Population shrinking, please BRING CROSSPLAY QUICK

joergino · June 5

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

Pixiepumpkin · June 5

joergino wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

This seems to be the case. Friends list, half have not even logged in for the update.
Guilds...silent. I even made an "All" channel so I could see SOMEONE talking.

I have my issues with subclassing, but the content in this update is extremely light. It will be consumed fast and unless ZOS starts giving out free apex mounts of the players choosing, not sure how many are gonna return.

LalMirchi · June 5

joergino wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

Any factual evidence, not anecdotes, would be helpful.

Stamicka · June 5

LalMirchi wrote: »

joergino wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

Any factual evidence, not anecdotes, would be helpful.

I mean I’m done and some other people I know are done too. So there are people who have quit over subclassing. That’s just a fact. It’s obviously not isolated to just me and others I know.

sans-culottes · June 5

LalMirchi wrote: »

joergino wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

Any factual evidence, not anecdotes, would be helpful.

That is, of course, the purpose of this thread. The OP has documented their own experience, which—combined with similar posts across platforms—speaks to a broader sentiment worth acknowledging. If you’re asking for internal retention metrics, then we both know those aren’t made public. Dismissing lived player experience until ZOS hands us a pie chart is a convenient way to ignore feedback without ever having to engage with it.

LalMirchi · June 5

sans-culottes wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

joergino wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

Any factual evidence, not anecdotes, would be helpful.

That is, of course, the purpose of this thread. The OP has documented their own experience, which—combined with similar posts across platforms—speaks to a broader sentiment worth acknowledging. If you’re asking for internal retention metrics, then we both know those aren’t made public. Dismissing lived player experience until ZOS hands us a pie chart is a convenient way to ignore feedback without ever having to engage with it.

I fully agree with the OP on cross-play. It would be lovely. Where I disagree is the misconception that the game's dying. Here's where opinions differ.

Rungar · June 5

i dont think the game is dying but i do think some of the games content, specifically dungeons and trials, are not really popular with the games solo friendly population. That content could use a redesign for sure.

MISTFORMBZZZ · June 6

LalMirchi wrote: »

sans-culottes wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

joergino wrote: »

LalMirchi wrote: »

Subclassing, a carefully planned strategy by the games's proprietors is not going away.

Of course it isn't going away since it has only just been put into the game. It's the players that are going away.

Any factual evidence, not anecdotes, would be helpful.

That is, of course, the purpose of this thread. The OP has documented their own experience, which—combined with similar posts across platforms—speaks to a broader sentiment worth acknowledging. If you’re asking for internal retention metrics, then we both know those aren’t made public. Dismissing lived player experience until ZOS hands us a pie chart is a convenient way to ignore feedback without ever having to engage with it.

I fully agree with the OP on cross-play. It would be lovely. Where I disagree is the misconception that the game's dying. Here's where opinions differ.

you need to different betwen the servers if youre speaking about the game being ''dying'' .

What some people seem to see as evidence for the server population to decrease drastical (people shared their experiences from different servers in this thread) might doesnt take part same strong on every server.

Speaking for Xbox EU and PS EU i can only experience that:

it feels empy
group finders take ages or dont pop at all
Capital Cities or former hotspots are empty
Event Zones are noticeable less populated
PVP Maincampaign has not all full bars in prime time
Imperial City has NEVER bars outside of event.
Only like 40 people online in 500 people guilds in the prime time
& i could go on with the list if i would want

And then i speak to my friend who plays on PC EU and he is telling me and showing me in a stream how all this is different on PC EU for example.

My idea wasnt to bring the PC servers into it thought.

My idea is to merge the consoles mega servers.

Merge PS EU and PS NA to have one always busy mega server,
Do the same with Xbox since Xbox EU is in a worse state then PS EU.

Or merge consoles EU and consoles NA

moderatelyfatman · June 6

Yes, the subclassing quest giver is being swamped as everyone is checking out the new system.

But on all other fronts the game is very quiet. In every other year where there has been a major release that included a new Trial, all three of my guilds would be running trials nearly every night for the first two weeks. It didn't matter if the trial had been a strong one for farming item sets such as High Isle or one that wasn't so great for meta gear such as Sanity's Edge; we always had the numbers.

A highly desirable activity was blind trials on the night after the patch where experienced players would try to work out the mechanics without reading up.

