I've investigated why even the "casual players who kill dragons" are considering quitting now.

Mr_Walker · October 2019

The intent is to keep people playing and chasing the meta, but in my case, it's all too swift. No longer do I get kitted up than it all changes. I'll stick with basic overland and crafted gear for now.

I am disincentivised.

RebornV3x · October 2019

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

Lith · October 2019

Gnome_Saiyan wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

Of course, I am meant to somehow screen capture my guilds chats for hours a day every day, so that I can prove a random internet guy that what my guildies have written is true

But you said you "investigated" it. You hinged this entire thread on the weighty, sexy word "investigated." Doesn't investigation involve gathering evidence? Most of your investigation consisted of your eyewitness account. Fine. Great. What were the names of the (your words) "couple of guys?" What were their exact words? What were the circumstances of their dissatisfaction? These are basic investigative questions.

Dont be a troll! Take the post for what it is. The amount of people agreeing with it far exceed your own at querying it, and should have told you that tons are feeling exactly the same way. Taking a 'devils advocate' approach in the face of the naked truth is lemming - wake up. We're getting fracked with the constant changes, and many are at the end of their tether with ridiculous nerfs that seem generated and instigated by an inner circle of wombats, and not really to the benefit of the community at large. The death throes are just becoming more obvious, or does that require blinding standards of investigation also?

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

Wayshuba wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

The base game isn't reacting like this, your average player is in Southern Elsweyrn loving it. They don't understand the dot meta and if you called it that they'd have no clue what you're talking about specifically. Get an f'ing grip.

Bologna. Both factual and anecdotal evidence is the direct opposite of what you are saying. Put data points up - either factual or anecdotal to back this point. There is no way this is what you say. CWC and Murkmire when they launched. Southern Elsweyr in no where even close to this. Heck, if you can even get a dozen players on a dragon you doing good.

You keep telling other to produce evidence or you discount them. Then make claims without any evidence to back your claim, even when evidence is given, you dismiss it with hyperbola and no facts that are stated as facts.

So, produce evidence to show that the average amount of players are in Southern Elsweyr - because the evidence, both factual and anecdotal, is showing the exact opposite of your claims.

The burden of proof isn't on me, it's on you to show that all of these patch changes are going to be so absolutely detrimental that they need to be reversed. I keep hearing how everyone's going to leave (like every patch), dps is dead ( like every patch), my one skill that could take care of everything isn't my crutch anymore (like every patch) but the only proof is see is minor anecdotes.This happens every time there's a new patch. Guess what Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling.

Cool I can give you proof. Do you want me to screen shot zone chats as I pop around doing crafting surveys? Do you want to see the conversations like: How many genders there are, what does Tel Var do and how do I get it, which looks better Arena Glad Costume or Siegemaster outfit, etc. If this patch was really that bad you'd be hammering me with screenshot after screenshot of zone chat with people raging. The best anyone can come up with the highest lvl of dps complaining and sorry to tell you, but no just because it affects them doesn't mean it affects the lowest people. Does it affect the mid lvl people? Sure. Wanna know what else does? EVERYTHING ELSE IN THE GAME. You wanna know how the top level players got to where they are? When they were mid level players and a patch came out, they adjusted to it and didn't spend all day crying on the forums.

So, produce evidence to show that the average amount of players are in Southern Elsweyr - because the evidence, both factual and anecdotal, is showing the exact opposite of your claims.

Then you should have no problem going into Senchal and showing me a dead zone. Oh wait you can't because you don't understand the current conversation and that's not how this works. I'd do it but you can't really prove a *** negative so I'm not going to try. You can prove it though, go hit me with some zone chats of people raging at their dps and ZOS, oh wait you can't cuz they're only on the forums and guess what hot shot. THE FORUMS AREN'T WHERE MID AND CASUAL PLAYERS GO.

Sahidom · October 2019

I know a several "average" players that cancelled their ESO+ and hardly login.

Here is a related discussion,

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/498643/which-type-of-player-are-they-aiming-to-please#latest

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

RebornV3x wrote: »

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

How is any of this different from things before this patch? If they don't have the right gear they're going to get left out anyways. I also think it's really hard to believe that guilds that have been farming gear in vet dungeons and trials are all of a sudden going disband because they suddenly have the potential prospect of farming gear. That just doesn't make sense. Why would they get discouraged about farming gear that they need to go to a place where they are going to farm gear? That's what you do in an RPG, you constantly cycle gear out and in an MMO part of the life cycle is having an RNG system like this.

Not everyone is looking to be a dps god in this game. You're comparing the 1% to every player and thinking that's what they aspire to be. Most don't know and don't care. They enjoy the game they're own way. All the people pearl clutching over this patch seem to be the first people to rage over those same casuals they claim to care about when they do 5-10k DPS in a vet dungeon. The reason they do that is it's just a game, it's not their entire lives. I mean honestly guys, how many times have you seen/heard of someone that didn't know how to leave Cyrodiil? Do you really think those guys are scanning every patch note for every change or do you think they're looking at the new zone and gong "Oh Sai Sahan! Oh Dragons!"

There's a difference between feeling weaker patch after patch and being weaker patch after patch, it's not the same thing. ZOS and every other game company also doesn't care if you spend thousands of hours on their game. It's your time and your choice to do that. If you're spending $1000s you're also owed no favors. A fool and his money are easily parted and if that's how you choose to spend your money well you got what you got, you're not entitled to more. The point of the company is to put out a product they want that makes money, it's not to appeal to every person that "doesn't know much about game design" that wants to have a say in it. That's not how anything works.

