What happened to the ESO population in the last week?

Lady_Sleepless · August 2021

People are also going on holiday/working more now. So people may not as have much time to sink into ESO, I know I haven't been around much in the last week.

kaushad · August 2021

Kalik_Gold wrote: »

The city in Central Elyswer, Corinthe can still be affected by the flu still (similar to Orcrest) and the poor areas of Senchal. Due to the Flu it is a no mans land and a mercenary area (PvP). The Flu theme could add into the lack of NPCs and the overall esthetic and them of the zone. The landscape is beautiful in Elyswer and IMO would be a fun place to PvP at...

If northern Pellitine is a no mans land, most of Anequina is occupied by Euraxia, Khenarthi's Roost is a Maormeri vassal state and the Quin'rawl Peninsula is what it currently is, then which part of Elsweyr actually joined the Aldmeri Dominion?

Alucardo · August 2021

Tandor wrote: »

regime211 wrote: »

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

Eevee_42 wrote: »

I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are absolute ghost towns. Even with the current event going on, the Steam numbers are showing less players. Hardly anybody is online on my friends list or in guilds and battlegrounds seem dead. Have the past two years of lackluster chapters started affecting the player population?

lol since when has Imperial City and Cyrodiil been representative of the player population of ESO as a whole instead of just pvpers? Take a look in Craglorn, Vulkhel Guard, Elswyr and Skyrim. Come back when those areas are devoid of players and you might have a point.

OP is literally talking about pvp, and you jumped to conclusions on thinking the OP meant the entire population including pve?

Had the title been about the PvP population rather than the ESO population then probably a lot of posters would have responded differently, or not at all.

It doesn't need to be. The first line quite literally begins with "I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are". If people can't read that far then they don't deserve to be posting in the first place.

Blobsky · August 2021

Before reading the rest of this post, keep in mind that I say it from a very informed position: I'm GM of 5 of the biggest trade guilds on PC EU, have played for over 1000 days since beta without break and was formerly one of the games largest content creators.

ESO is in big trouble when new world arrives.

I was very sceptical of new world for many reasons (many of which remain) but gave the beta a shot due to a severe lack of support for ESO pvp and a lack of new content in the rest of the game. My opinion? It is a miraculously polished MMO and, although it might have lacked a bit of PvE variety on the beta, will be extremely popular for a long time so long as they don't make it pay to win (one of my largest concerns).

Comparing ESO to new world:

1. ESO pacthes bugs once every two weeks AT MOST - some take months, years or have ever not been solved since beta. New world patches then within a few days.

2. ESO combat WAS the best I have ever seen, and I've played pretty much every RPG made during my life on every platform possible. That no longer feels true. New world combat was impressively fluid despite a lesser variety of options and was extremely enjoyable to play.

3. ESO always lags and has done so every day I've played since beta, on all 3 PCs I have played it on. New world didnt lag once.

4. ESOs greatest appeal was to casual pvers, and this is the best hope ESO has of remaining relevant in the market. Whilst this remains true, New World has done very well at allowing casual gamers to level solely through mobs, questing and crafting. As a leader of 5 huge trade guilds (300M-1.3B sales each per week), I have experienced first hand the huge player drop from the beta. I expect the same when new world live arrives because there is genuine appeal to all players.

In short, New world solves all of the issues ESO has faced and does so immaculately. At the same time, their developers are extremely quick in relying to issues, supporting their content creators and players and making new exciting content (even during beta).

I was very very skeptical of new world, but I seriously hope ESO majorly steps up their game before new worlds final release. If they don't, the current player count crash will last much longer.

Rukia541 · August 2021

I haven't noticed lack of population, my BG queues are fast and its the only pvp I do because cyrodiil is quite frankly unplayable with disgusting lag you have to be a complete masochist to play in there. I really do feel bad for ppl that played the game for that mode, fortunately for me I am a BG hero and always have been. Its all good here on my end, only content I've never had to worry about population or CP.

