me_ming wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

MetallicMonk wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

A guild dying has no bearing on the entire population of a game. What goes on in the very narrow slice of the game that any one of us sees is just that, a very narrow slice of the game. It is hard to find a smaller slice than a guild.

The fact remains that the game is not dead or near its death bed and the majority of players are still here.

Games don't die instantly most of the time, it's a drawn out process with jarring changes that slowly bleed out players; which is exactly the path the game is on right now.

If you truly believe since U35 the game hasn't been losing players and the general feeling of the game from player's perspectives hasn't gotten much worse you must be in some sort of extreme echo chamber.

So far people have been declaring ESO dead or dying since 2014. That is a very slow death.

You are correct that some players will have the perspective that the game has died or is dying or has gotten much worse for them but it is based on the very small segment of the game each of us can see. The example the OP privdes is a tiny 500 member guild. Such things often do not measure up with the realities of the playerbase as a whole.

In fact, the only actual information we have access is the Steam charts. While it is not a true sampling of PC it is unbiased and it does show much more than a tiny 500 member guild and is unbiased. The average number of players for the last three months is greater than it was for the same months in 2019, the last time those months were not affected by COVID. So no, I am not in an echo chamber but I also ignore hyperbole.

I am not saying I like U35. I am merely pointing out that the only real information have about the health of the games population says the game is not even trending towards dying. Please provide unbiased data that shows a large swath of the games population that shows the population of the game is trending downwards significantly since U35.

Regards,

As you already mentioned, Steam's chart "is not a true sampling of PC" whether or not it's unbiased, it's also not proof that the game is not dying. There is no way to tell if the game is dying or not, other than one's personal opinion, and for someone who has played since 2015, I could tell there is less players that I frequently visit like Glenumbra and Wayrest bank, Belkarth, etc than before. Before regardless if the map has expanded, the number of players is noticeably less than say 2017. So YOU cannot tell me that the game is not dying, because you also can't provide data that it isn't, right?

Seeing how many players are in a particular bank is so insignificant it is virtually meaningless. So while the Steam charts is a not a true sampling it is a significantly better source of data than what a player sees because it is looking at a much larger slice of the game. A player sees dozens of other players whereas steam sees thousands of players.

Amottica wrote: »

Seeing how many players are in a particular bank is so insignificant it is virtually meaningless. So while the Steam charts is a not a true sampling it is a significantly better source of data than what a player sees because it is looking at a much larger slice of the game. A player sees dozens of other players whereas steam sees thousands of players.

You repeat this over and over as if repetition can make something that is false true. It's not actually the case, though. Steam charts are very large sample -- tens of thousands -- and you've presented no persuasive argument as to why a sample that large would not be sufficiently representative.

For the rest of us, mere humans living in a world where large sample sizes are generally representative of the population from which they are sampled, we actually do have the data we need here to make conclusions about the trend in the game's playerbase. It's becoming increasingly clear in this discussion that no amount of data will satisfy you, as you want to continue to make the claim "there isn't enough data" regardless of how much data there actually is, let alone what that data is clearly telling us.

I guess the way I see Steam charts is that the majority of players on PC use the client launcher and not even through Steam... thus, Steam charts severely under-represents the player base. Further, it doesn't even count console players. If you watch any streamers, if they use Steam charts for census, they even state exactly that. It's just a small fragment of the ESO population.

I remember years ago players were dissuaded from buying the game on Steam because of how bad the Steam version worked; there were always tons of problems with players using Steam. It obviously got better over the years, and perhaps now more players are using Steam, but I'd say a majority of vet players do not use Steam at all.

me_ming wrote: »

Most guild ads I see in zone chat (PC/NA) are either casual social PvE guilds or RP guilds, and they are the same guilds I see over and over again. Nothing wrong with those guilds per se, but where are the PvP guilds, the end game PvE guilds, the trading guilds?

Not in zone chat… Our PvP guild typically invites players we have played with in Cyrodiil, and my raiding guilds and trading guild primarily recruit from guild finder. I have not really seen much zone chat adverts other than for new social guilds trying to grow since the introduction of the guild finder.

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Seeing how many players are in a particular bank is so insignificant it is virtually meaningless. So while the Steam charts is a not a true sampling it is a significantly better source of data than what a player sees because it is looking at a much larger slice of the game. A player sees dozens of other players whereas steam sees thousands of players.

You repeat this over and over as if repetition can make something that is false true. It's not actually the case, though. Steam charts are very large sample -- tens of thousands -- and you've presented no persuasive argument as to why a sample that large would not be sufficiently representative.

