Northwold wrote: »

Isn't there a natural cycle of chapter comes out, players surge, lull, DLC comes out, players surge, lull? Why would you expect players to increase based on the *announcement* of a new chapter? There's not new content yet.

Yes. There is. And nearly every year since One Tamriel the number of people playing has increased. Last year we lost people due to losing pandemic surge from 2020, and most likely we'll lose a bit more as things have improved globally since 2021. It's to be expected and many games are dealing with the same thing.

Unless they've really reduced the number of shards, Xbox NA seems very populated. I was wandering Greenshade over the weekend at 3 AM (5 Eastern, 2 Pacific) and there were tons of players. I had multiple people for the world boss fights, the public dungeon had groups coming and going constantly. I'm seeing tons of people even when picking flowers and thinking about whether I want to do anything.

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Mik195 wrote: »

Unless they've really reduced the number of shards, Xbox NA seems very populated. I was wandering Greenshade over the weekend at 3 AM (5 Eastern, 2 Pacific) and there were tons of players. I had multiple people for the world boss fights, the public dungeon had groups coming and going constantly. I'm seeing tons of people even when picking flowers and thinking about whether I want to do anything.

I agree too. Overland is busy for sure, but I think OP was referring to groupped content (raids).

End game players possibly, I know quite a few end game PvE & PvP groups planning to jump ship when next patch drops. Not garnering a lot of fans lol.

The numbers will shoot right back up when the expansion comes out. ESO is doing just fine. I have yet to go in any zone or delve without players in them. The PVP zones I could care less about.

[snip]

On Steam? Hardly surprising as most ESO players don't play it through Steam.

[edited to remove quote]

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Mik195 wrote: »

Unless they've really reduced the number of shards, Xbox NA seems very populated. I was wandering Greenshade over the weekend at 3 AM (5 Eastern, 2 Pacific) and there were tons of players. I had multiple people for the world boss fights, the public dungeon had groups coming and going constantly. I'm seeing tons of people even when picking flowers and thinking about whether I want to do anything.

I agree too. Overland is busy for sure, but I think OP was referring to groupped content (raids).

And what we personally see with our raid groups or being able to find a raid group is also a very small perspective of the entire raiding community. We are not able to see the full picture outside of maybe deducing some information about the bests raiders on our server via the leaderboards.

Even then, logic tells us that the raiding community population is cyclical just like everything else in the game. The last raid came out about 9 months ago so it is getting old. Many of those that left will come back with the new raid in a few months.

Jaraal wrote: »

Youyouz06 wrote: »

Mik195 wrote: »

Unless they've really reduced the number of shards, Xbox NA seems very populated. I was wandering Greenshade over the weekend at 3 AM (5 Eastern, 2 Pacific) and there were tons of players. I had multiple people for the world boss fights, the public dungeon had groups coming and going constantly. I'm seeing tons of people even when picking flowers and thinking about whether I want to do anything.

I agree too. Overland is busy for sure, but I think OP was referring to groupped content (raids).

It's also quite noticeable by how silent guild chats have become, and verified by looking at guild roster log in data (and sales). Even zone chats are becoming less active.

It's not an imaginary phenomenon.

Again, our guilds are very small compared to the game. The only real information on a broader scale that we have to is steam charts, as I noted on the first page here. It shows growth overall and that is not an imaginary phenomenon.

Jaraal wrote: »

Castagere wrote: »

The numbers will shoot right back up when the expansion comes out.

And then right back down when people realize they can't get achievements any more on their alts, when random NPCs comment about their new characters already being the Heroes of Tamriel or all the other things they haven't done, when they are locked out of quests because the quest givers tell them they have already done it, when they look at the map of a new zone they've never entered and see everything already marked as complete, or when they see level 2 characters that are too low to even enter Cyrodiil wearing Former Emperor and Grand Overlord titles, or Flawless Conqueror, Godslayer, Master Angler, or what have you.

No, this time things will be different. Tamriel One was fun and engaging, Tamriel Once .... not so much.

Maybe. But I think more will like the new AWA vs having to re-do everything on a new character. That was very much a drag and now we will be able to see our real progress overall. I thought the repetitiveness was a poor design but we all are entitled to our own opinions.

on the topic, i personally havent seen any signs that the game is losing too many players (ive seen these "game is dying" things pop up over the years and usually its heavy exaggeration or anecdotal without data)

im going to be glad for the AWA, to me it means i wont feel forced to do all content on my main (generally i still try to do content on my main first, at least quest wise)

if i am running a group for dungeons i dont HAVE to play the tank every time, and im not redoing builds with armory that is not how i enjoy the characters, i design them with 1 build, but i know they wont be good at everything

i dont see why people care so much about titles, you can use the emperor costume or vMOL skin on a level 2 toon which is even more visible than the titles, i amount the titles to flavor text, but i also recognize the work that went into getting ones like trifectas

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Saieden wrote: »

rauyran wrote: »

What platform are you on? The number of players on PC+steam seems very level over the past 3 years according to steamdb. https://steamdb.info/app/306130/graphs/

Look again closely. The active player trend has basically hit pre-lockdown levels.

March just began and the new dlc hasn't dropped so let's look at February, which is this same time but in a different year.

Not a lot of players aren't on Steam but let's look at this steam chart

February 2019 13,429.6
February 2020 15,738.7
February 2021 19,912.3
February 2022 17,885.6

So we lost some of our pandemic surge but the game is still well above pre-lockdown numbers.