[Snip]

ESO has too many positives for me to jump ship completely, there's a lot of stuff that plague this game but all we can do is hope they fix lag because thats #1 issue in the game and will most definitely end up killing it if they don't fix it. Even WoW is dying due to developer neglect and whatever other scandals, ESO certainly can be victim to the same thing.

FF14 is blowing up because of all the streamers (and its a great game, for what it is) plus new world is just something new and everyone wants to play with the new shiny toy. Give it a bit and things will even out again, at least until FF14 xpac launch. Its pretty easy to jump around a few MMOs these days because only WoW really required you to have no life and just do chores 24/7.

If zos fixes lag then it will remain #1 MMO, if not well people will just play less in that content until it completely dies out. I would love to play cyrodiil, but its infuriating with the delays.

[Edited for advertising and bashing]

mb10 · August 2021

kinguardian wrote: »

The UK lockdown rules have gone so businesses go open again and people are allowed to see each other again etc.
On top of that the really warm weather in a lot of places.

And other places had natural disasters occur like parts of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. The floods litteraly took people's houses. Massive destruction.
Such a nightmare those poor people it is horrible.

So I think that is definitely part of that it slowed down. At least for the EU server.

LOL

There can be any sort of excuse at any time of the year as to why player base is down but why is it up for other games in that case?
Loyal Player base will point the finger at everything apart from what’s staring them right in the face…

Monte_Cristo · August 2021

kaushad wrote: »

Kalik_Gold wrote: »

The city in Central Elyswer, Corinthe can still be affected by the flu still (similar to Orcrest) and the poor areas of Senchal. Due to the Flu it is a no mans land and a mercenary area (PvP). The Flu theme could add into the lack of NPCs and the overall esthetic and them of the zone. The landscape is beautiful in Elyswer and IMO would be a fun place to PvP at...

If northern Pellitine is a no mans land, most of Anequina is occupied by Euraxia, Khenarthi's Roost is a Maormeri vassal state and the Quin'rawl Peninsula is what it currently is, then which part of Elsweyr actually joined the Aldmeri Dominion?

(takes hand full of dirt out of pocket) This part.

LordArconSeptim · August 2021

There Is more players in PVE zones than ever

Tandor · August 2021

Alucardo wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

regime211 wrote: »

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

Eevee_42 wrote: »

I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are absolute ghost towns. Even with the current event going on, the Steam numbers are showing less players. Hardly anybody is online on my friends list or in guilds and battlegrounds seem dead. Have the past two years of lackluster chapters started affecting the player population?

lol since when has Imperial City and Cyrodiil been representative of the player population of ESO as a whole instead of just pvpers? Take a look in Craglorn, Vulkhel Guard, Elswyr and Skyrim. Come back when those areas are devoid of players and you might have a point.

OP is literally talking about pvp, and you jumped to conclusions on thinking the OP meant the entire population including pve?

Had the title been about the PvP population rather than the ESO population then probably a lot of posters would have responded differently, or not at all.

It doesn't need to be. The first line quite literally begins with "I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are". If people can't read that far then they don't deserve to be posting in the first place.

And the last line refers to the chapters of the past two years which are nothing to do with PvP

!

Jaraal · August 2021

LordArconSeptim wrote: »

There Is more players in PVE zones than ever

So do you have a link to a source for this statistic?

Tried doing a harrowstorm or world boss in Western Skyrim lately? Even Markarth seems deserted compared to a couple of months ago. And Blackwood seems like a ghost zone compared to when it dropped. Of course, this is just personal observation. I would never claim that there were more or less players for sure without official statistics to back me up, especially since I don't have access to how many instances of any particular zone are up at any given time.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

Blobsky wrote: »

ESO is in big trouble when new world arrives.

With all due respect, there is just no way.

New World is spending a lot sponsoring hype videos, and has the "newness" factor working for it in a time people are DESPERATE for new MMO content to consume. But most of the HONEST reviews that have come out from the beta describe a very different picture.

It is a picture of bland, soulless cookie cutter zones, harsh unrealistic transitions, and half-baked combat/animations/systems, with a UI that looks atrocious and doesn't allow modding.