For the rest of us, mere humans living in a world where large sample sizes are generally representative of the population from which they are sampled, we actually do have the data we need here to make conclusions about the trend in the game's playerbase. It's becoming increasingly clear in this discussion that no amount of data will satisfy you, as you want to continue to make the claim "there isn't enough data" regardless of how much data there actually is, let alone what that data is clearly telling us.

It was very appropriate to the comment I quoted. And very accurate as Steam is the best source of information we have available and what we see in our own guilds' friends list is so small and likely due to our specific interests it is extremely biased data.

So the reality, as I have mentioned previously is all we have provided here are opinions based on little to nothing.

ADarklore wrote: »

I guess the way I see Steam charts is that the majority of players on PC use the client launcher and not even through Steam... thus, Steam charts severely under-represents the player base. Further, it doesn't even count console players. If you watch any streamers, if they use Steam charts for census, they even state exactly that. It's just a small fragment of the ESO population.

People say this all the time but it ignores one of the most important aspects of the Steam population: that it is very large, and very likely representative of the playerbase as a whole.

In other words, yes, while Steam doesn't actually capture every. single. ESO. player. it does in fact provide data that is likely to be relevant to the playerbase as a whole; if the playerbase sampled by Steam is in decline, chances are very high that the playerbase as a whole is as well. This is because the Steam playerbase is so large (10,000+) that its threshold for statistical significance is fairly robust.

Furthermore, even if that weren't the case, given how significant a market share steam enjoys of ESO's primary target audience, it still would matter that one of its major competitors (Final Fantasy 14) managed to surpass it on there, has retained nearly double the population it had from before the pandemic (while ESO has not), and is consistently outperforming on each of its content releases. Even if basically the Steam playerbase were not representative, which it is, all of these trends are still sufficiently concerning and robust enough data to draw conclusions about the direction of the game. This is true no matter how many times a person can repeat "we don't have enough data" out loud, which seems to be the only counterargument anyone on this thread has to any of these points, and is grossly and willfully ignorant of the data that exists and has been provided.

Steam data is also not the only source of available data. There is also considerable data available that shows, unsurprisingly, the same pattern in player interest and then decline as the Steam figures. Significant among these is viewership on Twitch:



As with the Steam data, these data also show that the game's playerbase grew significantly during the pandemic, but has not been able to retain that growth, which is not typical of the genre as a whole, where generally still have higher viewer counts than they did before the pandemic.

Also interesting is that ESO's viewership is incredibly low compared to its competitors, which suggests that it actually overperforms on Steam. This is because while Steam does not capture the entire ESO playerbase, it also does not capture the entire playerbase of its competitors, some of which dominate in overseas markets like Korea and Japan (BDO and FF14, respectively) that likely use the Steam marketplace much less than ESO's target audience. ESO's biggest competitor, World of Warcraft, isn't even available on Steam, and yet despite this we know from Twitch viewership and other data that it still has a significantly larger playerbase than ESO.

What other data? So glad you asked. We also have search engine interest:



As with Steam data, this is also drawing from a very large sample size, but unlike Steam data, more likely captures the interest of the entire playerbase. And once again, follows an almost identical pattern -- interest was relatively stable or even grew during the pandemic, but this growth has not been retained. This is not as true of its competitors, especially Final Fantasy 14 which tracked very closely with ESO for a long time leading up to the pandemic, but has since broken out and is now outperforming:



So here we have a lot of exhaustive data. The counterargument to all these data points? Is there data that says something contrary we should look at? No, of course not. The argument is simply "this data isn't good enough," with no further substantiation or alternative evidence we could consider. Instead of presenting an alternative set of data that would support an alternative conclusion, we instead have the imaginary dataset, which is individual players' speculation that despite all the information we do have, there must be some other information still out there, unavailable to us, that would support the opposite conclusion, and so the opposite conclusion is still "equally valid."

This is incredibly silly, if we're being honest. We have data, and it is pretty good data, that we can compare with other games in the genre and draw conclusions about ESO's relative performance. And, in general, it supports the player concerns the OP and many other people have raised anecdotally here much more than it does not.

Ghaleb wrote: »

So, ESO is of course not dead. Nor do I want it to be dead. But it's declining. Maybe substantial. Maybe less so. But the next steps of ZOS will determine the future. And in contrast to some posters, I am sceptical towards that.

Yeah, I appreciate the support and I don't want it to be dead or declining either. I'd much rather my data be as limited or irrelevant as the people here want to say it is.

But my chief concern with all of this data denial going on in the thread is that these are people who are actively working to make the game worse: by ignoring and the denying the decline, and by downplaying the real concern many players are having and voicing about the game's direction, they are advocating for the developers to not take their consumers' input seriously, and to deliver a less competitive, less responsive, and ultimately less valuable product.