[snip]

Looking at Jan to Mar periods, and ignoring the April (login queue from new release) spikes:

2019: 22~25k
2020: 20~25k
2021: ~30k
2022: 25~30k in Jan, consistent drop to ~20k in Feb, continuing downward trend to around 17k, currently, in Mar so far.

Players are leaving, there is no two ways about it.

[edited for baiting]

Uvi_AUT wrote: »

There is about 5 Million RPG-Nerds playing Elden Ring and Lost Ark right now.
There isnt an infinite number of us out there, we kinda overlap

Yup, and FF14 free trial is back, with new raids, bosses, MSQ, companion equivalent that's actually relevant, and other QoL incoming. I see sprouts under level 5 (ie brand new players, not alts) almost every day in the starting towns. Meanwhile, my wife who is still playing ESO regularly has noticed a massive decrease in guild trader sales, which is far more telling than just how many players you see around because it's impossible to know for sure how many instances are populated for an overland zone.

Uvi_AUT wrote: »

There is about 5 Million RPG-Nerds playing Elden Ring and Lost Ark right now.
There isnt an infinite number of us out there, we kinda overlap

Yeah. Lost Ark started almost month ago. 2 first weeks was so overpopulated there that during evening hours you had to wait 2-4 hours in queues to get into game. It's definitely better game than New World but it's not even close to ESO - it's typical eastern grind MMO with a lot of RNG, anime graphics and P2W cash shop. Population there is also decreasing, there is no queues anymore even a to prime hours. It's fun game but ESO is much much deeper, bigger, have better quests, better cosmetics, more side activities and many many many more.

I wouldn't worry about ESO TBH.

Grandchamp1989 wrote: »

-Vet dungeons i rarely see experienced players anymore mostly cp 100-400 trying it out.

If there are more low CP players in vet would that not mean more new players in game?
Should that not be good?

EdmondDontes wrote: »

I've been on since a few months after release. I can't speak for everyone, but I know I speak for the vast majority that finished Cadwells silver and gold and moved on to PvP as the endgame.

You're vet player and don't know true endgame is housing?

Amottica wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Castagere wrote: »

The numbers will shoot right back up when the expansion comes out.

And then right back down when people realize they can't get achievements any more on their alts, when random NPCs comment about their new characters already being the Heroes of Tamriel or all the other things they haven't done, when they are locked out of quests because the quest givers tell them they have already done it, when they look at the map of a new zone they've never entered and see everything already marked as complete, or when they see level 2 characters that are too low to even enter Cyrodiil wearing Former Emperor and Grand Overlord titles, or Flawless Conqueror, Godslayer, Master Angler, or what have you.

No, this time things will be different. Tamriel One was fun and engaging, Tamriel Once .... not so much.

Maybe. But I think more will like the new AWA vs having to re-do everything on a new character. That was very much a drag and now we will be able to see our real progress overall. I thought the repetitiveness was a poor design but we all are entitled to our own opinions.

I don't want to derail the thread but I really don't think we are gaining a reduction of repetitiveness with AwA. Achievements were never required... the ability to go after one a second or third time, on other characters, was completely optional. In fact, doing them for the first time is optional!! I've been here since the beginning and there are lots of achievements I will NEVER get, not even once - especially some of the tough PvP ones.

The grind is still there for new characters, even if you choose to leverage the Crown Store - but let's say you don't. Still have to do research, horses, get motifs, recipes, skyshards, and skill lines like Antiquities to get things like the glowy chest skill. (I can't tell you how many times I've wished for that on all my characters, but I sure am not going to re-grind Antiquities!). Still have to unlock companions on each character and grind out reputation, if you care about that. We're losing the ability to easily track where characters are in their journey in Tamriel, because character progress was so intertwined with achievements, and we're losing the ability to try and get more challenging achievements again if we want, on a different build or class or whatever. We're gaining... nothing? Well, I guess except account-wide titles which probably should have been done a long time ago when all the other rewards went account-wide. Anyway, in my opinion we still have to re-do or buy everything on new characters that's grindy, even after AwA.

However, as much as I would almost like to see a drop in population, so ZOS can actually visibly see the effects of ignoring client feedback, if only to better acknowledge what people said, I think there is a lot at play here and I think we don't know enough to know if the population is really dropping. There are a lot of people who have to go back to commuting now and have less time to play. We are in a lull before new content drops. Elden Ring is not an MMO but it has co-op and a LOT of people I know are playing it. So, I think it's impossible to tell if things are permanently on the downswing until some of the new content comes, and, even then, we've seen a lot of "game is dying" posts which have never come to anything. The (real) world is changing around us in ways we have never seen so I do think historical data isn't really a good indicator of what level of players to expect now. Personally I think the effects of AwA, if indeed that is driving some people to leave, won't be seen immediately so much as a slow trickle downward, as people get bored more quickly and just leave the community quicker, with less of the long time folks around to teach them and engage them in the harder content. There will be a dip as some of the more passionate players who were ignored completely quit, but that may be temporarily covered by new players coming back to do the expansion. It will take a while to really see the negative effects which I sadly do believe are coming. But, of course, I could be wrong!

TLDR: I think it's too soon to judge population changes and, if AwA and the card game reduce the number of players, it probably won't be immediately evident. Will happen not as a bang but more of a whimper. Slow trickle to a lower level of population ongoing.