A horde of old players would come back out of the woodwork to renew old friendships and clear off the rust in older trials like Craglorn before taking a crack at the latest challenge. The active register during primetime would swell and for a few short weeks it would feel almost like the old days again when we would have 70-80 members online at the same time.

In Australia, Friday night primetime has just passed and there were roughly 20-30 players on in each of my three guilds. Maybe only 3-5 of those players were in the new zone or content with the rest in older areas. None of the guilds have scheduled any trial runs this weekend and certainly not in the new trial.

I think a big part of this is the price being charged for the new expansion which is a slap in the face of the players. When you think of some of the great games that have come in recent years (e.g. Baldur's Gate 3, Space Marine 2) that have spent years in development; I don't know who at ZOS seriously thought players were going to be happy paying the same amount for half a zone, a new trial and an overpowered mythic that will definitely get nerfed once the FOMO can no longer get milked.

Frayton · June 6

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Yes, the subclassing quest giver is being swamped as everyone is checking out the new system.

Even that has died down. It was just packed for the first two days, but now it's pretty empty in comparison.

hiyde · June 6

Some random thoughts on the above from the perspective of a PCNA Trade Guild officer...

- When the economy crashed, I was aware of a handful of vet trading guilds that closed shop, but not a ton. When I wander kiosks from city to city, I see a lot of the same guilds I've seen for a very long time.

- At that time, we did experience a LARGE number of trading vets who left or took a break because they were really upset about things being worth 60% less almost overnight. The number of "goodbye" notes I got from long-time vets was really demoralizing.

- From a trade guild officer standpoint, the above was alarming. The most frustrating part was having no idea this correction was coming. None of us had ever seen sales fall 40% in week 1 of Jubilee (!) and then *contiunue* to crater. A lot of guilds kept bidding the same because it took a while to clue in that this was a change for the long-haul, myself included.

But since then, those issues have leveled off and improved. Bids eventually crept down in step with the economy. While item values were down by a lot (therefore sales dropped a lot), number of *transactions* has still been solid.

When it comes to the first few days of this content release, in my own personal experience (for what that's worth) on my server is:

- Kiosk Sales are significantly busier - last week best week of 2025, ahead of Jubilee for us, and the week only included ~24 hrs of the new DLC drop.

- Guild application volume is way up with tons of "returning player" notes in the apps. We've even been on a waitlist.

- Our weekday peak numbers online in 2 guilds is on par / a bit higher than Gold Road Launch

- Guild chat is way more active with people talking gear, , the UI, subclassing, furn vault (not a ton of buzz about the new zone other than some purple recipe drop links - as I type this, just 10% of our online members are in Solstice. As others have said, I think the big focus is on leveling skill lines). Whether that means people are waiting to do Solstice, or not excited about it, I dunno.

Bottom line, I see some good signs.

Unlike last year's debacle, kiosk sales rose for Jubilee and (so far) for Solstice.
There seems to be good buzz/excitement.

I'm super curious to see what online numbers look like this weekend for us. And how long any bump lasts. Jury is very much still out, but what I see so far...cautiously optimistic?

moderatelyfatman · June 7

@hiyde
I appreciate your analysis.
I was just wondering if you can tell what's selling right now? It could give an insight into what players are doing and whether it's related to the new zone (like previous Chapter releases) or subclassing.

LukosCreyden · June 7

@moderatelyfatman I can weigh in here and give my experience on PSEU. On that server, I find that rare furnishing plans (specifically the new Ayleid ones) sell rather quickly for a large sum, along with the furnishings crafted from them. So, for us, it seems the housing community is still very lively and also, apparently, very wealthy.
As for other areas, the group finder was dead on arrival for some reason, but capital cities and craglorn seem to be populated quite well. Gold Road content was also fairly active, past I checked.

moderatelyfatman · June 7

LukosCreyden wrote: »

@moderatelyfatman I can weigh in here and give my experience on PSEU. On that server, I find that rare furnishing plans (specifically the new Ayleid ones) sell rather quickly for a large sum, along with the furnishings crafted from them. So, for us, it seems the housing community is still very lively and also, apparently, very wealthy.
As for other areas, the group finder was dead on arrival for some reason, but capital cities and craglorn seem to be populated quite well. Gold Road content was also fairly active, past I checked.

Seriously though, thanks for the feedback.

JiubLeRepenti · June 7

Yes, the subclassing quest giver is being swamped as everyone is checking out the new system.