Jaraal · October 2019

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Grandma wrote: »

zos needs to raise the dps floor, not lower the dps ceiling. lowering the dps ceiling historically has done nothing to the top tier players [still fluctuating around 90k no matter what since elsweyr] and only hurt newer or lower level players.

the only way I could think of them increasing the damage floor would be to nerf light attack weaving or entirely remove it, which would probably *** off a lot of people and frankly not even be possible with how skills work now designed around it. Maybe if LA's didn't do 9k+ dps. I'm not really sure how else they could make new players feel welcome and not like they deserve to constantly get spit and stepped on by the devs, but not boost the end gamers dps even more.

You don't balance to the lowest player, you balance to the highest level player and that's what this nerf does. Lower level players aren't going to see themselves affected by this to the degree your highest lvl dps are.

I am an average player, and it takes me almost twice as long to clear a public dungon with the new update and the same set up as before. What should I be saying? "Yay, I can still do the same things"..... even though it wastes half of my time? What's my incentive to play a game where I become less and less capable as time goes by? The game got inherently more boring once I could no longer progress in CP levels. And now I'm supposed to be happy because not only am I stagnant compared to pre-Summerset, but I'm actually regressing in ability? My Bosmer stealth got ganked by PvP devs, my werewolves were enabled by Wolfhunter and then subsequently stripped down to mangy pups today, my Swift and Major Expedition have been slowly whittled away with each patch, sustain has gone to hell in a handbasket, and now DPS is cut in half.... and people are questioning anecdotal evidence that players are leaving in droves? I'm more incredulous about the claims that the game is in great health and the population is increasing all the time. Where's the evidence for that? Can someone show me a Steam chart that shows a steady rise in population over the last few months? It's a two way street. Prove that the game is getting better.

Vahrokh · October 2019

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Grandma wrote: »

zos needs to raise the dps floor, not lower the dps ceiling. lowering the dps ceiling historically has done nothing to the top tier players [still fluctuating around 90k no matter what since elsweyr] and only hurt newer or lower level players.

the only way I could think of them increasing the damage floor would be to nerf light attack weaving or entirely remove it, which would probably *** off a lot of people and frankly not even be possible with how skills work now designed around it. Maybe if LA's didn't do 9k+ dps. I'm not really sure how else they could make new players feel welcome and not like they deserve to constantly get spit and stepped on by the devs, but not boost the end gamers dps even more.

You don't balance to the lowest player, you balance to the highest level player and that's what this nerf does. Lower level players aren't going to see themselves affected by this to the degree your highest lvl dps are.

Quit playing ZOS shill, and uninformed at that. They did not balance over the top players at all.

"Oh noes I can't do 100k any more and now I just do 88k!!!"

Do you really believe anyone of those guys cares? We do just 50-60k in our trials and already bypass hm vMOL mechanics and other hm trials mechanics just fine.

Who got slaughtered is the guy who finally managed to be eligible for veteran HRC / AA and now is back to normal mode.

Edit:
And why do I care about those guys? Because some of them are our future new guild members, who grow from dungeons to normal trials to Craglorn trials to... us. Cutting players career like that, discourages them and we see a SHARP 50%+ drop in new applications.
For the first time in 5 years we sometimes have to team with another guild because we don't get enough people to form 1 (one!) damn trial a week any more!

Vahrokh · October 2019

Jaraal wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Grandma wrote: »

zos needs to raise the dps floor, not lower the dps ceiling. lowering the dps ceiling historically has done nothing to the top tier players [still fluctuating around 90k no matter what since elsweyr] and only hurt newer or lower level players.

the only way I could think of them increasing the damage floor would be to nerf light attack weaving or entirely remove it, which would probably *** off a lot of people and frankly not even be possible with how skills work now designed around it. Maybe if LA's didn't do 9k+ dps. I'm not really sure how else they could make new players feel welcome and not like they deserve to constantly get spit and stepped on by the devs, but not boost the end gamers dps even more.

You don't balance to the lowest player, you balance to the highest level player and that's what this nerf does. Lower level players aren't going to see themselves affected by this to the degree your highest lvl dps are.

I am an average player, and it takes me almost twice as long to clear a public dungon with the new update and the same set up as before. What should I be saying? "Yay, I can still do the same things"..... even though it wastes half of my time? What's my incentive to play a game where I become less and less capable as time goes by? The game got inherently more boring once I could no longer progress in CP levels. And now I'm supposed to be happy because not only am I stagnant compared to pre-Summerset, but I'm actually regressing in ability? My Bosmer stealth got ganked by PvP devs, my werewolves were enabled by Wolfhunter and then subsequently stripped down to mangy pups today, my Swift and Major Expedition have been slowly whittled away with each patch, sustain has gone to hell in a handbasket, and now DPS is cut in half.... and people are questioning anecdotal evidence that players are leaving in droves? I'm more incredulous about the claims that the game is in great health and the population is increasing all the time. Where's the evidence for that? Can someone show me a Steam chart that shows a steady rise in population over the last few months? It's a two way street. Prove that the game is getting better.

In your first 2 lines you show you understood way, way more than both the devs and their white knights in here.