I instead prefer the approach that looks at what the game's competitors are doing quite well and replicate those -- Final Fantasy for example actually has an exhaustive in-game tutorial that is much better than the table scraps offered to new players in ESO, and also puts up orientation videos to the game on its official channels, where ESO essentially outsources this work to content creators they barely compensate.

I also prefer the approach that recognizes the people who play the game might have important feedback for how to make it better. Players have put forward some excellent ideas for how to better deliver on the developers' stated goals for the game -- an example is SkinnyCheeks's suggestion for a mythic that removes the damage from light attacks but in exchange grants a powerful buff or series of buffs to abilities, which seems far closer to a "level playing field for players who can't light attack weave" than anything that was proposed or implemented with Update 35. I'd like to see player feedback given more real airtime, and for the frustrations around a buggy or ill-received content launch to result not in a free pet no one asked for but instead in less buggy and less ill-received content launches with better, more performant, and more engaging features.

Basically by insisting "we don't have enough data" to support the arguments that either of these avenues have serious merit, these players are instead building support for the argument that the decline and frustration in playerbase being observed through both anecdotal experience and more scientific datasets is not important and should not be responded to. They are ultimately proposing the game stay on a detrimental course that devalues its playerbase and threatens its longevity. They are, in essence, asking for a weaker product that is less enjoyable and a worse use of our time and money.

It's not a good perspective that should be listened to by anyone. Arguing that the game is not suffering the impacts players observe and that is evidenced by these data, and rather that it "not only survives but thrives" is asking that the game remain exactly as it is, which is a worse experience for all of us who play it than it could be if our concerns and the data that substantiates them were actually taken seriously.

doesurmindglow wrote: »

Ghaleb wrote: »

So, ESO is of course not dead. Nor do I want it to be dead. But it's declining. Maybe substantial. Maybe less so. But the next steps of ZOS will determine the future. And in contrast to some posters, I am sceptical towards that.

Yeah, I appreciate the support and I don't want it to be dead or declining either. I'd much rather my data be as limited or irrelevant as the people here want to say it is.

But my chief concern with all of this data denial going on in the thread is that these are people who are actively working to make the game worse: by ignoring and the denying the decline, and by downplaying the real concern many players are having and voicing about the game's direction, they are advocating for the developers to not take their consumers' input seriously, and to deliver a less competitive, less responsive, and ultimately less valuable product.

I instead prefer the approach that looks at what the game's competitors are doing quite well and replicate those -- Final Fantasy for example actually has an exhaustive in-game tutorial that is much better than the table scraps offered to new players in ESO, and also puts up orientation videos to the game on its official channels, where ESO essentially outsources this work to content creators they barely compensate.

I also prefer the approach that recognizes the people who play the game might have important feedback for how to make it better. Players have put forward some excellent ideas for how to better deliver on the developers' stated goals for the game -- an example is SkinnyCheeks's suggestion for a mythic that removes the damage from light attacks but in exchange grants a powerful buff or series of buffs to abilities, which seems far closer to a "level playing field for players who can't light attack weave" than anything that was proposed or implemented with Update 35. I'd like to see player feedback given more real airtime, and for the frustrations around a buggy or ill-received content launch to result not in a free pet no one asked for but instead in less buggy and less ill-received content launches with better, more performant, and more engaging features.

Basically by insisting "we don't have enough data" to support the arguments that either of these avenues have serious merit, these players are instead building support for the argument that the decline and frustration in playerbase being observed through both anecdotal experience and more scientific datasets is not important and should not be responded to. They are ultimately proposing the game stay on a detrimental course that devalues its playerbase and threatens its longevity. They are, in essence, asking for a weaker product that is less enjoyable and a worse use of our time and money.

It's not a good perspective that should be listened to by anyone. Arguing that the game is not suffering the impacts players observe and that is evidenced by these data, and rather that it "not only survives but thrives" is asking that the game remain exactly as it is, which is a worse experience for all of us who play it than it could be if our concerns and the data that substantiates them were actually taken seriously.

I've noticed a pattern with some people replying here. They seem to play contrarian for the sake of being contrarian in whatever thread they're replying to, not just this one, bc when you point out how they're wrong or you disagree with them and you have something to back up your reply, they'll shift goal posts then continue with their contrarian forum game, stringing you along and causing drama.

There's no fruitful discussion to be had with them, so I just ignore them even if they reply to me directly, and I'll continue discussion with those who have valid points whether they agree with me or not.