Where is everyone?

Cuddlypuff · April 2022

Isn't PTS usually just people dummy parsing with new PVE sets and dueling with new PVE builds?

As far as I know nobody has discovered any crazy OP set that completely replaces any DD meta sets right now. I remember previous PTS cycles where you see tons of people posting updated parses due to the huge power creep introduced. Sure the new werewolf mythic is cracked in PVP but there's only so much enjoyment you can derive out of clicking 5 skills.

On the first 1-2 days of PTS I saw ESO streamers playing the card game. That number is now 0.

Baertram · April 2022

I have met some other addon devs there

And I also saw some duels and questions in zone chat to do world bosses, play a dungeon etc.
As always: The ones who cannot wait for the release -> Called beta testers
But it really seems the number got less yes.

Contraptions · April 2022

The only 2 major things in this update are the zone and the card game. I already gave feedback on the zone and I do not care at all about the card game, so that's all there is to it.

phaneub17_ESO · April 2022

I try not to spoil myself with any of the PTS content since it'll be here in 6 weeks after, why bother when most posts and bugs seemingly get ignored until it becomes a real problem on Live. I'm mostly looking forward to the new companions and that's about it. I have two full sets of purple gear waiting for them sitting in a house chest.

fizl101 · April 2022

I only popped in to see the new sets, I play mainly on PS where I will do the quests and trials blind, so I am avoiding spoilers till then

shadyjane62 · April 2022

redspecter23 wrote: »

I've been on PTS the last few days, mostly playing Tribute to test for bugs and balance. I'm probably at about 200 games against the CPU and maybe 10 against players so far. I've reported numerous bugs through the bug report in game as well as supplied some feedback on the card game as a whole.

In addition, I did a loop around the islands just to have a look. I didn't notice the empty areas people are talking about, but it was just a quick look so maybe I missed it. I'll save the questing and trial to do once it's on live as I only plan on doing the quests once. I don't want it spoiled in advance.

I save the parsing and combat changes to the professionals and read what they have to say later. My amateur view on the new mythics and combat changes is that nothing seems especially egregious as far as nerfs go. The Mora shoulder will have players farming lore books on multiple toons. The overall annoyance of that will be much more apparent on live when people realize the massive grind that will be on up to 18 toons, especially the Cyrodiil exclusive books.

The one thing I'm always interested in testing, but can never actually test is the antiquities lead drops. They don't tell us the locations, probably for good reason, but that makes it impossible to test if they are actually dropping which leads to a broken lead in nearly every update as it's not something players can reliably test for bugs on PTS. ZOS, if you're reading this, please have someone internally actually go collect each lead on PTS to make sure they actually drop. You know the locations. You can do the testing. I'm not going to guess at drop locations.

When I first got on pts I looked at one of the pre-made templates. It came with a folio of antiquities leads.

Kesstryl · April 2022

SpiritKitten wrote: »

After the AWA fiasco of ignored player feedback and the reported bugs going live anyway...why bother.

This was the worst one. In the past I simply waited until things came to live to not be spoiled, but after AwA I'm actually testing this patch because I'm not going to be inclined to buy anything until I test it first. So I guess they gained a tester this patch. And I am leaving feedback and posting bugs as I did during Beta. I also wanted to see how AwA fell on my account before doing anything live (nope haven't logged into any of my toons yet except for a level 3 with no achievements). It hasn't helped me decide what to do with my live account either. Still don't know if I'm going to delete and start over to make sure the achievements go to the correct characters. It hurts my head and heart.

redlink1979 · April 2022

I don't care about PTS.
Besides, feedback is ignored.

J18696 · April 2022

Bulk of ppl will only hang around publicly on pts for the first day of each new patch after that nearly everyone retreats to private player homes to test and duel but this pts really does not have much to test compared to past not very many ppl are interested in the card game

alberichtano · April 2022

Cuddlypuff wrote: »

Haha I clicked this thread expecting ESO's version of Fermi's Paradox. 20+ million players - so where is everyone?

Love the reference.

Succuby · April 2022

Simple answer:
1)Not interested in update
2)HA builds was nerfed (not even may by HA builds but thats classic sets, that is affront to HA players.
3)Real feedbacks are ignored. Even patch notes comes with errors after you write about them on live servers
4) Skills can do not work for years - with no fix.

5) People ask about DK is overpowered in PVP (it really is not, sorc or nb is much OP), but ok, even so - it get no real changes in PVP but get nerf in PVE ... ok.
6) If It is not important what do you wright - it always work in wrong way - so what is a point to waist time ?

Realy OP builds do not get nerfs, but HA sets get nerf ... balance ? Not for this game.

7) Card game ? Ok i play MTG, so not interested in card game in MMO with 100 gb client, think that a lot of people think the same, who like card games.

8) What good changes will come ? Different menu for companipns, potions, imotions ? Really good change.

And what bad changes ? All other ?

--- --- ---

And the most important thing:

SKILLS DO NOT PRESS, DO YOU UNDERSTAND IT ???

PVP is unplayable ok.
PVE dunguans is the same, sone times need to press 3 times button to make skill work ... ok - no fun in it. Bosses get fatter and fatter, skills do not work, damage get nerfed ... .