Vahrokh · October 2019

And since a person keeps asking for more and more "proofs" (like nobody can login and see with their own eyes), here is what some of my top friends say about the nerfs.

As I said above, THEY did not "suffer". Average "I finally can do veteran HRC" Joe did. A lot.

Here's some great players feedback:

I can produce another 5-6 easy, I have just to scroll on Discord back by 1-2 days.

Also, as the pictures show, as I stated some posts ago SOME classes / specs don't need to change ANYTHING nor slot regen gear nor regen food.

So the patch is punishing, with clunky heavy attack gameplay AND unfair.

starkerealm · October 2019

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

Vahrokh wrote: »

And since a person keeps asking for more and more "proofs" (like nobody can login and see with their own eyes), here is what some of my top friends say about the nerfs.

As I said above, THEY did not "suffer". Average "I finally can do veteran HRC" Joe did. A lot.

Here's some great players feedback:

I can produce another 5-6 easy, I have just to scroll on Discord back by 1-2 days.

Also, as the pictures show, as I stated some posts ago SOME classes / specs don't need to change ANYTHING nor slot regen gear nor regen food.

So the patch is punishing, with clunky heavy attack gameplay AND unfair.

Umm it's not unfair if you have to rotate in a heavy attack. It is unfair if you can do 90k+ dps without having to sustian. In English we call it UNBALANCED. Now you have to play the game as intended. Also wanna point out it went from Random Joes to "Average"Joes mostly because the Random regular player isn't bitching like this. Guess who is? The top tier player with 75k+ dps. That's not average DPS friend, thats top 5-10% players.

1. 74k without Siroria, hold on let me get my violin . Oh man what will they do if they can't just outright skip entire phases of combat?
2. No dps under 85k. Not average by any means.
3. 65k dps lost 5k total.

None of these players are average or random in any way. You keep using your discord but all that keeps showing is that the people on here and the people really mad are your highest ends of DPS. Random Average Joe is pulling 10-20k dps in vet dungeons. Even post patch there's a lot of people that would kill for that level of dps

Also, as the pictures show, as I stated some posts ago SOME classes / specs don't need to change ANYTHING nor slot regen gear nor regen food.

And?????????????????????? LOL man god forbid you play the game as designed and not the broken version it has been cuz of the power creep.

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

Vahrokh wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Grandma wrote: »

zos needs to raise the dps floor, not lower the dps ceiling. lowering the dps ceiling historically has done nothing to the top tier players [still fluctuating around 90k no matter what since elsweyr] and only hurt newer or lower level players.

the only way I could think of them increasing the damage floor would be to nerf light attack weaving or entirely remove it, which would probably *** off a lot of people and frankly not even be possible with how skills work now designed around it. Maybe if LA's didn't do 9k+ dps. I'm not really sure how else they could make new players feel welcome and not like they deserve to constantly get spit and stepped on by the devs, but not boost the end gamers dps even more.

You don't balance to the lowest player, you balance to the highest level player and that's what this nerf does. Lower level players aren't going to see themselves affected by this to the degree your highest lvl dps are.

I am an average player, and it takes me almost twice as long to clear a public dungon with the new update and the same set up as before. What should I be saying? "Yay, I can still do the same things"..... even though it wastes half of my time? What's my incentive to play a game where I become less and less capable as time goes by? The game got inherently more boring once I could no longer progress in CP levels. And now I'm supposed to be happy because not only am I stagnant compared to pre-Summerset, but I'm actually regressing in ability? My Bosmer stealth got ganked by PvP devs, my werewolves were enabled by Wolfhunter and then subsequently stripped down to mangy pups today, my Swift and Major Expedition have been slowly whittled away with each patch, sustain has gone to hell in a handbasket, and now DPS is cut in half.... and people are questioning anecdotal evidence that players are leaving in droves? I'm more incredulous about the claims that the game is in great health and the population is increasing all the time. Where's the evidence for that? Can someone show me a Steam chart that shows a steady rise in population over the last few months? It's a two way street. Prove that the game is getting better.

In your first 2 lines you show you understood way, way more than both the devs and their white knights in here.

You mean in the first 2 lines he agreed with you.

GreatGildersleeve wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

2. "My character feels rolled back" is as vague as possible and not damning.

i don’t think you realize how important this one item alone is. ESO survives on Joe Gamer and if Joe Gamer is feeling ‘bad’ or ‘dissatisfied’ or whatever... what exactly is their motivation to continue to play?

I don't think you realize how many times this "one important item" has come up and been beaten to death. It happens every patch, "oh you're nerfing X game is dead, oh X game does this, oh X is out and if it doesn't change everyone is going to quit." It happens and has happened EVERY MAJOR PATCH. Change Sorc shields? Games dead. Change Templars slightly? Templars dead Deltia's quitting and the game's dead, sustain nerf in Morrowind? games dead, Cyrodiil lag? game's dead, WoW Classic dropping, games dead? etc.

If I had a dollar for every forum post that claimed X was going to kill the game I'd be swimmin in crown crates. We get it, you don't want to adapt and that's ok. It's called change and it happens but in the end you still gotta.

BlueRaven · October 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

Sebar80 · October 2019

Hallothiel wrote: »

Ffs.

There are so many different ways to access/play this game. Why focus so much on Steam figures? From what I have read on here, it has its own problems launching this game, so that just might be why the numbers are allegedly going down?

