ESO EOL?

D0PAMINE · November 2019

idk wrote: »

Lady_Linux wrote: »

Seems like it.

People have been saying this for almost 6 years and each one has been very wrong.

If ESO was EOL then we would see new content cease and the servers closing soon afterwards. Most certainly the first part.

Good try.

True

mgk · November 2019

cant tag as a simple tank, cant find a single dd in grathwood for coh1 pledges, steamchart showing less people ( that mean no steam less too, dont be blind anti-steam), so yes.

idk · November 2019

mgk wrote: »

cant tag as a simple tank, cant find a single dd in grathwood for coh1 pledges, steamchart showing less people ( that mean no steam less too, dont be blind anti-steam), so yes.

Oh yes. The decline in players we see in the Steam Charts is likely indicative to a degree of the entire game. Granted, Steam does not reflect the entire player base so the loss of players may be more or less than the % change we see in that chart.

That should be a concern for Zenimax management. However, the loss of numbers Steam Charts show is not even close enough to call ESO EOL.

Again, people have been calling out the sky is falling for almost 6 years and every one of those cries has been very wrong. This one is no different.

OrdoHermetica · November 2019

Lady_Linux wrote: »

zyk wrote: »

Considering ZOS has attributed many of the issues of the past year to scaling, I don't think so.

I see ESO as having two main arcs: The game it was, which is slowly dying and the online service which it has become which is growing invisibly because it's played very casually and without socialization.

With that said, I think it's possible that TES6 might cannibalize ESO over time by offering many of the same features and content. I'll be very surprised if Zenimax doesn't eventually sell houses, mounts, clothing, hair styles, etc in TES6. There will probably be social and multiplayer elements too.

I so hope you are wrong. I have no intention of buying es6 if it's gonna ba another sloppy mmo cash grab. if it's not single player i dont want it.

MMO? Probably not. Feature incomplete "live service"? Yeah, probably. :-(

Major_Lag · November 2019

idk wrote: »

That should be a concern for Zenimax management.

If anything, there seems to be a growing LACK of concern:

Jester's, and the 5th anniversary events? Went ok for the most part, the login queues were annoying (and the "PvP week" was a disaster, as expected), but otherwise the game remained fairly stable and playable.
So far, so "good".

Midyear Mayhem? Cancelled preemptively... that alone speaks volumes about the devs' intentions.

Witchmother's? Extended due to game becoming literally unplayable in primetime.

Undaunted? Instant server meltdown, cancelled in the first hours.

Now I'm eagerly awaiting the Dragonguard event meltdown and cancellation.

Events are supposed to be a thing that draws more players in, and/or draws less active players back into the game.
But that does not do any good, when the game becomes unplayable due to server overload and resulting crashes. That has exactly the opposite effect.

idk · November 2019

Major_Lag wrote: »

idk wrote: »

That should be a concern for Zenimax management.

If anything, there seems to be a growing LACK of concern:

Jester's, and the 5th anniversary events? Went ok for the most part, the login queues were annoying (and the "PvP week" was a disaster, as expected), but otherwise the game remained fairly stable and playable.
So far, so "good".

Midyear Mayhem? Cancelled preemptively... that alone speaks volumes about the devs' intentions.

Witchmother's? Extended due to game becoming literally unplayable in primetime.

Undaunted? Instant server meltdown, cancelled in the first hours.

Now I'm eagerly awaiting the Dragonguard event meltdown and cancellation.

Events are supposed to be a thing that draws more players in, and/or draws less active players back into the game.
But that does not do any good, when the game becomes unplayable due to server overload and resulting crashes. That has exactly the opposite effect.

I will take your word for it about a growing lack of concern at Zos as I have not talked with them lately. You listed great reasons it should be otherwise as the issues you listed are not healthy for career longevity.

Major_Lag · November 2019

idk wrote: »

I will take your word for it about a growing lack of concern at Zos as I have not talked with them lately.

As if their empty promises would be worth anything in any case

Anyway, the evidence speaks for itself.
Yes, it is not healthy for the game. [snip]

[edited for bashing]

Anotherone773 · November 2019

I wouldnt throw in the towel yet. The reviews on the game is positive and many players dont experience or notice bugs and problems like we do. The try to login, game is down, they go do something else. They come back 4,8,12 hours later game works for the hour or two they pick nodes, make furniture and do a couple of quests and they log off content with the game.

They wont investigate until the problems become prevalent in their play time. And many, like my wife, wouldnt know a bug from an intended feature. Even when the bug is obviously not a feature she dismisses it as her doing something wrong or messing up.

