. I am thinking you are reading your own desires into this.

Kneighbors · August 2017

lordrichter wrote: »

SnubbS wrote: »

I only read the first page and everyone is spewing utter trash—HURRRRRR IF U LUUK AT DUH NUMBUHS FRUM MARCH16 2 MARCH17 CLERLY EZO IS DOIN BETTR DEN EVR.

As much as I love what this chart shows, because it backs up what I always say about ESO player population (being low and declining) it has an inherent problem being that it's steam and steam is not truly indicative of true population numbers on PC because not everyone has/plays ESO through steam. The fact that people may believe that ESOs PC population tripled going from Oct 16' to Nov 16' is laughable.

However, this is indicative of two basic things—barely anyone plays ESO, and the population is declining. I'd love to say that this is because of some of the horrid changes over the last couple of patches, but it's more likely to just be the normal cycle a game goes through as it slowly dies off. The player-base is undoubtedly small and getting smaller by the month, no singular metric will disprove this—but added together, the numbers are not favorable.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox

33rd most played game on Xbox, losing to the likes of 2K16—the 2K from 2 years ago.

No presence on twitch, the game just doesn't get viewership because there's no buzz, there's little interest and there are few players.

Zo$ has the numbers, the numbers likely aren't good for them and that's why they aren't released, and why they speak in generalities when asked about population #7millionPlayers. Perhaps a shake-up is in order, something that drastically alters the game for the better—something which creates buzz. That's at least my hope, because the game is stale.

Wait a second. Elder Scrolls Online shows up on the first page in the XBox most-played games list, and that is a sign of failure? Also the first page of the top paid games. I am thinking you are reading your own desires into this.

Yea, pretty much it is. Looking at money they spend on Super Bowl prime time commercials I don't think they are successful enough to justify it. I'm sure 100% they will not repeat this again because they know it's a negative roi.

SnubbS · August 2017

lordrichter wrote: »

SnubbS wrote: »

I only read the first page and everyone is spewing utter trash—HURRRRRR IF U LUUK AT DUH NUMBUHS FRUM MARCH16 2 MARCH17 CLERLY EZO IS DOIN BETTR DEN EVR.

As much as I love what this chart shows, because it backs up what I always say about ESO player population (being low and declining) it has an inherent problem being that it's steam and steam is not truly indicative of true population numbers on PC because not everyone has/plays ESO through steam. The fact that people may believe that ESOs PC population tripled going from Oct 16' to Nov 16' is laughable.

However, this is indicative of two basic things—barely anyone plays ESO, and the population is declining. I'd love to say that this is because of some of the horrid changes over the last couple of patches, but it's more likely to just be the normal cycle a game goes through as it slowly dies off. The player-base is undoubtedly small and getting smaller by the month, no singular metric will disprove this—but added together, the numbers are not favorable.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/most-played/games/xbox

33rd most played game on Xbox, losing to the likes of 2K16—the 2K from 2 years ago.

No presence on twitch, the game just doesn't get viewership because there's no buzz, there's little interest and there are few players.

Zo$ has the numbers, the numbers likely aren't good for them and that's why they aren't released, and why they speak in generalities when asked about population #7millionPlayers. Perhaps a shake-up is in order, something that drastically alters the game for the better—something which creates buzz. That's at least my hope, because the game is stale.

Wait a second. Elder Scrolls Online shows up on the first page in the XBox most-played games list, and that is a sign of failure? Also the first page of the top paid games. I am thinking you are reading your own desires into this.

I don't really have a desire for the game to fail—I do want the game to hurt so that the devs may make changes to shake it up, but I don't want to log online at 7pm and see Vivec have 1 bar population for each alliance.

33rd is horrible in my opinion—I can't see that as being acceptable. I feel like you're either overrating how many people that actually is. Or perhaps your standards are even lower than mine.