Heronisan wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

I remember when players said old consoles are the reason we won't get another class, then they released Necromancer. Then players said it again, then they released Arcanist.

And the players, still on a broken record, also said we still can't have nice things because old gen is holding us back, and we have gotten companions, ToT, antiquities, scribing, subclassing, a new arena, amongst other new things we supposedly couldn't have because old consoles.

And the players continue saying it, we can't have anything new because old gen...

Here is an interview with matt where he says "at one point we could not even add a single animation for 6 months because of lack of memory"



They made room for necro and arca by cutting back on other parts of the game to save memory.

Removing awa
Reducing guild trader times
Housing limit
Reducing time mail is saved inbox
Aoe skills capped at 6 targets
and i know theres more

And wouldnt surprise me if hybridization and some simplifying and combining buffs is also actuslly some wsy to save memory

And subclassing didnt cost them a single piece of memory, it was their way of creating new classes by not adding a single piece of animation. Since all u do is just reuse everything thats allready there

And i know they have probavly worked tirelessly behind the scenes skimping and cutting, trying to squeeze out just 1 single ram anywhere they could.

There is no good reason they just suddenly find out 7 years into game life that, Hey! Lets now reduce guild trader timers, just for fun! This was not needed, like there is no good reason for any of these changes that only makes playing the game worse, out of the blue, years into its life. Its actually ridicoulus when u stop to think about it.

frogthroat wrote: »

The speculation of why people don't upgrade their hardware is irrelevant. It tries to find ought from is. A for-profit company's purpose is to make profit. They don't care why people spend their money on their product unless they can use that information to sell more products.

Old gen consoles must bring in more money than the cost of legacy support is. And as long as that is the case, the support will not be dropped.

Edit: a quick google search revealed that in 2024 PS4 vs PS5 use was 50/50 and in 2025 it's still 30/70. Assuming the same percentage in Xbox, 30% is still a large portion. I don't see a for-profit corporation dropping 30% of their console profits voluntarily.

There are many good and valuable posts, but these two sum it up perfectly for me. Thanks!

BretonMage wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

Let’s play devils advocate. Is it not incredibly vile to advertise your products to people who should be prioritizing their necessities?

People who cannot afford hardware from 2020, half a decade later, should not be part of the consumer-base for a live service game with this much aggressive monetization.

No. Not at all. It's a cheap and safe way to have some fun and relieve stress. There's a lot of people with lower incomes that play MMOs for that reason. F2P MMOs especially can be attractive to such households, but people play ESO too. And that's fine. There are guides out there designed around helping play around the ESO+ free trials so they can unlock gear and manage their inventories more easily. The Endeavor, daily, and Golden Pursuit systems help people get nice stuff for no additional costs.

That's a fair point. Inclusiveness is good business too. I wish they would find another way to solve this issue, as animations are so important in a game. As others have mentioned, perhaps limit newer content, where possible, to those with current hardware? Or is it possible to have reduced quality animations only apply for players with older systems? Hate the idea of excluding people on the basis of means but I really don't like the idea of having reduced quality for anything.

Again. This idea that we're getting less new stuff because of them is a massive assumption. This is a pretty old game that doesn't get a lot of attention. It's very possible that we would actually have less stuff and lower quality without the revenue from older pcs and consoles. We have no way of knowing what percentage of the playerbase is on older hardware.

The devs are going to make accomodations for them for as long as it makes financial sense to do so. There's a pretty good chance they'd stop developing new content for them before closing off access entirely.

A new game on old hardware is an old game...that's not where MS is going. Xbox president Sarah Bond has confirmed that Microsoft is now working on the next-generation Xbox console.

Next‑gen Xbox games are coming — here’s how Microsoft is helping devs build them
The next Xbox is a PC. Well, sort of.

Last week, we revealed that the next Xbox is essentially going to be a PC, and that the Xbox Ally Windows 11 handheld is a "test bed" of sorts to figure out what aspects of the OS need to be improved for that universe. Microsoft is working to boost how Windows handles HDMI, video game shaders, and all sorts of additional things within the Xbox PC ecosystem.

The Xbox Ally has already delivered some powerful gaming improvements to Windows 11 as part of this initiative, allowing apps like Xbox and eventually Steam to launch right from login in full-screen mode, disabling the Desktop environment to boost gaming performance, with more planned in its handhelds roadmap.

Xbox Game Package Manager

Xbox Game Package Manager is a new app designed to help developers streamline their game upload process to the Xbox ecosystem. The new app supports both XVC (Xbox) and MSIXVC (PC) packaging from the game's loose files, and then uploads via browser-based authentication. It also supports multiple languages and multi-team workflows.