Or does that not fit in to the doom & gloom narrative?

When it was increasing than it was good for the cheerful brigade and was posted all over but when it is in decline it now does not fit the narrative so no longer good source of data. I see where you go wit it. Zos themselves was using 3+ milion steam accounts to brag about 13milion total should we deduct them too?

And the number does not go down allegedly, unless you dont know the meaning of words you are using, the proof is the live graph of players and monthly change very deep in red for 6 months, but yes pretand they all had their steam accounts hacked if it makes you feel better

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

Vahrokh wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Grandma wrote: »

zos needs to raise the dps floor, not lower the dps ceiling. lowering the dps ceiling historically has done nothing to the top tier players [still fluctuating around 90k no matter what since elsweyr] and only hurt newer or lower level players.

the only way I could think of them increasing the damage floor would be to nerf light attack weaving or entirely remove it, which would probably *** off a lot of people and frankly not even be possible with how skills work now designed around it. Maybe if LA's didn't do 9k+ dps. I'm not really sure how else they could make new players feel welcome and not like they deserve to constantly get spit and stepped on by the devs, but not boost the end gamers dps even more.

You don't balance to the lowest player, you balance to the highest level player and that's what this nerf does. Lower level players aren't going to see themselves affected by this to the degree your highest lvl dps are.

Quit playing ZOS shill, and uninformed at that. They did not balance over the top players at all.

"Oh noes I can't do 100k any more and now I just do 88k!!!"

Do you really believe anyone of those guys cares? We do just 50-60k in our trials and already bypass hm vMOL mechanics and other hm trials mechanics just fine.

Who got slaughtered is the guy who finally managed to be eligible for veteran HRC / AA and now is back to normal mode.

Edit:
And why do I care about those guys? Because some of them are our future new guild members, who grow from dungeons to normal trials to Craglorn trials to... us. Cutting players career like that, discourages them and we see a SHARP 50%+ drop in new applications.
For the first time in 5 years we sometimes have to team with another guild because we don't get enough people to form 1 (one!) damn trial a week any more!

I'm the shill because I know how to play the game I paid for? Weird, I thought shilling was making a forum post with all your videos that you could link people to like you did so you could instashil...............oh ok I get it now. It's projection. But

"Do you really believe anyone of those guys cares? We do just 50-60k in our trials and already bypass hm vMOL mechanics and other hm trials mechanics just fine."

Oh I don't care, but it's hard to say you don't when your screenshots as proof are all people with 70-80k+ dps but your argument is it hurts everyone and that the playerbase is absolutely frothing with rage over this. Tell ya what, in a couple weeks when all the youtubers make their builds for people that can't do it themselves and this non issue blows over because people have spent more than an hour adapting to it remake this post and see if people still feel the same.

Edit: And why do you care about those guys? Because those guys give you clicks....I mean they are vulnerable and need my help. I mean do you remember when Deltia played? He had a funeral for his templar because of the Morrowind sustain changes "killed" the class. Same idea, same mentality as this. What does he do now? Did he change games like he promised? Did he never play again ever like her promsied? No. He still plays pretty frequently.

Maybe that's the reason that your guild has seen such sharp decline though. If you keep advocating for game to be inept levels of easy and you can skip every mechanic for boss fights and you don't need to learn basic rotations and sustain you're going to foster a culture of mediocrity. Did you quit after every patch or did you keep going?

Jaraal · October 2019

BlueRaven wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

I've been playing ESO on Steam for years and haven't had any problems. So, in my experience, there are no recent "Steam related issues" that would cause a steady decline from 17,569 players in June to 10,861 in the last 30 days. And I play on a low end, Win 7 system, so I doubt I'm any sort of outlier.

RebornV3x · October 2019

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

How is any of this different from things before this patch? If they don't have the right gear they're going to get left out anyways. I also think it's really hard to believe that guilds that have been farming gear in vet dungeons and trials are all of a sudden going disband because they suddenly have the potential prospect of farming gear. That just doesn't make sense. Why would they get discouraged about farming gear that they need to go to a place where they are going to farm gear? That's what you do in an RPG, you constantly cycle gear out and in an MMO part of the life cycle is having an RNG system like this.

Not everyone is looking to be a dps god in this game. You're comparing the 1% to every player and thinking that's what they aspire to be. Most don't know and don't care. They enjoy the game they're own way. All the people pearl clutching over this patch seem to be the first people to rage over those same casuals they claim to care about when they do 5-10k DPS in a vet dungeon. The reason they do that is it's just a game, it's not their entire lives. I mean honestly guys, how many times have you seen/heard of someone that didn't know how to leave Cyrodiil? Do you really think those guys are scanning every patch note for every change or do you think they're looking at the new zone and gong "Oh Sai Sahan! Oh Dragons!"

There's a difference between feeling weaker patch after patch and being weaker patch after patch, it's not the same thing. ZOS and every other game company also doesn't care if you spend thousands of hours on their game. It's your time and your choice to do that. If you're spending $1000s you're also owed no favors. A fool and his money are easily parted and if that's how you choose to spend your money well you got what you got, you're not entitled to more. The point of the company is to put out a product they want that makes money, it's not to appeal to every person that "doesn't know much about game design" that wants to have a say in it. That's not how anything works.