Also, if I correctly understand how the servers system is working, it allocates a min/max number of players in each zone of the game? So you shouldn't be able to notice the difference in a very active zone (like Solstice atm)?

(made a small drawing to explain it)

Is this correct?

amiiegee · June 7

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Yes, the subclassing quest giver is being swamped as everyone is checking out the new system.

Also, if I correctly understand how the servers system is working, it allocates a min/max number of players in each zone of the game? So you shouldn't be able to notice the difference in a very active zone (like Solstice atm)?

(made a small drawing to explain it)

Is this correct?

But also the pvp population caps have been lowered with the years.

PS EU the cap must be betwen 100-150 people per faction, we did test this in a guild years ago.

When the game was released it was wayy higher then nowadays

MISTFORMBZZZ · June 8

JiubLeRepenti wrote: »

Yes, the subclassing quest giver is being swamped as everyone is checking out the new system.

Also, if I correctly understand how the servers system is working, it allocates a min/max number of players in each zone of the game? So you shouldn't be able to notice the difference in a very active zone (like Solstice atm)?

(made a small drawing to explain it)

Is this correct?

Yes thats correct

fizzybeef · June 8

Great Population on a sunday in prime time on PS EU.

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin are there any plans to do something soon?

Because since im playing the game only for pvp, since pvp is dead, i dont see a reason to have eso plus subscribed longer and buy anything like chapters to get acess to mythics or sets (to keep up in pvp), because there is no pvp anyway. There are no players, to play with/against.

This is the GREYHOST main campaign. How is that possible??

fizzybeef · June 8

Meanwhile the PS NA server 💀

These are 6 or 7 hours behind in time, arent they?

There is such a big difference in population betwen the servers and still people are punished with a empty game for living on the other side of the globe, because they cant get acess to the active server, without buying & grinding everything again.

Cooperharley · June 8

Stamicka wrote: »

Crossplay is great and all, but people need to want to play the game still. Crossplay would just be a temporary bandaid for the population issue.

People are quitting for a reason, whether it’s bad performance, homogenization, lack of content, you name it. If these big underlying issues don’t get addressed, or if polarizing changes like subclassing keep getting released the game will still bleed players. The game might even still feel empty with crossplay if ZOS continues on their current path.

I can agree with this for sure. I love the game, but there are some major long-term gameplay issues and lack of incentivization for your veteran players ZOS! Y'all tend to focus quite a bit on new players (still important!) rather than your loyal, long-term players.

Crossplay will be fantastic regardless being that i'm on PS5-NA and miss my PC-NA friends! Hopefully this comes sooner rather than later!

fizzybeef · June 9

Some youtuber called UR_ALL_SHOOK_UP made a poll about this with 251 votes yet.

Maitsukas · June 9

fizzybeef wrote: »

Some youtuber called UR_ALL_SHOOK_UP made a poll about this with 251 votes yet.

And why is that poll not in the forums?

fizzybeef · June 9

Maitsukas wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Some youtuber called UR_ALL_SHOOK_UP made a poll about this with 251 votes yet.

And why is that poll not in the forums?

Because only a minority of people are using the forum. In my 35 people guild im literally the only one

amiiegee · June 9

Honestly, the poll results aren’t surprising—most players I know would love crossplay, especially with how fragmented the community is across platforms. It’s frustrating when your friends are locked to PC or console and there’s no way to play together despite being in the same game.

I get that technical and business hurdles are probably holding it back, but the demand is clearly there. Maybe if we had an official poll here on the forums or some direct communication from ZOS about the status or possibility of crossplay, it’d give players a better sense of where things stand.

Also, @fizzybeef makes a great point—forums aren’t as widely used anymore. If ZOS wants better feedback, they might need to branch out and pay attention to what’s happening on platforms like YouTube, Reddit, Discord, etc.

Thysbe · June 9

I can´t really understand why a community currently so heavily emphasizing that they play mostly solo care so much about crossplay. You´ll mostly get the same solo minded players who regard ESO as just another ES RPG.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/678081/how-often-do-you-play-solo/p1

47% play 100% solo - only 18% engage in non-solo content. So there is plenty of players on each plattform, you just don´t see them in Cyro, BG and Dungeons and trials because they don´t access it.