It is a picture of a game looking to cash in on the vanity cosmetic micro-transaction market with the actual product being a thinly veiled front-end to facilitate that attempt to break into this cash cow.

Some people will like it certainly, and for those people I say, have at it. But for the vast majority of MMO players there is simply no way a game like New World will be able to maintain the sort of long-term appeal and personal investment that a franchise with the lore and history of Elder Scrolls is able to achieve.

Or WoW for that matter.

omegatay_ESO · August 2021

Alucardo wrote: »

Twitch Viewership right now

New World - 84.8k viewers
World of Warcraft - 37k viewers
ESO - 6.5k viewers (1k less than Old School Runescape lmao)

Make pvp more exciting and less laggy. Let's get those numbers up. The game was popping when the likes of Sypher and Fengrush were streaming pvp. You know, before you turned the game into unicorns, rainbows and housing simulator.

Guess that means the above are the ones buying the Crowns . I don't see pvpers buying much in crowns . So development is going where they make money.

nightstrike · August 2021

Twitch viewership is not a universal SI unit of measure. It's entirely possible that ESO players just don't care about twitch unless it's on in the background getting a crate drop.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

The only reason New World has so many streamers is because of the "New" part.

Also check out what happened to Black Desert Online if you really believe PVP is where the MMO money is at. People tried to tell them for months leading up to their western release that the market would not tolerate forced PVP, but they refused to listen. Mostly because the game was built around selling pay to win items. Shortly after everyone hit maxed level and got dropped into forced open world PVP, the game tanked.

PVP might be better for TWITCH, but that doesn't really benefit the game company spending millions to develop a title. PVP is more like sports, being rooted in competition, which is a spectator genre. RPG is more about personal immersion and doesn't lend itself well to being a spectator genre, so it will always have less Twitch viewership. But that is proven to be where the long-term MMO sub/cosmetic dollars are, not PVP.

The only people profiting off Twitch are the advertising companies and their subsidiaries. Why should game companies chase THEIR profits for them?

tplink3r1 · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

The only reason New World has so many streamers is because of the "New" part.

Also check out what happened to Black Desert Online if you really believe PVP is where the MMO money is at. People tried to tell them for months leading up to their western release that the market would not tolerate forced PVP, but they refused to listen. Mostly because the game was built around selling pay to win items. Shortly after everyone hit maxed level and got dropped into forced open world PVP, the game tanked.

PVP might be better for TWITCH, but that doesn't really benefit the game company spending millions to develop a title. PVP is more like sports, which is a spectator genre. RPG is a personal immersion genre and doesn't lend itself well to being a spectator genre, so it will always have less Twitch viewership. But that is proven to be where the long-term MMO sub/cosmetic dollars are, not PVP.

The only people profiting off Twitch are the advertising companies and their subsidiaries. Why should game companies chase THEIR profits for them?

There is no forced pvp in BDO

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

tplink3r1 wrote: »

There is no forced pvp in BDO

LOL yes there is, what game are you playing. At max level you are permanently flagged as attackable in open world, regardless of your activity be it questing, grinding, fishing, etc. Even if you flag as not WANTING to PVP, people can still gank you. The "karma" system does no more to deter this than racking up a bounty on a throw-away thief character in ESO deters people from farming innocent NPC's for gold.

The fact is you have no option to turn off being attacked while you quest, craft, grind, or whatever in the open world. That is forced PVP, by definition. If you choose to continue playing the game at max level, you are forced to accept being open to attack no matter what you are doing.

Saying "well you can just not play the game" doesn't change the fact that IF you play it is absolutely forced on you.

And there are whole guilds devoted to ganking fishers in that game so don't tell me people don't exploit it just for griefing purposes! XD

Jaraal · August 2021

omegatay_ESO wrote: »

I don't see pvpers buying much in crowns .

Where are you PvPing at? I see way more gem and radiant apex mounts, as well as crown motifs, arms packs, and polymorphs in Cyrodiil than I see anywhere else in the game.