The new package manager should improve the workflow for developers targeting Xbox Play Anywhere. Instead of multiple tools, services, and in some cases, teams working towards validating separate versions of the game, the new package manager gets everything ready in a single unified interface. This should hopefully streamline the process developers have to undertake to get XPA working properly without errors on Xbox and Xbox PC. The previous process multiplied potential points of failure, leading to errors and potential pitfalls.

The Xbox Game Package Manager also has a validator auto-update function, which ensures that developers always have the most up-to-date rulesets, which should speed up certification, patching, and reduce failure rates. You've probably experienced issues in the past where Xbox versions of patches launch late. This should help improve the situation.

https://youtu.be/xD7xrh8DHjQ

Source


Xbox has a partner preview event slated for November, with Xbox Play Anywhere as the headline act

Microsoft has been encouraged by growing adoption of its Xbox Play Anywhere dual-purchase license model between Xbox and PC games, and its first foray into Xbox OEM-built devices has been seen internally as performing better than expected.

There's also a lot of internal excitement about upcoming games from the likes of Double Fine, inXile, Machine Games, Bethesda, and various others — all of whom are working on titles with broad potential.

Source

Just an example from other multiplatform mmorpg. Sooner or later ZOS have to do this.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If you mean "we're getting less new stuff yearly than we used to," well, that's also confirmed too. After all, look at how much content we got with the Morrowind Chapter and then compare that to every Chapter since, up to and including Solstice. Now we don't know if that severe reduction in content was due to space availability issues or just the budget cuts that ESO obviously faced, but there is obviously less for more now.

Chapter-wise: We are getting the same amount of content. The exceptions are Necrom and Greymoor, both of which had additional zones. Also of all the Chapters, Morrowind was the smallest - no world event.

DLC-wise: We used to get an extra zone DLC and two dungeons. Now we get no extra zone and 4 dungeons.

If anything, the 4 dungeons are more playable hours for full completion than the extra zone and 2 dungeons.








Size =/= Content. Content is measured in playable hours.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Ok, so… why cannibalize combat animations instead of removing other things?
We have so many mementos and emotes, and we get more every Crown Crater season. Heck I love emotes since I use them for screenshots, and even I wouldn’t notice if half of them got deleted from the game overnight.

Short answer: Money

Mementos and emotes come largely from crown crates and crown store. I highly doubt they would eat the goose laying golden eggs. Cannibalise paid content (mementos and emotes) and you just made goose tendies.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If you mean "we're getting less new stuff yearly than we used to," well, that's also confirmed too. After all, look at how much content we got with the Morrowind Chapter and then compare that to every Chapter since, up to and including Solstice. Now we don't know if that severe reduction in content was due to space availability issues or just the budget cuts that ESO obviously faced, but there is obviously less for more now.

Chapter-wise: We are getting the same amount of content. The exceptions are Necrom and Greymoor, both of which had additional zones. Also of all the Chapters, Morrowind was the smallest - no world event.

DLC-wise: We used to get an extra zone DLC and two dungeons. Now we get no extra zone and 4 dungeons.

If anything, the 4 dungeons are more playable hours for full completion than the extra zone and 2 dungeons.

Size =/= Content. Content is measured in playable hours.

Not true at all

2017:
chapter: Morrowind
core feature: new class — Warden
dungeon dlcs: Horns of the Reach DLC (2 dungeons)
zone dlc: Clockwork City (+ 1 mini trial)

2018:
chapter: Summerset
core feature: new profession — Jewelry Crafting, skill line Psijic Order
dungeon dlcs: Dragon Bones DLC, Wolfhunter DLC (4 dungeons)
zone dlc: Murkmire

2019:
chapter: Elsweyr
core feature: new class — Necromancer
dungeon dlcs: Wrathstone DLC, Scalebreaker DLC (4 dungeons)
zone dlc: Dragonhold

2020:
chapter: Greymoor
core feature: Antiquities system and mythic items
dungeon dlcs: Harrowstorm DLC, Stone Garden DLC (4 dungeons)
zone dlc: Markarth (+Vateshran arena )

2021:
chapter: Blackwood
core feature: Companions system
dungeon dlcs: Flames of Ambition DLC, Waking Flame DLC (4 dungeons)
zone dlc: Deadlands

2022:
chapter: High Isle
core feature: Tales of Tribute card game
dungeon dlcs: Ascending Tide DLC, Lost Depths DLC (4 dungeons)
zone dlc: Firesong