Ive played MMOs in far worse states than this one. It will take a while to get to that state. When they close down console servers and combine PC EU and NA servers then you know we are in the final days.

essi2 · November 2019

Often the first sign of EoL is the EU server being permanently shutdown, although ZOS is more likely to just let it die from natural causes it seems.

Sergykid · November 2019

the sky is falling

again ?

Kiyakotari · November 2019

khajiitNPC wrote: »

Wow another “ESO is dying” thread. Bless your heart. While there are definitely issues with the game, I have to wonder if you are playing on complete potatoes.

I wonder the same thing sometimes. My PC was built in 2011. 2011. My PC is older than this game. The only things I've replaced have been the power supply (because the first one keeled over on me after about a year, and then the second one caught fire while I was playing ESO) and the graphics card (because the original one finally failed, possibly because of the stress from running ESO combined with damage from that one time the power supply just below it caught fire). It's in desperate need of a new CPU, and that's not happening any time soon - but I should probably pull the old one off and at the very least replace the old thermal paste on it. Because. You know. Fires.

When my FPS is good, it sits at a happy 60. Normally, I'm around 35, which is still totally playable. When there's a lot going on, I'll often drop to 3-4 FPS. But I certainly don't blame any of that on the game.

And to think, this isn't even my potato computer. My potato computer can't actually run ESO, according to https://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri , but that hasn't stopped me from loading it up and setting it loose. It's...not something I'd want to take into a trial. Or Cyrodiil. Or a BG. Or anywhere near an Alik'r dolmen. But for basic overland stuff and writs and housing, it's fine.

redgreensunset · November 2019

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

khajiitNPC wrote: »

Wow another “ESO is dying” thread. Bless your heart. While there are definitely issues with the game, I have to wonder if you are playing on complete potatoes.

I watch quite a few different streamers, where I do see a few hiccups here and there, I never see it to the extremes that the forums describe.

Myself I play on an Xbox one X, not even master race, and although I MIGHT disconnect maybe once every couple days I am not plagued with any issues. Now first gen consoles definitely have issues — my lil bro plays on one and he’s always disconnecting. If the argument was “first gen consoles need some love to run your game”. I would agree.

But to deny that there haven’t been improvements, or that the dev team isn’t trying, is preposterous. They want to make money and they want to improve their game. Unfortunately they took over for a previous team. I don’t care if I get flamed. Or called a WK, maybe the issue might be the add one your running, or your card, it could be anything. I just wonder how these streamers can run almost all content without experiencing the issues that most of the doom and gloom peeps are explaining at every moment.

Is it populated as launch? No. But it’s steady and from all tables and graphs that people post, it seems to be about the same population swell and decline — towards the end of dec and jan you’ll see a sudden burst of pop, then it will trickle off.

Everyone I played with 5 years ago are still playing at a competitive level. Every trial is usually the same faces. So. Idk what you’re on about. Come Midyear Mayhem PvP will be pop lock and people will be wanting campaigns added.

Yes it’s unfortunate that the dungeon-finder doesn’t work as it should and BG is experiencing some problems, but guess what, [snip] happens. Go outside. Unplug for the game a little. Trust me, it’ll be here if you decide to come back.

I'm watching Fengrush's stream right now and he's talking (and we've all been observing) about how his Vigor and Dark Deal heals aren't registering, oils being dumped on him and balista bolts aren't changing his health, and he cannot use his ultimate nor potions despite mashing the respective keys for multiple seconds.

Personally, I was in non-CP Cyrodiil last night and had the same experience during a medium-sized fight between the three factions at Chalman. People in my guild group were lagging out and crashing. You have to buffer your heals about five seconds before you actually need them because it literally takes that long for the game to register your actions when there are more than ~40 people in one place.

The performance is NOT good.

Cyrodiil is ridiculous. I went for the first time this week and apart from being confusing as hell and with no instructions whatsoever that I could find, performance was... yeah no.
I don't generally have performance issues unless we're seeing a full scale server meltdown or I'm part of a 40+ group fighting a dragon and in the latter case it is more an issue of the visual side of a skill not being displayed than the skill not firing at all.
But Cyrodiil? I only went there to work on some achievements as I don't really pvp, so I went on a Wednesday as 1pm GMT and chose the lowest pop campaign for the purpose. During my run I came across exactly 2 other enemy players, one who killed and one who just ran by, the rest was pure pve. The map itself had something like two battles going far as I could tell, the whole thing was pretty dead (which was why I chose it). Still I had issues with skills not firing or firing with a noticeable delay to them, something I otherwise do not experience.