Blobsky · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

Blobsky wrote: »

ESO is in big trouble when new world arrives.

With all due respect, there is just no way.

New World is spending a lot sponsoring hype videos, and has the "newness" factor working for it in a time people are DESPERATE for new MMO content to consume. But most of the HONEST reviews that have come out from the beta describe a very different picture.

It is a picture of bland, soulless cookie cutter zones, harsh unrealistic transitions, and half-baked combat/animations/systems, with a UI that looks atrocious and doesn't allow modding.

It is a picture of a game looking to cash in on the vanity cosmetic micro-transaction market with the actual product being a thinly veiled front-end to facilitate that attempt to break into this cash cow.

Some people will like it certainly, and for those people I say, have at it. But for the vast majority of MMO players there is simply no way a game like New World will be able to maintain the sort of long-term appeal and personal investment that a franchise with the lore and history of Elder Scrolls is able to achieve.

Or WoW for that matter.

As somebody who actually played it and has many other friend who played it, I can say with absolute certainty that I'll main new world over eso, other than managing my trade guilds.

Keep in mind, the negative views also have their own reasons to provide such reviews. In either case, Im in a discord where around 70-100 players all found it vastly Superior and intend to move - I doubt we are a minority.

Note that I entriely agree that it could easily be a cash grabber in 6 months, and that is my largest and only reservation. However, I don't see that as being any different to the crown store pumping these days, especially with the consatnt locking of BIS gear (and particularly overturned pvp gear) that eso produced.

I have no issues with eso and still love to play - but I can honestly say that new world felt amazing.

YandereGirlfriend · August 2021

Jaraal wrote: »

omegatay_ESO wrote: »

I don't see pvpers buying much in crowns .

Where are you PvPing at? I see way more gem and radiant apex mounts, as well as crown motifs, arms packs, and polymorphs in Cyrodiil than I see anywhere else in the game.

This is so true.

The number of flashy flex mounts per capita is sky-high in Cyrodiil. As are, as you say, the average number of equipped weapon packs, costumes, personalities (jesters, jesters everywhere...), style pages, lore weapons, etc.

Most PvP'ers either want to look good/cool/menacing and/or troll with their aesthetic choices and it's the Crown Store that makes that all possible.

As you pointed out, PvP'ers definitely contribute at an above average rate to the Crown Store, so hopefully we can put to bed this flawed notion that PvP is some charity side-project for ZOS or that PvP'ers are somehow mooching off of the noble PvE'ers in terms of keeping the lights on for the game.

For any executives who happen to be slumming it in the forums:

Fixing PvP performance -> Number of PvP'ers drastically increases -> PvP'ers spend tons on cosmetics in the Crown Store to look cool and scare their enemies -> You make boatloads of money.

WhyMustItBe · August 2021

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

The number of flashy flex mounts per capita is sky-high in Cyrodiil. As are, as you say, the average number of equipped weapon packs, costumes, personalities (jesters, jesters everywhere...), style pages, lore weapons, etc.

I don't think this really means anything. It isn't like people who PVP in ESO only PVP and never PVE, or people who PVE never PVP. Many do both. I see people standing around on flex mounts at wayshrines in cities way more than I ever saw in Cyrodiil. I think these observations are totally subjective and arbitrary and not really representative of anything.

Only ZOS knows the time-played-per-genre breakdown and how it correlates to crown sales. The fact they are investing far more in PVE than PVP should be a pretty telling indicator IMO where this breakdown trends, however.

Amottica · August 2021

Eevee_42 wrote: »

I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are absolute ghost towns. Even with the current event going on, the Steam numbers are showing less players. Hardly anybody is online on my friends list or in guilds and battlegrounds seem dead. Have the past two years of lackluster chapters started affecting the player population?

Considering how Cyrodiil and IC are such a small part of ESO I would expect they are not great indicators of the health of the game.

Zenzuki · August 2021

Oh boy...

Reading through this thread has given me the whole "deja-vu", "we've been here before" feels.

