This is how games die

Zyaneth_Bal · September 16

With u48 notes out eso has reached it’s lowest player pop in 6 years on steam and as this is obviously a general trend all launchers are likely to show the same picture.

Eso is experiencing a steady decline in player interest and count, yet all we get is u48 with absolutely no combat changes and u47 with a minimal number of those following u46 obliterating any semblance of balance the game had left by rushed and not thought through multiclassing.
We are far beyond the point where empty promises like “next update” or “next year” can work, after all zos has long lost all of the players’ trust.

It is odd how devs grit their teeth and push changes that no one want while completely ignoring their players’ feedback when all this mentality achieves is making more players quit.
The recent question and answer event on
reddit only made things worse because it has been shown how out of touch with reality and game’s mechanics the combat team really is, that is to say completely.
Such blatant lack of care and effort on devs’ part is incredibly disappointing and tiring, the community is burned out by empty hopes and vain effort to help improve the game.

Pops_ND_Irish · September 16

Yup thats it, it's all over.
But ill take one for the team and when everyone decides to go send me your gold and materials and ill hang on long enough to collect them.

Renato90085 · September 16

zos say they are afraid that changes to potions/food will unbalances
but same time add very unbalances subclass in game and not care balance is funny part...

Meiox · September 16

Zyaneth_Bal wrote: »

....
It is odd how devs grit their teeth and push changes that no one want while completely ignoring their players’ feedback when all this mentality achieves is making more players quit....

Yeah sure, no one wants them and all players wants the same thing
;-P

colossalvoids · September 16

Renato90085 wrote: »

zos say they are afraid that changes to potions/food will unbalances
but same time add very unbalances subclass in game and not care balance is funny part...

"We have a bad ruleset, so we'll take another 5-10y to adjust for it, sorry!" kinda vibe.

karthrag_inak · September 16

Khajiit is loving how things are - subclassing is the best thing to be added to this game since beta - ESO has never been more Elder Scrolls than it is now.

And that chart does not take into account the fact that the game is routinely in the top ten played games via Epic launcher, which only started in 2022.

Daoin · September 16

it is a minor inconvenience when our tanks wait in 20 minute q times

lets face the facts though, the real world is all upside down at the moment too, add that to the fact looks like UK is taking in US royalty today i guess everyone got other things on the mind like with such huge security if aliens landed too

Tandor · September 16

I wonder if the people who complain that the lack of combat changes these days shows that ZOS aren't listening are the same players who used to complain about the constant combat changes which resulted in ZOS listening and scaling back on the amount and frequency of combat changes?

Xarc · September 16

if you compare to 2020, all games had the same stats with covid times

Daoin · September 16

what does it matter if 90% of players cannot get into a dungeon to do any real combat except for withing few hour timeframe window per day. and even then its likely to be with atleast one of the same totally random players you were grouped with the day before at the same time

make that 30 min tank q time

this probably worse than trying to get a group on christmas day dinner time

Ruj · September 16

It's definitely not all games. Instant queue in WoW for tanks and healers.

Yes, the real world has many people's attention right now. That's a great thing.
However, this is not a problem for all MMOs. That's not a winning argument as to how dead ESO seems atm. 1 of my 4 formerly super active guilds is still somewhat active in chat. My top trading spot guilds are dead silent even in in game chat.

Let's just all hope ESO shareholders and devs realize the current communication model for figuring out what players want is not working. Hopefully, they restructure how to obtain feedback from players.

If they can fix the lack of player feedback making it to devs, we can start fixing things.

It's the same sentiment from PvE players, PvP players, housing players, RP players, etc. At the core of every issue is the impression that devs don't acknowledge player questions/feedback. Every time they speak, players are hit with the idea devs don't care. I prefer to think devs don't know. After all, why would a company fumble streaming updates repeatedly and have bad PR intentionally?

Aside from a few white knights on the forums, the rest of us are grounded in reality and would like to help ZOS retain players. Saying everything is fine won't help ESO. I love the game, so I won't say everything is fine.

When players unsubscribe in WoW, they can leave feedback as to why they unsubscribed. ZOS should consider at least doing that.