I'm not backseat coder so I'm not even going to try and guess the source of the issue, but it is my distinct opinion that Cyrodiil's performance is absurd.

[edited to remove quote]

redgreensunset · November 2019

The above said I don't think the game is dying per se. Not if they can get some hold on the server meltdowns. And I can only see TES6 doing a severe dent to the ESO population if it's some form of MMO, in which case it wouldn't be so much TES6 as ESO2. If it goes the way of the other TES games and is a mainly single player (maybe with the option for multiplay with friends) but without the other MMO staples then it alone won't be the cause of ESO's possible demise. May who play, whether TES fans or not, plays and will keep playing because it's an TES game that is an MMO.

Major_Lag · November 2019

redgreensunset wrote: »

Cyrodiil is ridiculous. I went for the first time this week and apart from being confusing as hell and with no instructions whatsoever that I could find, performance was... yeah no.
(...)
I went on a Wednesday as 1pm GMT and chose the lowest pop campaign for the purpose.
(...) the whole thing was pretty dead (which was why I chose it). Still I had issues with skills not firing or firing with a noticeable delay to them, something I otherwise do not experience.

Welcome to Cyrodiil, please leave your expectations by the door. Thank you

But seriously - if you mean the unlocked 30-day campaign (listed 3rd from top), then no, that's not normal. That one is normally OK performance-wise; although I've noticed some serious performance degradation in there in the last few days.

The populated campaigns, when they are at 2 bars/3 bars/full - yeah, that's a lagfest alright.

Valabrog · November 2019

Major_Lag wrote: »

deflorate wrote: »

The game is steadily improving

Lolwut?
I've been playing for about a year now - and it's been a steady downhill slope so far, in terms of performance & stability in PvE. (not even mentioning PvP, because it's a meme by now)

Sure, the player base might be technically growing... but what good does that do if there's gonna be poor player retention?
Churn and burn... just like the cheap disposable Chinese garbage that's been flooding the consumer markets. Quantity over quality.

When the game launched in 2014 it was complete disaster, prob 70% of players left in a few months. Zos turned the tables and after 5 years its still top 3 played mmoprg. So they are capable and can be dedicated.

On the other hand - what to play? Anime or cartoon mmorpg? Or star wars mmorpg with 10 person dev team and almost zero funding?

Yes, server and fps issues are huge problem atm, but content amount and new updates are a good thing anyway.

wolf486 · November 2019

I only log in for the daily rewards (out of habit at this point), but game seems empty whenever I do play. I use to watch ESO on twitch and it would average a few thousand people, now it's getting only a few hundred (as of writing this even GW2 has double the viewers).

carlos424 · November 2019

DTStormfox wrote: »

You know how economical recessions start? (rethorical question)
There is a strong correlation between the amount of newspaper headlines using the word 'recession' and an actual recession happening. There more newspapers headline with the word 'recession', the more likely the recession is actually going to happen.

So, starting this thread is not going to help the community. If you want to help the community and prevent it from coming to an end: play the game, post something funny on the forums and invite some friends to play too.

So, just saying something can make it happen? Ha ha that’s magical thinking. Maybe the reason a recession happens is because there are economic indicators that people see and start reporting about, and use the word “recession” because that is what the indicators suggest. In ESO there are also indicators .......
But I agree that “doom and gloom” posts are not constructive.

Lady_Linux · November 2019

wolf486 wrote: »

I only log in for the daily rewards (out of habit at this point), but game seems empty whenever I do play. I use to watch ESO on twitch and it would average a few thousand people, now it's getting only a few hundred (as of writing this even GW2 has double the viewers).

Well, not to be a bug but i dont think people not streaming on twitch is really indicative of anything except a dislike of twitch... im twitchy enough without it... I would never want to watch someone play this gave through twitch or anything else.... just seems weird to me to want to watch when you can play...

Lady_Linux · November 2019

carlos424 wrote: »

DTStormfox wrote: »

You know how economical recessions start? (rethorical question)
There is a strong correlation between the amount of newspaper headlines using the word 'recession' and an actual recession happening. There more newspapers headline with the word 'recession', the more likely the recession is actually going to happen.

So, starting this thread is not going to help the community. If you want to help the community and prevent it from coming to an end: play the game, post something funny on the forums and invite some friends to play too.

So, just saying something can make it happen? Ha ha that’s magical thinking. Maybe the reason a recession happens is because there are economic indicators that people see and start reporting about, and use the word “recession” because that is what the indicators suggest. In ESO there are also indicators .......
But I agree that “doom and gloom” posts are not constructive.

well, in the us atleast, if you tell people there's a beef shortage, they'll go out and buy as much as they can, and so it can become a self fulfilling prophecy...ish sorta thing...