Some kind if BDSM already ... . If you do such changes, buttons have to press perfectly good, but it lugs like hell ..., so no fun in it at all.

And what to test on PTS ? New bugs to abuse ? Nothing really interesting in content. It will be the first chapter i do not even plan to buy.

Game becomes worse and worse each update, real problems do not get fix.

Yes HA get nerfed last update, so sets with 90 k dps concidered OP, but sets with 120 k dps was not !

The same for PVP much better builds do not get any nerf, but sets from middle game power get it ... .

PVP is unplayable - immortal enemys with 5 vigors and 6 mutogens on each - from party are nearly immortals. Boring and not interesting balance and game play.
The same for PVE + skill do not normally work in prime time ... so ... what to test ?

For what reason ? ))))

Do not work, will not be fixed. All knows it even with out testing ))))

remosito · April 2022

I guess people are fed up with being free testers if feedback gets consistently ignored.

I was actually on quite a bit. But just doing addon coding. love me them sweet super fast reloadui times...

rpa · April 2022

I've been more or less on break from ESO last half year or so. I have no expectations but still I intend to check the PTS. I today logged in hour before PTS went down, made new char and started what I assume is the main questline of new zone. (I also tried to log on live after patch but after looking how tangled in cobwebs my main char was decided to leave that for later.)

NettleCarrier · April 2022

Thought about hopping on PTS, but don't really see a point. All I'd be doing is spoiling stuff for myself, and it'd feel crappy if I got something cool there (not that I would). There's also the feedback thing... I don't jump on the hate trains people start here but it is pretty clear that PTS feedback is largely ignored in terms of bug reports.

Narvuntien · April 2022

A lot of people might just be standing still playing Tales of Tribute over and over, this time around. When the main chapter feature doesn't encourage you to get out and explore you might just not see people all that much.

Tandor · April 2022

1. I don't test new zone/story content these days, preferring to see it at or soon after launch.

2. The AwA changes demonstrated to me that ZOS aren't interested in engaging with the community on PTS over significant changes so feedback is unwanted and therefore not worth wasting time over.

3. The PTS client is installed for space reasons on my Windows 7 machine which was messed up by UD33 and the current "fix" on PTS causes other issues when exiting the game. I'm not really interested in running the PTS client until that's fixed.

redspecter23 · April 2022

shadyjane62 wrote: »

show previous quotes

redspecter23 wrote: »

I've been on PTS the last few days, mostly playing Tribute to test for bugs and balance. I'm probably at about 200 games against the CPU and maybe 10 against players so far. I've reported numerous bugs through the bug report in game as well as supplied some feedback on the card game as a whole.

In addition, I did a loop around the islands just to have a look. I didn't notice the empty areas people are talking about, but it was just a quick look so maybe I missed it. I'll save the questing and trial to do once it's on live as I only plan on doing the quests once. I don't want it spoiled in advance.

I save the parsing and combat changes to the professionals and read what they have to say later. My amateur view on the new mythics and combat changes is that nothing seems especially egregious as far as nerfs go. The Mora shoulder will have players farming lore books on multiple toons. The overall annoyance of that will be much more apparent on live when people realize the massive grind that will be on up to 18 toons, especially the Cyrodiil exclusive books.

The one thing I'm always interested in testing, but can never actually test is the antiquities lead drops. They don't tell us the locations, probably for good reason, but that makes it impossible to test if they are actually dropping which leads to a broken lead in nearly every update as it's not something players can reliably test for bugs on PTS. ZOS, if you're reading this, please have someone internally actually go collect each lead on PTS to make sure they actually drop. You know the locations. You can do the testing. I'm not going to guess at drop locations.

When I first got on pts I looked at one of the pre-made templates. It came with a folio of antiquities leads.

That can be used to test that the lead can be dug up, but it can't be used to test the sourcing of the lead itself, which is what has been the problem in the past. I think the most recent one was the Falkreath Hold chest lead. It simply wasn't dropping on live when the update hit. There were issues with the fishing lead for Thrassian Stranglers as well. These things are simply not player testable on PTS as we don't even know where they drop to begin with. There would be no way to know they aren't working.

YandereGirlfriend · April 2022

IMO, these things would make a world of difference in boosting the PTS population:

1. ZOS asking specifically what they want tested

2. Giving players in-game incentives to test on the PTS (e.g. mount, skin, style pages, etc.)

Do those two things and even casual players will be downloading the PTS in addition to the typical crowd of sweaty PvP/trial players and content creators.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · April 2022

It's really hard to take the dev's seriously when they post the "Give Us Your Feedback" threads after they IGNORED so many pages of feedback, not just with AwA, but many areas going back years.

I got on PTS to see location of new craft tables so to get them in our Guild Hall asap.
I wanted to see more of the AwA disaster with new update and see if any thing got fixed in that area. (It didn't).
Wanted to test new card game myself before commenting on it and to give it a fare shake.

Imagine my surprise when I really liked it and it was fun.
My BIGGEST surprise was queueing for Tribute matches and queue popping in just a few seconds each time! Even at 2 AM!!
So there is more people in PTS than I thought. I have even run into more guildies than I have in other PTS runs in years.