2023:
chapter: Necrom
core feature: new class — Arcanist and later Infinite Archive
dungeon dlcs: Scribes of Fate DLC (2 dungeons)
zone dlc: — (no separate zone DLC, chapter concluded story and 2 big zones)

2024:
chapter: Gold Road
core feature: Scribing system
dungeon dlcs: Scions of Ithelia DLC (2 dungeons)
zone dlc: — (chapter itself continued story arc)

As you can see even in 2017 when we got only 1 dungeon DLC we had instead a new trial.
Since 2017 up to 2024 we had 4 dungeons each year, chapter, zone dlc and core new feature each year (in 2023 instead of 2nd dungeons DLC we got Infinite Archive)
From 2024 started fall of in content quantity. This year core feature "multiclassing" contains zero new content, no new skills, no new lines.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

If anything, the 4 dungeons are more playable hours for full completion than the extra zone and 2 dungeons.

Not true again, new dungeon can be closed in a few days (this is one time content) and then enjoy the queue simulator to find random party after a few months.
On the other side I still find a lot of people who do zone story, achievments, gather collectibles in Murkmire or Clockwork city.
ESO has a huge community of casual players and lorewalkers, new zones and stories are more accessible and interesting for them and overall for everyone than dungeons.
But even if you are right about dungeons, anyway we had the same amount dungeon content back then and additionaly more zones more stories and more new features

Gabriel_H wrote: »

You are also conflating systems with content. Any system added is still there in subsequent chapters. There is typically a couple of hours of additional gameplay.

In the next chapter, after charging you $50, which would you rather have:
a) 10 new systems and 2 hours of content
b) 0 new systems and 60 hours of content

Most people when buying a game look for a return of playable hours on the money they have forked out.

Systems are content period
If you don't like new systems and don't interact with them it doesn't mean that everybody else do the same. We have people in guild that do only story content and ignore dungeons and trials. Does it mean that dungeons/trials are not content? No.

And you didn't answer about this

Gabriel_H wrote:

DLC-wise: We used to get an extra zone DLC and two dungeons. Now we get no extra zone and 4 dungeons.

You implied since now we have 4 dungeons per year instead of 2 so we have more new content. But I proved that's not true. So if there is an even in dungeons count then we are getting less content now, right?

If they really want to be a 30 year game they should focus on the future instead. Drop the old tech holding eso back. Give us crossplay, new server hardware and keep updating it. Last time we got new hardware cyrodiil had zero lag even pop locked. Gives us new PvP zones. Not wanting to give us more PvP content because you wanna fix performance first is just gonna make people quit. Even if we had lag people still played. But now with zero new PvP content for years have completely killed the PvP community.

Newer graphics cards are more expensive than they used to be. ESO is less performant for me (frame rate, heat) than it was 5 years ago with the same setup. Already that decrease in performance keeps me from playing more. I can't be the only one, and when enough players leave, the community changes.

Some of the most long-term popular MMOs have old/simpler graphics and are very performant on a variety of specs. I think it helps keep people playing.

New graphics look nice, but people get used to them and their standards just get raised. Moving goal situation.

If the minimum requirements were increased to be as high as the Oblivion remake's were, I would have to stop playing.

... As nice as the housing slot increase would be.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

How is that an assumption? It has literally been confirmed by the devs several times that they are not able to increase housing limits or add a set of new animations because of hardware limitations.

Because technical limitations are NOT the only consideration of whether something gets made. There is also budget. And without knowing what percentage of the revenue old systems bring in, there's no way of knowing if cutting them actually leads to more stuff. It may result in less stuff due to budget or even closure.

Let's give an example

Let's say that we have a chef making food for the alliance. He can't make a bunch of separate dishes.

Sai and Lyris want to eat meat. They give 15 gold..
Abnur wants to eat a baguette. He gives 30 gold
Bastian doesn't care but he can't eat cheese. He gives 20 gold.

So there's a total 65 gold to spend. The ingredients for a bacon, egg, and fake cheese sandwich 60 gold and the chef puts the other 5 gold into the war effort coffer.

Sai, Lyris, and Abnur all complain about the fake cheese. The chef says he has to use it because he can't make separate meals and Bastian can't eat cheese.

Would kicking Bastian out give them real cheese? No. The ingredients cost 60 gold. They only have 45 gold without him.

It's better for the chef to use a fake cheese than giving nothing. What if Sai and Lyris left because they refused to eat fake cheese but Bastian stayed? Well, they'd have 50 gold and that's better than 45. So the risk of losing them is less than the risk of losing Bastian. Chef is still better off using the fake cheese. He can easily put real cheese on there but that would not be the best move for the alliance's interests.