Maybe also send a survey to players whose Crowns are collecting dust for over a year. They have them to spend. It's clearly a Crown store issue if the game isn't providing anything customers want to buy.

moderatelyfatman · September 16

@Zyaneth_Bal
No, if current trends hold and the average daily logins stay below 9000, it will be the lowest numbers in 7.5 years (Feb 2018)!

In my ESO guild discord there are four people who are also on a Guild Wars discord. Outside of reset, there are times when there are more of us from the ESO guild playing the other game.

The thing is, as long as ZOS keeps the servers up a running, the game won't be dead. GW2 went through a period of nearly four years where they had no major content released, and the game was effectively in maintenance mode. But then the devs there picked up again, started releasing some high-quality expansions and the game came roaring back to life.

So, I think the slump will continue for some time. Budgets will be slashed, teams shrunk and the devs will have to get creative. But if they have the right people in the right place, ESO can come back too.

moderatelyfatman · September 16

Tandor wrote: »

I wonder if the people who complain that the lack of combat changes these days shows that ZOS aren't listening are the same players who used to complain about the constant combat changes which resulted in ZOS listening and scaling back on the amount and frequency of combat changes?

I think context matters.
If the combat devs had put the game into a good place and then announced that there weren't going to be doing any more major changes, everyone would be happy.
The problem is that combat is not in a good place right when they decided to slow down on the combat changes (post patch 35).

@Xarc
There was a massive bump in 2020 which dropped down when lockdowns ended. But if you take the post lockdown numbers, such as Jan 2022 which was the highest month:

And March 2022 which was the lowest month:

You still see numbers which are way above anything we've seen of late.

Likewise for 2023
April 2023 18.1k
September 2023 11.0k

The hard decline was in 2024 and 2025. I don't think this decline was due simply to post lockdown effects.

Gabriel_H · September 16

Daoin wrote: »

make that 30 min tank q time

After 2 minutes leave the queue. Then re-join. The queue system can be a little buggy, especially if you change zones or go through a door while queueing.

I've never had to wait more than 5 minutes in the queue as a tank.

agelonestar · September 16

There’s a player slump for sure - but having worked in the gaming industry for the last two years, that’s pretty universal.

However, ZoS really needs to find its magic again. So far, this year’s Season Pass is NOT it. If this was my first year, I wouldn’t stick around.

Xarc · September 16

i made this some months ago
only about steam, but still
the peak in activity at the top of the table corresponds to the fact that there is often a peak in summer, with in addition the changes linked to the subclassing & the announcement of the wall event

moderatelyfatman · September 16

@Xarc I get the feeling we're probably not that far off in our disagreements.
Would you agree that the 'Dark Age' slump of 2024-25 is not a post lockdown effect?

The 'Song of Return' continued up to June with patch 46 (Subclassing).
Just the announcement of Patch 46 on the PTS brought back a lot of old players (me included) as everyone was hyped at the thought of all the new possibilities.
I believe that was a factor in the 13k daily logins for that part of the year.

agelonestar · September 16

Xarc wrote: »

i made this some months ago
only about steam, but still
the peak in activity at the top of the table corresponds to the fact that there is often a peak in summer, with in addition the changes linked to the subclassing & the announcement of the wall event

True of almost all games, too.

I worked for a firm largely in mobile games. Summer holidays - any time kids and possibly parents are not in school - is money printing time!

Xarc · September 16

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@Xarc I get the feeling we're probably not that far off in our disagreements.
Would you agree that the 'Dark Age' slump of 2024-25 is not a post lockdown effect?

The 'Song of Return' continued up to June with patch 46 (Subclassing).
Just the announcement of Patch 46 on the PTS brought back a lot of old players (me included) as everyone was hyped at the thought of all the new possibilities.
I believe that was a factor in the 13k daily logins for that part of the year.

Sure it's not
teasing play a big role in bringing players in (or back in). But once they're in the game, players are clearly disappointed with something because they leave.

Pevey · September 16

We are far past COVID effects at this point. The player count is at 2017 levels, not 2019 levels. And falling.

I feel like it's mostly the combat and combat-related gameplay features (like item sets). Unleash the combat team from the spreadsheet. But I think previous management put the spreadsheet guardrails in place for a reason (to limit damage done from changes made by that team). A new combat leader with a cohesive vision for the combat gameplay is needed.