Where it currently hurts is not so much the sheer player number but the avoidance of group content for most of them.

amiiegee · June 9

Thysbe wrote: »

I can´t really understand why a community currently so heavily emphasizing that they play mostly solo care so much about crossplay. You´ll mostly get the same solo minded players who regard ESO as just another ES RPG.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/678081/how-often-do-you-play-solo/p1

47% play 100% solo - only 18% engage in non-solo content. So there is plenty of players on each plattform, you just don´t see them in Cyro, BG and Dungeons and trials because they don´t access it.

Where it currently hurts is not so much the sheer player number but the avoidance of group content for most of them.

Its by far not representing the community since only a few people are on the forums 😂 To claim this game is ran by solos is insane 😅

MISTFORMBZZZ · June 9

Thysbe wrote: »

I can´t really understand why a community currently so heavily emphasizing that they play mostly solo care so much about crossplay. You´ll mostly get the same solo minded players who regard ESO as just another ES RPG.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/678081/how-often-do-you-play-solo/p1

47% play 100% solo - only 18% engage in non-solo content. So there is plenty of players on each plattform, you just don´t see them in Cyro, BG and Dungeons and trials because they don´t access it.

Where it currently hurts is not so much the sheer player number but the avoidance of group content for most of them.

I don’t agree with this take at all lol.

While solo play is surely a part of ESO—and an important one—the claim that the majority of the player base engages exclusively in solo content isn’t an accurate reflection of how the game is actually played by most.

a little breakdown

1. Game Design: ESO is Built Around Group Content

ESO is an MMORPG at its core, not just a single-player Elder Scrolls spinoff. Major systems are designed around group interactions:
- Dungeons and Trials are explicitly group-based, with mechanics that require coordinated roles and teamwork.
- Pvp zones like Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds are fundamentally multiplayer environments.
- Daily activities, such as pledges, world bosses, and dolmens, are group-friendly and often encourage spontaneous cooperation.
- The game’s Guild system (e.g. Fighters, Mages, Undaunted) rewards group engagement, particularly the Undaunted which is directly tied to dungeon content.

2. Activity Metrics From ZOS and Community Data

ZeniMax hasn’t released a full internal activity breakdown recently, but some key info has been shared over time:
- In past ESO Live streams, ZOS devs have stated that dungeons and PvP are among the most frequently used systems !!!!
-The Undaunted Celebration and Whitestrake’s Mayhem events consistently show the highest in-game participation rates, as seen in achievement tracking and community events.
-Look at sites like ESO-Hub or ESO Logs: thousands of players upload Trial completion logs, PvP builds, and parse results. This level of external community infrastructure doesn’t exist around solo questing alone.

3. Steam Player Achievement Data

Steam achievements offer a snapshot of player behavior:
-A large percentage of Steam players have achievements for group dungeons and Trials, which require group coordination. For instance:
-“Dungeon Savior” (complete veteran dungeons) has been earned by a significant portion of players.
-“Alliance War Recruit” (enter PvP) also appears in a broad share of accounts.

That doesn’t go along with the idea that nearly half of players never touch group content, AT ALL.

4. MMO Player Psychology

Even players who identify as solo players often still engage in group activities:
- They join guilds for trading, use group finders for dailies, and team up for events even if they don’t use voice chat or play in static teams.
- Many solo-leaning players still value social connection, and crossplay directly supports this by expanding access to friends and guildies across platforms.

So yes, some people do treat ESO like a single-player game, and that’s perfectly valid—ZOS has made that style viable. But it’s simply not the full picture. The reality is that ESO’s most engaged and socially active base participates in a mix of solo and group content, and many players would love to do more if crossplay removed the barrier of platform-lock.

Crossplay isn’t just about grouping for dungeons—it’s about being in the same guilds, sharing the economy, being able to chat, run events, and just inhabit the same version of ESO/ Tamriel together.

Also about the poll about solo playing, the way that question is set up is completely misleading.
It's so evidently a leading question to make it look like everyone who answers it plays a lot of solo play.

And aswell someone could play 100% of the time solo in cyro or bgs.
Still requires other players and doesn't exclusively mean solo questing.

sarahthes · June 9

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

Yes, the subclassing quest giver is being swamped as everyone is checking out the new system.

But on all other fronts the game is very quiet. In every other year where there has been a major release that included a new Trial, all three of my guilds would be running trials nearly every night for the first two weeks. It didn't matter if the trial had been a strong one for farming item sets such as High Isle or one that wasn't so great for meta gear such as Sanity's Edge; we always had the numbers.