This looks/reads very similar to the multitude of threads we'd seen during the WildStar beta and pre-release days.

"Man this dev/game/comp really knows how to get it done" and "They just do things right compared to ZOS" or "Just look at the stream numbers, big name player hype" etc. etc.

E.V.E.R.Y. time a new shiny is about to drop.... Death kneel to ESO! ((You heard it here first, hur dur))

Am I saying New World is gonna die on the vine as quickly (or at all) as WildStar did... Absolutely not. (My crystal ball is broken).

But is it going to end ESO... Absolutely not as well. (History has bore that out).

Let's re-visit this thread a number of months after NW has officially released and see if it's gotten it's legs under it and retained much of it's hype and/or player retention... before we start looking for a burial plot for ESO.

Cheers

Eevee_42 · August 2021

Tandor wrote: »

Alucardo wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

regime211 wrote: »

alanmatillab16_ESO wrote: »

Eevee_42 wrote: »

I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are absolute ghost towns. Even with the current event going on, the Steam numbers are showing less players. Hardly anybody is online on my friends list or in guilds and battlegrounds seem dead. Have the past two years of lackluster chapters started affecting the player population?

lol since when has Imperial City and Cyrodiil been representative of the player population of ESO as a whole instead of just pvpers? Take a look in Craglorn, Vulkhel Guard, Elswyr and Skyrim. Come back when those areas are devoid of players and you might have a point.

OP is literally talking about pvp, and you jumped to conclusions on thinking the OP meant the entire population including pve?

Had the title been about the PvP population rather than the ESO population then probably a lot of posters would have responded differently, or not at all.

It doesn't need to be. The first line quite literally begins with "I’ve noticed that Cyrodiil and IC are". If people can't read that far then they don't deserve to be posting in the first place.

And the last line refers to the chapters of the past two years which are nothing to do with PvP !

It is relevant actually. Pvp players have been shafted while ZOS has churned out casual low quality pve content for years. Thus the diminishing population.

Alucardo · August 2021

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

The only reason New World has so many streamers is because of the "New" part.

Also check out what happened to Black Desert Online if you really believe PVP is where the MMO money is at. People tried to tell them for months leading up to their western release that the market would not tolerate forced PVP, but they refused to listen. Mostly because the game was built around selling pay to win items. Shortly after everyone hit maxed level and got dropped into forced open world PVP, the game tanked.

Yeah, no decent MMO player enjoys p2w. It's the one thing ESO has done right all these years. The closest thing they have is skill lines and skill points in the crown store, but you still have to unlock them so I don't mind too much.

WhyMustItBe wrote: »

PVP might be better for TWITCH, but that doesn't really benefit the game company spending millions to develop a title. PVP is more like sports, being rooted in competition, which is a spectator genre. RPG is more about personal immersion and doesn't lend itself well to being a spectator genre, so it will always have less Twitch viewership. But that is proven to be where the long-term MMO sub/cosmetic dollars are, not PVP.

I agree it's not the most popular end-game, but it still brings in new players that see it on twitch, so PvP should absolutely receive support and not run like crap as it does now. I mean you turn an ESO stream on and see the streamer shouting in frustration at lag as their character slingshots back and forth inside Undo ultimate, getting queued up projectiles shot at them from invisible enemies (probably lag too), health desyncs, getting randomly polymorphed into some weird creature mid fight (albeit funny).
It's just full of so many issues, and this is the first thing a lot of potential new customers will see when they're browsing games on twitch. While it may not be as prominent as the roleplaying side of things, it's still an important aspect of the game that deserves ZOS's TLC. Right now it just feels abandoned.

schoober · August 2021

Yes, I’m really worried now. Game is looking desert, I waited almost 2 hours in a queue for vet castle thorn and could’nt find a group.
I really hope they fix the performance issues and listen to the community.
ESO players are know for always returning to the game, but we have to give them a good reason to, cause ESO is getting aged.
I remember Greymoor brought back a lot of players who had left years before it, you guys can do it once more.