JanTanhide · November 2019

Feel the same. Been here over 5 years. Tick tock...tick tock.

Grimm13 · November 2019

idk wrote: »

Lady_Linux wrote: »

Seems like it.

People have been saying this for almost 6 years and each one has been very wrong.

If ESO was EOL then we would see new content cease and the servers closing soon afterwards. Most certainly the first part.

Good try.

If ZOS had not done a Hail Mary with One Tamreil to change a major approach, TESO would have been long gone. Update 25 best make a repeat of that.

Aurielle · November 2019

khajiitNPC wrote: »

Yes it’s unfortunate that the dungeon-finder doesn’t work as it should and BG is experiencing some problems, but guess what, [snip] happens. Go outside. Unplug for the game a little. Trust me, it’ll be here if you decide to come back.

Imagine if people who played Battlefield, COD, Overwatch, Fortnite, PUBG, etc. couldn’t get into matches at all because the matchmaking system was completely broken. Imagine if, on a good day when the matchmaking systems WERE working, it took upwards of half an hour of sitting in a queue before you were matched up with other players in those games. Imagine if those games then crashed over and over again when players finally made it into a match, often right in the middle of you fighting another person. IT WOULDN’T HAPPEN, because those games would go out of business so quickly if their associated developers coded THAT badly.

Remember, for many of us, all content outside of dungeons/trials, Cyrodiil, and BGs is irrelevant. Many of us care little for open world PVE, materials harvesting, and housing. Why should we just shrug and say “[snip] happens” when we wouldn’t tolerate it in any other triple A video game that relies on matchmaking systems?

[edited for profanity bypass & to remove quote]

Slimebrow · November 2019

Wow. Just came in to check ESOs progress in these forums and looks like the base issues are still the same.

redgreensunset · November 2019

Major_Lag wrote: »

redgreensunset wrote: »

Cyrodiil is ridiculous. I went for the first time this week and apart from being confusing as hell and with no instructions whatsoever that I could find, performance was... yeah no.
(...)
I went on a Wednesday as 1pm GMT and chose the lowest pop campaign for the purpose.
(...) the whole thing was pretty dead (which was why I chose it). Still I had issues with skills not firing or firing with a noticeable delay to them, something I otherwise do not experience.

Welcome to Cyrodiil, please leave your expectations by the door. Thank you

But seriously - if you mean the unlocked 30-day campaign (listed 3rd from top), then no, that's not normal. That one is normally OK performance-wise; although I've noticed some serious performance degradation in there in the last few days.

The populated campaigns, when they are at 2 bars/3 bars/full - yeah, that's a lagfest alright.

Yep that was the one. I chose it exactly because it was the one with the least people and I've heard it was pretty dead, since my goal was achievements and I was trying to run into as few other players as possible. Which was why it surprised me, especially as I otherwise never have had that problem.
The visual side of a skill not showing? Sure. But it actually not going off when I hit the key? Not that I can recall outside of complete server fubar which wasn't the case here.

Jaraal · November 2019

Flubbles wrote: »

Wow. Just came in to check ESOs progress in these forums and looks like the base issues are still the same.

As long as it's the same management that ignores the players and can't see past the "vision" blinders they are so fond of (apparently yo-yo nerf/buff cycles and overall disempowering of the playerbase is their vision), then you can't expect things to change.

Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. (Here's looking at you, group finder!) As long as they think they are "killing it" with the current status quo, then we're stuck with ESO business as usual.

BringerOfOmens · November 2019

I think it's important to look at these types of threads as indicative because they are based on personal perception. For the original poster, they are seeing the EOL for them and have probably experienced it with others they are currently playing the game with, number of negative forum threads, guilds dying off, negative press, etc.

What I have observed since Update 23 is a growing increase in all the negativity. The guilds I was in which were highly populated pre-23 have lost 60-80% of the active players.

The industry in general publishes numbers which lack context for players to make informed decisions. For example, ESO boasts some 13.5 million players which is somewhat misleading because what they have is 13.5 million accounts which have been created at some point since the beta of the game. This is no way accounts for players who have multiple accounts, active accounts (which also lacks definition of "active"), how many accounts or players are available on each platform of the game, etc. As some games, including ESO have a free to play model the numbers become more difficult to analyze regarding the health of the game because the number of active subscribers are not published.