A highly desirable activity was blind trials on the night after the patch where experienced players would try to work out the mechanics without reading up.

A horde of old players would come back out of the woodwork to renew old friendships and clear off the rust in older trials like Craglorn before taking a crack at the latest challenge. The active register during primetime would swell and for a few short weeks it would feel almost like the old days again when we would have 70-80 members online at the same time.

In Australia, Friday night primetime has just passed and there were roughly 20-30 players on in each of my three guilds. Maybe only 3-5 of those players were in the new zone or content with the rest in older areas. None of the guilds have scheduled any trial runs this weekend and certainly not in the new trial.

I think a big part of this is the price being charged for the new expansion which is a slap in the face of the players. When you think of some of the great games that have come in recent years (e.g. Baldur's Gate 3, Space Marine 2) that have spent years in development; I don't know who at ZOS seriously thought players were going to be happy paying the same amount for half a zone, a new trial and an overpowered mythic that will definitely get nerfed once the FOMO can no longer get milked.

I think part of the reason you aren't seeing many runs of the new trial is because of subclassing. Raid leads aren't 100% sure how to put the comp together, dds aren't 100% sure what to run, and people are taking time to level their subclasses before raiding.

MISTFORMBZZZ · June 10

There is a reddit poll up now aswell, feel free to interact

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/gfUhjF5oSc

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

Thysbe wrote: »

I can´t really understand why a community currently so heavily emphasizing that they play mostly solo care so much about crossplay. You´ll mostly get the same solo minded players who regard ESO as just another ES RPG.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/678081/how-often-do-you-play-solo/p1

47% play 100% solo - only 18% engage in non-solo content. So there is plenty of players on each plattform, you just don´t see them in Cyro, BG and Dungeons and trials because they don´t access it.

Where it currently hurts is not so much the sheer player number but the avoidance of group content for most of them.

I don’t agree with this take at all lol.

While solo play is surely a part of ESO—and an important one—the claim that the majority of the player base engages exclusively in solo content isn’t an accurate reflection of how the game is actually played by most.

a little breakdown

1. Game Design: ESO is Built Around Group Content

ESO is an MMORPG at its core, not just a single-player Elder Scrolls spinoff. Major systems are designed around group interactions:
- Dungeons and Trials are explicitly group-based, with mechanics that require coordinated roles and teamwork.
- Pvp zones like Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds are fundamentally multiplayer environments.
- Daily activities, such as pledges, world bosses, and dolmens, are group-friendly and often encourage spontaneous cooperation.
- The game’s Guild system (e.g. Fighters, Mages, Undaunted) rewards group engagement, particularly the Undaunted which is directly tied to dungeon content.

2. Activity Metrics From ZOS and Community Data

ZeniMax hasn’t released a full internal activity breakdown recently, but some key info has been shared over time:
- In past ESO Live streams, ZOS devs have stated that dungeons and PvP are among the most frequently used systems !!!!
-The Undaunted Celebration and Whitestrake’s Mayhem events consistently show the highest in-game participation rates, as seen in achievement tracking and community events.
-Look at sites like ESO-Hub or ESO Logs: thousands of players upload Trial completion logs, PvP builds, and parse results. This level of external community infrastructure doesn’t exist around solo questing alone.

3. Steam Player Achievement Data

Steam achievements offer a snapshot of player behavior:
-A large percentage of Steam players have achievements for group dungeons and Trials, which require group coordination. For instance:
-“Dungeon Savior” (complete veteran dungeons) has been earned by a significant portion of players.
-“Alliance War Recruit” (enter PvP) also appears in a broad share of accounts.

That doesn’t go along with the idea that nearly half of players never touch group content, AT ALL.

4. MMO Player Psychology

Even players who identify as solo players often still engage in group activities:
- They join guilds for trading, use group finders for dailies, and team up for events even if they don’t use voice chat or play in static teams.
- Many solo-leaning players still value social connection, and crossplay directly supports this by expanding access to friends and guildies across platforms.

So yes, some people do treat ESO like a single-player game, and that’s perfectly valid—ZOS has made that style viable. But it’s simply not the full picture. The reality is that ESO’s most engaged and socially active base participates in a mix of solo and group content, and many players would love to do more if crossplay removed the barrier of platform-lock.