To respond to your first question "how is any of this different from things before this patch?" I will explain in simple terms

LESS DPS > MORE Time to kill > MORE Mechanics > MORE margin for error = people being a lot more selective in the people and builds there willing to take into harder content. Which alienates a large part of the player base.

So either join the meta and fotm builds or gtfo I guess is what you want. Not saying every build needs to be able to be viable for endgame but lowering dps across the board further pigeonholes people into certain builds or don't even show up mentality.

We were all new players at one time or another lower dps just makes another barrier for entry

not everyone is aspiring to be in the top 1% of god tier players and that's fine and they shouldn't have to be but at the same time not everyone is just doing normal fungal 1 everyday and killing dragons eventually if you play the game long enough you might wanna try harder stuff maybe a guildmate or friend has a cool title or dungeon skin that you yourself might want to get well if your not already at that level already low dps is going to make the climb to get to that level of play that much harder than it needs to be.

the gear cycle and gear grind its a staple of what MMO are all about while it would be inconvenient to have level cap increases ever 2 years or so like WOW for example but that's a whole other discussion its better than ZOS just deciding to on a whim to nerf this or that for no reason every 3 months Just to grind gear to get back to where I was last patch.

GreatGildersleeve · October 2019

I don’t really know what all the fuss is about on this thread really. We have one person saying the game is fine but has no proof to back up their claim, and a slew of folks claiming the game is suffering who also have no proof to back up their claim. In the grand scheme of things, we will never know until ZoS shuts down the servers because they don’t release user stats. Everything is anecdotal.

All I can add is this... I started shortly after Console launch and promised myself I would stop playing when it was no longer fun. Since last spring, it is no longer been fun so I just stopped my eso+ this morning and am looking Elsweyr (😉). I’ve done my fair share of vet content but I’m squarely in the ‘average scrub’ category. The elite will stay... us average scrubs? Time will tell but don’t discount the ‘fun’ factor which the game is currently lacking.

LadyNalcarya · October 2019

GreatGildersleeve wrote: »

I don’t really know what all the fuss is about on this thread really. We have one person saying the game is fine but has no proof to back up their claim, and a slew of folks claiming the game is suffering who also have no proof to back up their claim. In the grand scheme of things, we will never know until ZoS shuts down the servers because they don’t release user stats. Everything is anecdotal.

All I can add is this... I started shortly after Console launch and promised myself I would stop playing when it was no longer fun. Since last spring, it is no longer been fun so I just stopped my eso+ this morning and am looking Elsweyr (😉). I’ve done my fair share of vet content but I’m squarely in the ‘average scrub’ category. The elite will stay... us average scrubs? Time will tell but don’t discount the ‘fun’ factor which the game is currently lacking.

Steam stats are not anecdotal.
Sure, it's only a part of pc population, but sample size is big enough to see the trends.

starkerealm · October 2019

BlueRaven wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

The release of Elsweyr came with a couple of outages. Beyond that, I don't keep close track. I'm on PC, but I don't play through Steam. I think there were a couple more outages during the summer, but it's not like I can provide a schedule for when they occurred.

Short version, Steam user trending would be useful if there was no functional difference between Steam and other platforms, but, there are issues.

To be clear, I don't think this is exclusively responsible for Steam's population decline, but it does mean that at any given moment there may be unique factors disrupting that data set.

LadyNalcarya · October 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

The release of Elsweyr came with a couple of outages. Beyond that, I don't keep close track. I'm on PC, but I don't play through Steam. I think there were a couple more outages during the summer, but it's not like I can provide a schedule for when they occurred.

Short version, Steam user trending would be useful if there was no functional difference between Steam and other platforms, but, there are issues.

To be clear, I don't think this is exclusively responsible for Steam's population decline, but it does mean that at any given moment there may be unique factors disrupting that data set.

Thing is, steam version has always been faulty.
I bought my copy of the game through steam and couldnt even install it - thankfully, back then we could use the regular launcher regadless of where you got your key.
At certain point they removed that option, and there were regular red messages about steam version being offline since them. It's been a problem for years, it didn't start recently.

starkerealm · October 2019

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

The release of Elsweyr came with a couple of outages. Beyond that, I don't keep close track. I'm on PC, but I don't play through Steam. I think there were a couple more outages during the summer, but it's not like I can provide a schedule for when they occurred.

Short version, Steam user trending would be useful if there was no functional difference between Steam and other platforms, but, there are issues.

To be clear, I don't think this is exclusively responsible for Steam's population decline, but it does mean that at any given moment there may be unique factors disrupting that data set.

Thing is, steam version has always been faulty.
I bought my copy of the game through steam and couldnt even install it - thankfully, back then we could use the regular launcher regadless of where you got your key.
At certain point they removed that option, and there were regular red messages about steam version being offline since them. It's been a problem for years, it didn't start recently.

Which is why, Steam population trending is not reliable, and never has been.

Sennecca · October 2019

Average player here with over 6,400 hours into the game. I didn't care about trials before so never ran them. At first i had some friends who had started playing and was waiting for them to catch up. They stopped playing 2-3 patches ago. Then I found some other people and started working on improving my dps, rotation etc. Increased costs of abilities, functions of abilities, Trashing of many classes abililtes and the need for either slotting more regen or heavy attacks has taken the fun out of the game. For some people, heavy attacking may be a thing. For me, it's clunky, not fluid and ruins flow of combat. For the first time in years, i have logged in once this week. Even the new expansion and festival aren't interesting because the combat is not. I can't show proof that this has affected others as some people are asking, but just give testimony that it has affected this one person.