I have a feeling many would be shocked to learn of the disparity between the published 13.5 million accounts and how many are actively subscribed, further reduced by how many accounts are actually active (used within the last 30 days), reduced further by how many are ghost accounts (used only as storage, disposable farming accounts, alt accounts, etc), and then separated by platform, and finally how many are daily login players.

At the end of the day; however, EOL is a personal perspective until it reaches a level which adversely affects the operations of the game company. When such things occur you tend to see long-time or founding developers/staff resign and move to other projects which tends to further adversely affect a game. Typically staff is further reduced as funding becomes more limited. Stability issues become more pronounced as equipment is not properly updated and/or maintained, content becomes bland as it is re-purposed rather than created new. Cycles of player spikes when new content is published become more evident as larger numbers of players "drop in" to burn through an event or new content and leave again.

This is a very long way of saying, when you think you see EOL, it probably is for you as a player and you are likely not alone.

khajiitNPC · November 2019

@Aurielle i don’t experience that tho, the people who I dungeon with don’t experience it with group finder. I’m not denying the problems exist, but maybe idk — que as something other than dps?

When the undaunted even happened I got into dungeons immediately, granted it was premade groups through the group finder — there was 2 times it took a little while longer, both times we canceled que restarted got in instantly. That being said I’m not denying other premades were having issue, but we need to make the distinction between premades having issues and dps scratching their heads like, “gee I wonder why I can’t get in”.

[snip] The game is not at the end of its line. No matter how badly the doomsayers want it to fail — so far everything I am seeing and experiencing is not indicative of the game ending. Useless hyperbole is useless hyperbole. They’ve been saying the game is dying since OT. Forums are a minuscule portion of the population.

[edited for baiting]

Aurielle · November 2019

khajiitNPC wrote: »

@Aurielle i don’t experience that tho, the people who I dungeon with don’t experience it with group finder. I’m not denying the problems exist, but maybe idk — que as something other than dps?

When the undaunted even happened I got into dungeons immediately, granted it was premade groups through the group finder — there was 2 times it took a little while longer, both times we canceled que restarted got in instantly. That being said I’m not denying other premades were having issue, but we need to make the distinction between premades having issues and dps scratching their heads like, “gee I wonder why I can’t get in”.

@khajiitNPC , people can solo queue in the other games I’ve mentioned and start playing within seconds, irrespective of the class/character/role/etc. that they’re playing. That cannot be said for ESO. Only solo-queued tanks can get into dungeons quickly, and only when the group finder is actually working (which is never a guarantee, especially during prime time hours on the weekend).

Also, ESO’s terrible matchmaking system is not just limited to dungeons; it’s even worse in BGs. The solo queue for BGs takes at least three to five minutes on a REALLY good day, but often takes much, much longer (the longest solo queue I ever experienced was approx 25 minutes; I was thrown into a broken instance that never filled and had no choice but to leave the match, which obviously gave me a deserter penalty, preventing me from re-queuing). Premade BG groups take EVEN LONGER to match you with opponents. 20-30 minutes is the norm for a full BG premade.

Major triple A PVP games would cease to exist if a full premade team had to wait 20-30 minutes to get into a match, because NO ONE would put up with that garbage. The only reason why ESO gets away with it is because there’s open world PVE, housing, and material harvesting in the game to appeal to those who don’t care about endgame PVE or PVP. That’s it. If the game’s entire playerbase was solely reliant on ESO’s frankly atrocious matchmaking system, the game would have died a long time ago.

khajiitNPC · November 2019

@Aurielle comparing apples to oranges. Battle Royal games don’t have the same issues because they typically don’t have roles to fulfill. I remember waiting 20-30 minutes sometimes more at peak hours to get into dungeons when I played WoW granted I was a DD.

Yes there are issues with the group finder — obviously if there was an easier solution they’d implement it right away so they didn’t have to hear any justified/unjustified crying (but I’m not experiencing the issues that you guys are experiencing — I used to play master race but when Xbox one x). So idk what’s going on with you.

The game should definitely run better, no one is arguing that. But these doom and gloom threads are preposterous. Since UO people have taken to forums to spread “the end of the world” — same with WoW, same with every game. I suggest maybe logging out for a little while. The game will definitely still be here when you get back.

khajiitNPC · November 2019

@Aurielle also I do PvE and PvP content at end level and don’t have the issues you’re having. So the idea that only those who do end level stuff is preposterous. Their MMR for BG definitely needs to be worked out — and I’ll agree with that whole heartedly, but guess why it’s the way it is? Little whiners whined they were going against more experience players so they had to change that up patches ago. At least that is my understanding.