Pevey · September 16

As to subclassing, I'm happy for the people who like it. From a purely commercial standpoint, it was a terrible decision. It will make retaining players over time more difficult than ever. Classes, when a game does them properly, feel very different to play. This is what truly gives players the freedom to play how they want. If they don't like the feel of combat, they can try a quite different approach by just trying a different class instead of a different game. By homogenizing everything, ESO has really shot itself in the foot for years to come.

Northwold · September 16

Pevey wrote: »

We are far past COVID effects at this point. The player count is at 2017 levels, not 2019 levels. And falling.

I feel like it's mostly the combat and combat-related gameplay features (like item sets). Unleash the combat team from the spreadsheet. But I think previous management put the spreadsheet guardrails in place for a reason (to limit damage done from changes made by that team). A new combat leader with a cohesive vision for the combat gameplay is needed.

People keep saying it's [whatever their pet peeve is] but surely, historically, outside Covid the user spikes were coming with DLC drops. Since the chapter model is no longer with us it's anyone's guess what it or isn't driving player engagement at the moment. So, yes, played numbers do seem to be dropping, but that could be for any number of factors, including the change of purchasing model.

fizzybeef · September 16

And crossplay developement wich is the only thing stop the ship sinking, is gonna take for ages

Koshka · September 16

Pevey wrote: »

As to subclassing, I'm happy for the people who like it. From a purely commercial standpoint, it was a terrible decision. It will make retaining players over time more difficult than ever. Classes, when a game does them properly, feel very different to play. This is what truly gives players the freedom to play how they want. If they don't like the feel of combat, they can try a quite different approach by just trying a different class instead of a different game. By homogenizing everything, ESO has really shot itself in the foot for years to come.

This, pretty much.
I play less nowadays because of this homogenization and I know many people who left the game because of it. The recent dev comments on balancing do not inspire much confidence, either. What's with that spreadsheet obsession?

tomofhyrule · September 16

Pevey wrote: »

As to subclassing, I'm happy for the people who like it. From a purely commercial standpoint, it was a terrible decision. It will make retaining players over time more difficult than ever. Classes, when a game does them properly, feel very different to play. This is what truly gives players the freedom to play how they want. If they don't like the feel of combat, they can try a quite different approach by just trying a different class instead of a different game. By homogenizing everything, ESO has really shot itself in the foot for years to come.

I really agree here.

I love that my characters all feel different to play. I specifically built them (and their stories) around their Class, and it makes them each feel like individuals.

I can handle most of them being off-meta because they’re for-fun alts anyway, but it hurts that for my main I have to choose between being able to do HMs and trifectas and not using skills that just looks so wrong for him. And for all of the devs comments of “we want players to be able to choose!” there’s not a single place where a pure classed build is not outdone by Subclassing them, even in those realms like solo arenas or PvP where it is important to be able to tank, heal, and damage all on the same character at the same time.

I want nothing more than a new Class to release. It’s so much fun to play the game through new eyes with new skills and a new approach to combat… but it feels like the team’s goal is “just use Fatecarver” for everything. Subclassing is actually a great way for them to add new Classes and allow players to either start new or just take a new line on existing characters, which is a “best of both worlds” situation compared to things we’ve had before, but…
I don’t know if I can see the Combat team ever adding anything new if they can’t be bothered to balance what they have. It just feels wrong that I mostly hope the team is going to take the “heck, balance is already cooked, so why not just throw a new Class in there, can’t get worse, right?” approach.

twisttop138 · September 16

I'm not super worried about steam charts, I'm on PS5 Na and things are good there. My big worries are the very noticeable downgrade in the quality and amount of content for an increase in price and the lack of trust the community has in Zos to deliver.

Not everyone in game reads the forums or reddit. I brought screenshots of the AuA to the discord and the reactions were the same as they were here and other places. We've been asked too long to take it on faith. Faith that the awesome stuff is coming. It's just around the corner. Oh but sorry we can't talk about it you're just gonna have to trust us. It's not the community teams fault, it's a problem of leadership. When we're supposed to be seeing this new team and feeling that things will be different and back on track but all they have to say is wait and see. Second verse same as the first. It's time for bold moves. Throw it to the wind and tell us what we're sticking around for. Surprise us. Knock the nay Sayers right in the teeth.