Shantu · October 2019

GreatGildersleeve wrote: »

I don’t really know what all the fuss is about on this thread really. We have one person saying the game is fine but has no proof to back up their claim, and a slew of folks claiming the game is suffering who also have no proof to back up their claim. In the grand scheme of things, we will never know until ZoS shuts down the servers because they don’t release user stats. Everything is anecdotal.

All I can add is this... I started shortly after Console launch and promised myself I would stop playing when it was no longer fun. Since last spring, it is no longer been fun so I just stopped my eso+ this morning and am looking Elsweyr (😉). I’ve done my fair share of vet content but I’m squarely in the ‘average scrub’ category. The elite will stay... us average scrubs? Time will tell but don’t discount the ‘fun’ factor which the game is currently lacking.

Well stated and I agree completely. I started my dsp adventure as a 10-15k scrub. It took me over 2 years to break the 40k barrier on a 3/6 mil. Before this patch I had a couple toons break 50k. I was in the high 70's to low 80's all cheesed out on the trial dummy. While this patch puts me back to the low 40's on the 3 mil and high 60's and low 70's on the 21 mil, I've simply lost the fun factor in all this.

So it's not that I can't adjust, accept the dps loss, and continue with my vet progression teams, it's that having to keep modifying my efforts to account for one extreme nerf after another is no longer a gaming experience that's any fun to pursue. There's no joy to be found in a combat team that time and time again keeps nerfing the result of one's efforts.

Part of a game's progression should be to continually empower players in fun and creative ways. There's nothing about the onslaught of nerfs over the last year that does that. "Fun" is a variable that doesn't calculate well in the current combat team's auditing formula. ZOS is, of course, free to develop "their" game any way they want, but traveling down a road that discounts the fun factor is one they travel at their own peril.

ZOS kind of does things ass backwards. Instead of developing and fostering a sense of community involvement and ownership, and therefore a feeling of personal stake in a games progression, their approach is one of non-communication and our-way-or-the-highway...like alienating the customers that purchase your products was ever a good idea. I'm wondering how much of the growing angst could have been avoided by simple honest communication...something that ZOS seems incapable, or maybe just disinterested, in doing.

I've been giving Destiny 2 a serious go lately. Last night I had one of those "Wow!! That was f'ing awesome!!" moments. It then occurred to me that I haven't had one of those moments in a long time in ESO. It made me feel what an overall laborious chore it has become. I suppose no one plays an MMO forever. But the slow demise of this old game's enthusiasm for ESO feels particularly sad and unnecessary.

LadyNalcarya · October 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

The release of Elsweyr came with a couple of outages. Beyond that, I don't keep close track. I'm on PC, but I don't play through Steam. I think there were a couple more outages during the summer, but it's not like I can provide a schedule for when they occurred.

Short version, Steam user trending would be useful if there was no functional difference between Steam and other platforms, but, there are issues.

To be clear, I don't think this is exclusively responsible for Steam's population decline, but it does mean that at any given moment there may be unique factors disrupting that data set.

Thing is, steam version has always been faulty.
I bought my copy of the game through steam and couldnt even install it - thankfully, back then we could use the regular launcher regadless of where you got your key.
At certain point they removed that option, and there were regular red messages about steam version being offline since them. It's been a problem for years, it didn't start recently.

Which is why, Steam population trending is not reliable, and never has been.

Nah, the factor of buggyness and login issues is pretty much unchanged. But you can still see playerbase growing or dropping off.

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

RebornV3x wrote: »

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

How is any of this different from things before this patch? If they don't have the right gear they're going to get left out anyways. I also think it's really hard to believe that guilds that have been farming gear in vet dungeons and trials are all of a sudden going disband because they suddenly have the potential prospect of farming gear. That just doesn't make sense. Why would they get discouraged about farming gear that they need to go to a place where they are going to farm gear? That's what you do in an RPG, you constantly cycle gear out and in an MMO part of the life cycle is having an RNG system like this.

Not everyone is looking to be a dps god in this game. You're comparing the 1% to every player and thinking that's what they aspire to be. Most don't know and don't care. They enjoy the game they're own way. All the people pearl clutching over this patch seem to be the first people to rage over those same casuals they claim to care about when they do 5-10k DPS in a vet dungeon. The reason they do that is it's just a game, it's not their entire lives. I mean honestly guys, how many times have you seen/heard of someone that didn't know how to leave Cyrodiil? Do you really think those guys are scanning every patch note for every change or do you think they're looking at the new zone and gong "Oh Sai Sahan! Oh Dragons!"

There's a difference between feeling weaker patch after patch and being weaker patch after patch, it's not the same thing. ZOS and every other game company also doesn't care if you spend thousands of hours on their game. It's your time and your choice to do that. If you're spending $1000s you're also owed no favors. A fool and his money are easily parted and if that's how you choose to spend your money well you got what you got, you're not entitled to more. The point of the company is to put out a product they want that makes money, it's not to appeal to every person that "doesn't know much about game design" that wants to have a say in it. That's not how anything works.