Yes I'm still critical of new chapter after PTS, but that is for another thread.
Just my 2 drakes..
Huzzah!

Minalan · April 2022

First you stop paying, then you stop playing.

I keep waiting for them to fix Cyrodiil, and it just keeps getting worse. Poor performance. God-mode unkillable alpha-class Dragon Knights, and new broken overpowered sets introduced.

Tandor · April 2022

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

IMO, these things would make a world of difference in boosting the PTS population:

1. ZOS asking specifically what they want tested

2. Giving players in-game incentives to test on the PTS (e.g. mount, skin, style pages, etc.)

Do those two things and even casual players will be downloading the PTS in addition to the typical crowd of sweaty PvP/trial players and content creators.

The first suggestion is already covered. The official feedback threads list the things ZOS want tested.

Your second suggestion wouldn't increase the amount of test feedback unless they were specifically geared to posting on this forum and even then people would just find a way of putting in an appearance on PTS without really contributing to the feedback in order to benefit their characters on Live.

Gaeliannas · April 2022

Saucy_Jack wrote: »

Usually the PTS has a ton of people on it, especially when it's a whole new zone rather than just a dungeon DLC. I would have thought there's be EXTRA people on the PTS since it's a zone that hasn't really been seen before in TES games. But it's been super quiet the last few days. Where is everybody?

I came, I saw, I was more than completely underwhelmed, and I left. They are going to add mobs to the overland there before release right? It was more than a bit weird being able to stand almost anywhere and not be able to see any, or very few mobs as far as the eye could see. Even the towns seem very under populated, both player and enemy towns.

blktauna · April 2022

I don't generally do PTS but reinstalled it for this release because I wanted to see what it looked like. The reveal streams showed nothing and I already know I'm not preordering so I wanted to see if it was worth even getting on sale at end of year or just waiting until it popped into plus.

I like the look, but I'm not sure its a buy even on sale. I have plenty to finish in other areas of Tamriel so I mightt ake this year to do that.

WhiteCoatSyndrome · April 2022

Gaeliannas wrote: »

I came, I saw, I was more than completely underwhelmed, and I left. They are going to add mobs to the overland there before release right? It was more than a bit weird being able to stand almost anywhere and not be able to see any, or very few mobs as far as the eye could see. Even the towns seem very under populated, both player and enemy towns.

What patch did you check? Because the initial patch had certain mob types invisible, but they fixed it with the last one.

shadyjane62 · April 2022

There is a bug that prevents anyone who did prologue on their main from advancing in the first quest. Kinda hard to test if the char you are most comfortable with can't play. I did it on new char but was finished by level 25.

If I had known I would not be able to play on my main, I wouldn't have bothered downloading the PTS.

Tannus15 · April 2022

i don't do content on PTS really, just test the new sets and builds

Kelinmiriel · April 2022

This is my opinion on what's happened with the PTS.

First - a fair number of people who were very involved in testing before Update 33 either left the game entirely, or felt their feedback was so ignored that they're not bothering with testing this time.

Second - Anniversary Jubilee was still running when High Isle started on the PTS, so that may have accounted for initial low turnout. I know I wasn't on PTS until after the event ended on live.

Third - Anyone who was there actually trying out Tales of Tribute (one of my major reasons for doing the PTS this round) may have quit after Monday's patch, because it's too broken to play vs NPCs. Imo, that should've been hotfixed quickly so we could continue playing it.

I can't speak for everyone, but I'm not comfortable playing a game that has a turn time limit with players, until I've had enough time to familiarize myself with the cards and the rules to the point where I can speed up my play a lot more. And that means I need to be able to play with NPCs to get there. (I pretty much did, before it broke - but if I was starting now, I'd be extremely frustrated.)

Now I'm trying to test the event, but I don't even if I can, since it says it requires being grouped with guildies, and hardly anyone is there - getting people from my guilds on the PTS is virtually impossible, especially since the ones who had wanted to try the card game have lost their incentive, as it's broken.

So we'll see how far I can get in an event that virtually require cooperation, on an empty server. That'll be a challenge.

I agree with Baertram - there are still some addon authors left (that's why I'm trying to check out the event, to test the new QoL improvement to warn people about exceeding the ticket cap, which is why I started learning Lua a few years ago, to put out an addon to do that). And there are people like Saucy Jack, who are gathering info for the community.

The thing is - they DO fix some of the bugs we report. And anything that doesn't get found, or doesn't get reported, before the update goes live, is much more likely to be a problem we'll all have to live with there. Nobody wants that. So I'm going to keep reporting stuff and hoping we have less issues to deal with later.

Amottica · April 2022

I am right here.

xXSilverDragonXx · April 2022

Maybe it's slow because many are not interested in this release. I've seen far more people saying they aren't going to get it than people who are getting it. So it would follow that less might bother checking it out on the PTS.

J18696 · April 2022

Yeah i would agree that not as many people are interested in this chapter release a mini game being the new big feature for the big middle of the year content drop is kind of i guess underwhelming you could say and not what majority of people actually would like.