Crossplay isn’t just about grouping for dungeons—it’s about being in the same guilds, sharing the economy, being able to chat, run events, and just inhabit the same version of ESO/ Tamriel together.

Also about the poll about solo playing, the way that question is set up is completely misleading.
It's so evidently a leading question to make it look like everyone who answers it plays a lot of solo play.

And aswell someone could play 100% of the time solo in cyro or bgs.
Still requires other players and doesn't exclusively mean solo questing.

Made a reprsentive poll about crossplay on reddit.
Feel free to use it too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/zavUV8vfkm

XSTRONG · June 10

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

There is a reddit poll up now aswell, feel free to interact

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/gfUhjF5oSc

MISTFORMBZZZ wrote: »

Thysbe wrote: »

I can´t really understand why a community currently so heavily emphasizing that they play mostly solo care so much about crossplay. You´ll mostly get the same solo minded players who regard ESO as just another ES RPG.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/discussion/678081/how-often-do-you-play-solo/p1

47% play 100% solo - only 18% engage in non-solo content. So there is plenty of players on each plattform, you just don´t see them in Cyro, BG and Dungeons and trials because they don´t access it.

Where it currently hurts is not so much the sheer player number but the avoidance of group content for most of them.

I don’t agree with this take at all lol.

While solo play is surely a part of ESO—and an important one—the claim that the majority of the player base engages exclusively in solo content isn’t an accurate reflection of how the game is actually played by most.

a little breakdown

1. Game Design: ESO is Built Around Group Content

ESO is an MMORPG at its core, not just a single-player Elder Scrolls spinoff. Major systems are designed around group interactions:
- Dungeons and Trials are explicitly group-based, with mechanics that require coordinated roles and teamwork.
- Pvp zones like Cyrodiil and Battlegrounds are fundamentally multiplayer environments.
- Daily activities, such as pledges, world bosses, and dolmens, are group-friendly and often encourage spontaneous cooperation.
- The game’s Guild system (e.g. Fighters, Mages, Undaunted) rewards group engagement, particularly the Undaunted which is directly tied to dungeon content.

2. Activity Metrics From ZOS and Community Data

ZeniMax hasn’t released a full internal activity breakdown recently, but some key info has been shared over time:
- In past ESO Live streams, ZOS devs have stated that dungeons and PvP are among the most frequently used systems !!!!
-The Undaunted Celebration and Whitestrake’s Mayhem events consistently show the highest in-game participation rates, as seen in achievement tracking and community events.
-Look at sites like ESO-Hub or ESO Logs: thousands of players upload Trial completion logs, PvP builds, and parse results. This level of external community infrastructure doesn’t exist around solo questing alone.

3. Steam Player Achievement Data

Steam achievements offer a snapshot of player behavior:
-A large percentage of Steam players have achievements for group dungeons and Trials, which require group coordination. For instance:
-“Dungeon Savior” (complete veteran dungeons) has been earned by a significant portion of players.
-“Alliance War Recruit” (enter PvP) also appears in a broad share of accounts.

That doesn’t go along with the idea that nearly half of players never touch group content, AT ALL.

4. MMO Player Psychology

Even players who identify as solo players often still engage in group activities:
- They join guilds for trading, use group finders for dailies, and team up for events even if they don’t use voice chat or play in static teams.
- Many solo-leaning players still value social connection, and crossplay directly supports this by expanding access to friends and guildies across platforms.

So yes, some people do treat ESO like a single-player game, and that’s perfectly valid—ZOS has made that style viable. But it’s simply not the full picture. The reality is that ESO’s most engaged and socially active base participates in a mix of solo and group content, and many players would love to do more if crossplay removed the barrier of platform-lock.

Crossplay isn’t just about grouping for dungeons—it’s about being in the same guilds, sharing the economy, being able to chat, run events, and just inhabit the same version of ESO/ Tamriel together.

Also about the poll about solo playing, the way that question is set up is completely misleading.
It's so evidently a leading question to make it look like everyone who answers it plays a lot of solo play.

And aswell someone could play 100% of the time solo in cyro or bgs.
Still requires other players and doesn't exclusively mean solo questing.

Made a reprsentive poll about crossplay on reddit.
Feel free to use it too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/zavUV8vfkm

I wonder why some people dont want crossplay? I have even seen that some people dont want crossplay between console either.

I would guess that they dont care so they vote No, I mean why wouldnt you want crossplay between console at least.