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

RebornV3x wrote: »

The problem with the people supporting these nerfs is if the top end game players are losing DPS in top end game meta gear with fully optimized builds how do you think everyone else is going to do I'll tell you they won't be doing well at all.

these nerfs never hurt the top 10% these are your HODOR's and other highly coordinated groups these guys adapt and have a close group of friends who can normally farm for gear and get it quickly.

at the same time these nerfs don't hurt the bottom 25% these are new players, the "Housing Decorator Sim 2019" people, overland questers, Roleplayers etc...

The nerfs are detrimental to everyone else in between that group that's just starting to get there feet wet in Vet Trials will now be setback people will get left out if they don't have this build or this class ect even more which will probably cause groups to disband. That CP 200-500 player just starting to get there endgame gear maybe start doing more harder content you guessed it major setback and by the time they figure it out get the gear and bam! another patch that ruins there fun and progress. These nerfs always hit the average player the hardest which is probably 60-70% of the player base.

I really feel bad for players that aren't already hitting 80k-90k+ DPS with a full coordinated group of good of friends that are gods at this game.

I don't know much about game design but what little I do know is you never progress backwards you don't want someone who has spent 1,000's of hours and 1,000's of dollars into the game just to feel weaker patch after patch and from a business stand point its just dumb. the point of a company like ZOS is to make money if people want there DPS higher than just do it...

How is any of this different from things before this patch? If they don't have the right gear they're going to get left out anyways. I also think it's really hard to believe that guilds that have been farming gear in vet dungeons and trials are all of a sudden going disband because they suddenly have the potential prospect of farming gear. That just doesn't make sense. Why would they get discouraged about farming gear that they need to go to a place where they are going to farm gear? That's what you do in an RPG, you constantly cycle gear out and in an MMO part of the life cycle is having an RNG system like this.

Not everyone is looking to be a dps god in this game. You're comparing the 1% to every player and thinking that's what they aspire to be. Most don't know and don't care. They enjoy the game they're own way. All the people pearl clutching over this patch seem to be the first people to rage over those same casuals they claim to care about when they do 5-10k DPS in a vet dungeon. The reason they do that is it's just a game, it's not their entire lives. I mean honestly guys, how many times have you seen/heard of someone that didn't know how to leave Cyrodiil? Do you really think those guys are scanning every patch note for every change or do you think they're looking at the new zone and gong "Oh Sai Sahan! Oh Dragons!"

There's a difference between feeling weaker patch after patch and being weaker patch after patch, it's not the same thing. ZOS and every other game company also doesn't care if you spend thousands of hours on their game. It's your time and your choice to do that. If you're spending $1000s you're also owed no favors. A fool and his money are easily parted and if that's how you choose to spend your money well you got what you got, you're not entitled to more. The point of the company is to put out a product they want that makes money, it's not to appeal to every person that "doesn't know much about game design" that wants to have a say in it. That's not how anything works.

To respond to your first question "how is any of this different from things before this patch?" I will explain in simple terms

LESS DPS > MORE Time to kill > MORE Mechanics > MORE margin for error = people being a lot more selective in the people and builds there willing to take into harder content. Which alienates a large part of the player base.

So either join the meta and fotm builds or gtfo I guess is what you want. Not saying every build needs to be able to be viable for endgame but lowering dps across the board further pigeonholes people into certain builds or don't even show up mentality.

We were all new players at one time or another lower dps just makes another barrier for entry

not everyone is aspiring to be in the top 1% of god tier players and that's fine and they shouldn't have to be but at the same time not everyone is just doing normal fungal 1 everyday and killing dragons eventually if you play the game long enough you might wanna try harder stuff maybe a guildmate or friend has a cool title or dungeon skin that you yourself might want to get well if your not already at that level already low dps is going to make the climb to get to that level of play that much harder than it needs to be.

the gear cycle and gear grind its a staple of what MMO are all about while it would be inconvenient to have level cap increases ever 2 years or so like WOW for example but that's a whole other discussion its better than ZOS just deciding to on a whim to nerf this or that for no reason every 3 months Just to grind gear to get back to where I was last patch.

Again, how is this dps different from any other patch? People are always selective in their players and builds for trials, this didn't all of a sudden spring up with the newest patch and anyone that regularly does this content has already adapted to stuff like this before.

So either join the meta and fotm builds or gtfo I guess is what you want

Before the patch everyone used the same sets. After the patch everyone used the same sets. I don't dictate the meta, the trials guilds and people running them do. Don't *** because the players that this affects are the min max dps and not the regular players.

We were all new players at one time or another lower dps just makes another barrier for entry

We were all new players that had to work to whatever the meta was and changed to. Everyone does this and using it as an excuse isn't going to work.
Not everything is a barrier to entry lol if you're a dps and all of a sudden you lose a little bit of dps and you can't compensate for it then you probably weren't that great in your group anyways. You don't make your end game population healthy by buoying them up in your content.

not everyone is aspiring to be in the top 1% of god tier players and that's fine and they shouldn't have to be but at the same time not everyone is just doing normal fungal 1 everyday and killing dragons eventually if you play the game long enough you might wanna try harder stuff maybe a guildmate or friend has a cool title or dungeon skin that you yourself might want to get well if your not already at that level already low dps is going to make the climb to get to that level of play that much harder than it needs to be.

Ok so what you're saying is if you want something like a title, or a skin, something associated with achievements is locked behind content it should be lowered so you can get it? If you can't do the mechanics then the DPS isn't going to matter. This is why I don't care and it's what everyone's argument is based on.
"There's stuff in this game that I want but I don't want to work for it or keep having to maintain at my level. Gimme Gimme Gimme Gimme."