The meal is fictional and business is a lot more complicated than this. But it illustrates the principle of how it's not just the ability to create tech solutions that must be considered but also the needs of your customers and the amount those customers bring in.

We only have one part of the story, which is the technical side of things. We know that older consoles and PCs require workarounds to ensure the game remains performant on those devices. We know that they have had to alter development or refrain from doing certain things to accommodate them.

What we don't know is what percentage of the playerbase and revenue they represent. And those are equally important when understanding whether or not catering to them is holding anything back or not.

We're obviously going to get to the point where it's better to cut ties with the older consoles either through a content freeze or making the game no longer work on those systems at all. But, that will likely only come once they're a small enough percentage of the revenue that losing them is less risky than keeping them.

Apollosipod wrote: »

ZOS has stated they want ESO to be a 30-year game, but we are currently watching the game flail (literally and figuratively in the case of the most recent contact animation issues). If the reason for this is that old PCs and consoles are holding back the game's development, how long does it maintain support for lower end tech? How many players are at risk of being lost long-term because development is currently working to maintain older tech?

I want this game to succeed and continue to grow, but this last season has really shown the cracks...

Diablo 4 is playable on

Xbox one
Xbox Series
Playstation 3
Playstation 4

and will probably be playable on the new Xbox/playstation, PC and has crossplay. I don't think old hardware holds the game back at all.

Anilahation wrote: »

Apollosipod wrote: »

ZOS has stated they want ESO to be a 30-year game, but we are currently watching the game flail (literally and figuratively in the case of the most recent contact animation issues). If the reason for this is that old PCs and consoles are holding back the game's development, how long does it maintain support for lower end tech? How many players are at risk of being lost long-term because development is currently working to maintain older tech?

I want this game to succeed and continue to grow, but this last season has really shown the cracks...

Diablo 4 is playable on

Xbox one
Xbox Series
Playstation 3
Playstation 4

and will probably be playable on the new Xbox/playstation, PC and has crossplay. I don't think old hardware holds the game back at all.

They EXPLICITLY stated last week that they had to make the changes due to old hardware limitations I’m so sick of y’all

Clinging to older platforms to appease a dwindling sub-fraction of players (as newer consoles/hardware for the same servers are available) comes at the cost of

1) Development efficiency and freedom
2) Game quality
3) Expansion of systems

and in turn sacrifices

1) Developer hours (wasted on revision, over-optimization and related troubleshooting).
2) Player motivation and retention (main revenue source, dictates spending behaviour).
3) True evolution of the game and the potential for gaining new / regaining lost players.

They are making the game mechanically worse. This isn't about balancing or preferences, they have broken perfectly functional animations. And the replacements would be inferior to their previous iterations even if glitches were not an issue.
"More of the same" will not keep the game running. "Worse than before" will destroy it.

Not to mention that steady development of a beloved long-term product can be a brilliant incentive for (near inevitable, nothing lasts forever) hardware upgrades. Which is likely to provide disproportionate short-term revenue (compensating for many reluctant customers), with a high likelihood of continued long-term spending.

Of course we have no clue what is going on internally, but on the outside the decisionmaking appears catastrohpic. Not even the Sony lawyers can be so unreasonable. I can only fathom that it was not possible anymore to uncouple the live-event development from the animation update in the U48 build, because otherwise any sane person would have rolled that back.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If they chose to change the min specs, that’s obviously not something ZOS can do overnight, and they will need to give a very long warning to affected players so they can consider upgrading or leaving. But if ZOS is currently in the state where the only way they can add anything new is to remove things that already exist - which they are, and have said several times - that naturally begs the question of if it’s worth it. How much of the game can they remove before too many people get fed up and leave, especially if other games are offerring the things that ESO says are impossible?

The animation changes weren't actually intended to be noticeable. I also doubt they got many people quitting citing the housing limitations.

ZOS does have the answer to these questions. They can see if people are quitting a faster rate than they expected as a normal part of business as they scaled back content due to budget reasons . They can see which percentage of the population is on what systems and who is spending the most money. They can see the same thing Sony and Xbox see which is that a lot of people aren't going to swap to newer gen consoles because Covid messed up the availability too long. They can see a lot of things that we can't.

And they decided to change things to accommodate consoles rather than announce the cessation of updates for older gen users.

That speaks to it making more financial sense for them to keep them than not.

I quit for basically 2 years because of AwA (which was also cited as needed for improving performance/storage space). Prior to that, I had maintained a subscription throughout my tenure in the game. Even when I come back, I typically don't sub because I don't stay long.