To be clear I love the game. I'll be here with my friends raiding and questing and decorating houses and working on hm. But people wanna feel the excitement and they wanna feel heard.

Destai · September 16

I don't think this game is dying. But I do think it's in decline.

If the game continues with bite-size releases and controversial changes, then this trend will continue. Obviously not the future I want for the game, but there's no indication of them changing course on the key issues that push people away.

The game's over a decade old, and it still feels like they're struggling with communication. It's hard to not to interpret 10 years of communication issues as anything other than they're either unable or unwilling to truly make the changes requested.

Even if we got rock solid communication, the bigger issues of over-monetization and feature-light content would still need be resolved. I just don't see that changing. I think there's a big problem when their patch streams are more about the next Crown Store offerings rather than things that keep playing the game.

I'm just sad that this is where the game is after 10 years.

wolfie1.0. · September 16

Have to keep in mind that steam charts are only a portion of the player base. A lot of players use the game launcher instead.

SilverBride · September 16

ESO is not dying.

aetherix8 · September 16

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

As to subclassing, I'm happy for the people who like it. From a purely commercial standpoint, it was a terrible decision. It will make retaining players over time more difficult than ever. Classes, when a game does them properly, feel very different to play. This is what truly gives players the freedom to play how they want. If they don't like the feel of combat, they can try a quite different approach by just trying a different class instead of a different game. By homogenizing everything, ESO has really shot itself in the foot for years to come.

I really agree here.

I love that my characters all feel different to play. I specifically built them (and their stories) around their Class, and it makes them each feel like individuals.

I can handle most of them being off-meta because they’re for-fun alts anyway, but it hurts that for my main I have to choose between being able to do HMs and trifectas and not using skills that just looks so wrong for him. And for all of the devs comments of “we want players to be able to choose!” there’s not a single place where a pure classed build is not outdone by Subclassing them, even in those realms like solo arenas or PvP where it is important to be able to tank, heal, and damage all on the same character at the same time.

I want nothing more than a new Class to release. It’s so much fun to play the game through new eyes with new skills and a new approach to combat… but it feels like the team’s goal is “just use Fatecarver” for everything. Subclassing is actually a great way for them to add new Classes and allow players to either start new or just take a new line on existing characters, which is a “best of both worlds” situation compared to things we’ve had before, but…
I don’t know if I can see the Combat team ever adding anything new if they can’t be bothered to balance what they have. It just feels wrong that I mostly hope the team is going to take the “heck, balance is already cooked, so why not just throw a new Class in there, can’t get worse, right?” approach.

I have a total of 9 characters, but only once I've actually put my heart into creating one – my main, DK, my favorite class, because it wields fire. If I could, I would only ever play with my main, but I conceived her with crafting and trading in mind. The second class I tried was Sorc, and I really liked the Lightning Form; every time I played that Sorc I couldn't help but wish for being able to use Lightning Form on my main DK. So when subclassing was introduced, it's like my dream came true. Identity-wise, air is a friend of fire so for me it is coherent to have one character using both elements. My main is the only one subclassed so far, and I can't imagine ever going back.

That said, I think there should be some advantage to playing a pure class. I was able to fix some perceived shortcomings of my main, namely mobility, but not only, as it turned out. I think there should be a price to pay for such a convenience, and double skill points' cost simply isn't it (giving up a line I didn't really like isn't it either). Playing as I want is great, but it is now obvious that subclassing is also forcing some players to pick certain skill lines for more demanding content. So, globally, it isn't really "play as you want" anymore.

Something should be granted to pure classes so they stop being obsolete and can compete with subclassed builds. Perhaps subclassing should be considered a curse, similar to vampirism, where one gains an additional skill line, but is more vulnerable to fire.

On the main topic, the game seems alive to me so far. Populations might rebound if ZOS fixes performance and then commits just as seriously to balancing.

madman65 · September 16

What baffles me is, how the game has an ok-poor performance with less gamers. This has me wondering is the game just getting neglected or is there something going on at ZOS that will not be shared? Less gamers=better performance right!