Sorry that's not how life works.

The reason WoW has to increase level cap (to ridiculous levels might I add) is BECAUSE they don't have a very functional gear cycle/grind and because none of their *** ever gets nerfed. When you get to end game raids you get Tiered Class gear. Every tier is a step up from the last and more meta then the last and is class specific so every player of that lvl of end game uses that same armor set. If they didn't change things up constantly WoW would have ended 10 years ago.

starkerealm · October 2019

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

LadyNalcarya wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

PrayingSeraph wrote: »

To those quoting the steam charts, Steam charts are not proof, they only cover a segment of the playerbase

Could it be indicative of the other non steam player bases? Perhaps. But we dont know, so stop pretending like you do.

We simply need more data to make such grand claims about the state of ESO.

It is possible that there has been some change on steam that suddenly makes those that were playing on it to suddenly stop.

But to be honest outside of that I can’t think of a reason why steams decrease in activity would not be indicative of eso’s population/activity changes in general.

For example, login issues, unique to Steam, that pop up irregularly, when Steam's intermediary login server goes down, locking Steam players out of the game entirely?

Because, yeah, there is a specific issue with Steam. It experiences outages more frequently than another of the other platforms, including being downright inaccessible at times. This tends to correlate with major releases, meaning people who buy the game via Steam because of a new release are more likely to end up in a situation where they can't log in or play, then (and this is an assumption) more likely to leave and never return, because, "game's busted, can't log in."

So, all things being equal, Steam users would be a pretty good evaluation of population trending; things are not equal, Steam has serious technical issues related to that platform. When they do pop up, Valve points the finger at ZOS and says, "yell at them, it's not our problem."

I am not a steam user so I don’t know the answer to this, but this downnward turn started in April. Has anything changed on steam in the last few months that would explain a “steam only” decline?

The release of Elsweyr came with a couple of outages. Beyond that, I don't keep close track. I'm on PC, but I don't play through Steam. I think there were a couple more outages during the summer, but it's not like I can provide a schedule for when they occurred.

Short version, Steam user trending would be useful if there was no functional difference between Steam and other platforms, but, there are issues.

To be clear, I don't think this is exclusively responsible for Steam's population decline, but it does mean that at any given moment there may be unique factors disrupting that data set.

Thing is, steam version has always been faulty.
I bought my copy of the game through steam and couldnt even install it - thankfully, back then we could use the regular launcher regadless of where you got your key.
At certain point they removed that option, and there were regular red messages about steam version being offline since them. It's been a problem for years, it didn't start recently.

Which is why, Steam population trending is not reliable, and never has been.

Nah, the factor of buggyness and login issues is pretty much unchanged. But you can still see playerbase growing or dropping off.

You can, but because there are factors unique to Steam, trending data won't be accurate. There are causes for population drop that simply aren't present in the population at large.

Vahrokh · October 2019

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Vahrokh wrote: »

And since a person keeps asking for more and more "proofs" (like nobody can login and see with their own eyes), here is what some of my top friends say about the nerfs.

As I said above, THEY did not "suffer". Average "I finally can do veteran HRC" Joe did. A lot.

Here's some great players feedback:

I can produce another 5-6 easy, I have just to scroll on Discord back by 1-2 days.

Also, as the pictures show, as I stated some posts ago SOME classes / specs don't need to change ANYTHING nor slot regen gear nor regen food.

So the patch is punishing, with clunky heavy attack gameplay AND unfair.

Umm it's not unfair if you have to rotate in a heavy attack. It is unfair if you can do 90k+ dps without having to sustian. In English we call it UNBALANCED. Now you have to play the game as intended. Also wanna point out it went from Random Joes to "Average"Joes mostly because the Random regular player isn't bitching like this. Guess who is? The top tier player with 75k+ dps. That's not average DPS friend, thats top 5-10% players.

1. 74k without Siroria, hold on let me get my violin . Oh man what will they do if they can't just outright skip entire phases of combat?
2. No dps under 85k. Not average by any means.
3. 65k dps lost 5k total.

None of these players are average or random in any way. You keep using your discord but all that keeps showing is that the people on here and the people really mad are your highest ends of DPS. Random Average Joe is pulling 10-20k dps in vet dungeons. Even post patch there's a lot of people that would kill for that level of dps

Also, as the pictures show, as I stated some posts ago SOME classes / specs don't need to change ANYTHING nor slot regen gear nor regen food.

And?????????????????????? LOL man god forbid you play the game as designed and not the broken version it has been cuz of the power creep.

You just can't get it, do you?

These screenshots are about high level players who did NOT get problems from the nerfs, to demonstrate this patch has been USELESS to curb their DPS.

It's only worked to dig Average Joes a grave.

Plus they also show how some specs not only did not lose much DPS for high level players. They lost nothing at all. So, if some guys are told "L2P enchant for regen, slot regen and enjoy your 20k DPS loss", others didn't even have to change a single item, none, nada. That makes it unfair.

starkerealm · October 2019

Vahrokh wrote: »

It's only worked to dig Average Joes a grave.

The average player is (basically) unaffected.

The "average joes," just got a huge DoT and AoE buff six months ago that pushed them well above what they'd been at. Then that buff got walked back a bit, and they're crying about how they'll never be able to play, even though they're in a better place than they were at before Elsweyr dropped.