ESO´s Population is lowered to 2017 level

Personofsecrets · December 17

Wow, that's really bad. The context of 2017 is that it was after a tremendous content draught and paul sage shenanigans.

Considering the organizational shakeups and that the biggest trick up the ZOS sleave for engagement, multiclassing, is done and over, I will make the predicition that ESO doesn't recover.

Is there anything left for developers to do with ESO? Can they make ESO have clout? It's possible that neither of those things have a yes answer.

xR3ACTORx · December 17

My BG announced that right now it's not possible to run a group without having everyone else logging off after 30 minutes. That's how low the population in cyro on Xbox is.

Last'One · December 17

Of course the servers are losing players, and they will continue to lose even more.

The game is currently in a very bad state. ZOS knows this, and they have acknowledged that they are working on fixes. However, it increasingly feels like this is not being treated as a priority. The problems affecting the game right now require immediate action, not vague assurances.

If ZOS knows the game is broken, if they admit they are working on a fix, and if they also say there is no timeline for when the game will be fixed… then shouldn’t they at least take temporary measures to limit the damage?

Subclassing is a major part of what brought the game to this state. Temporarily disabling it would be a responsible stopgap solution while a proper fix is being developed. It wouldn’t be ideal, but it would show that ZOS understands the urgency and is willing to act decisively to stabilize the game.

Right now, the lack of action sends the opposite message: that the issue is not a priority. And as long as that perception remains, players will keep leaving.

NOTE:

Another solution, and in my opinion, the best one, would be to disable DPS sharing, combat logs, and target dummies.

Doing so would immediately reduce the obsession with parse numbers and open the door for real build diversity. Players could experiment with different skills, items, and sets without being judged or excluded based on a single number. It would allow people to actually play the game, instead of playing spreadsheets and logs.

But instead… nothing. It feels like someone at the top has simply decided: "Just let it sink."

licenturion · December 17

Al_Ex_Andre wrote: »

My formerly first trading guild is disbanding. They said that they did every trial on heroic (I was not a member at this time), and only kept the merchant alive since then. And now they quit for good.

So we can certainly guess that it's because they are no more trials they didn't made it on heroic, that they quit.

So I have to agree with a few posters here, that's the lack of content that make people quit.

Maybie add an infinite archive clone (like a knights tournament whatever), with new sets, blue + the new green pattern recipes as random rewards (purple should stay for infinite archive), and 2 legendaries leads every week...and you have content.

Best would be new trials really, probably, for these very persons who quit because there's no more 'challenge'.

I am now of the fence to not support the game anymore anyway. Maybie the game really has run its course, and we can all move on to the next microsoft games.

The model of the game is to keep content relevant chapter after chapter, but in return, there's few new content, and people once they did it all, just leave, that is.

The new players are the only saving grace to the game. But they too will quit once they did it all, this will just happen.^^

I think this is one of the big challenges they face right now. Your group want new trials, a lot of people like me want new big zones with new stories and assets, some want dungeon packs, some people want new battleground stuff, other want PvP balance and performance changes, some want new tribute decks or housing stuff, ….

Every type of player want something else and some of those things require a lot of time and resource investment to create. Combined with lay-offs and Microsoft their rumoured high profit requirements for gaming they basically have an impossible task to statisfy every type of player. I am also in the ‘nothing to do anymore camp’. The danger here is that people find other games to play and might not return if the content draught continues too long. For me the 2026 content announcements will be the moment where I decide if I stay on the train or not. If there is not much, or just new stories in old zones, I am probably out for good as well.

Hotdog_23 · December 17

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

karthrag_inak wrote: »

not this again. in 2017 eso was not on epic launcher. now it is.

If what you say is true, shouldn't ALL games on steam be undergoing a similar decline as players move over to Epic?
Yet other games of a similar age (~10 years) have relatively stable long term populations or even slowly increasing over time.
@fizzybeef 's is right.

Seeing numbers like this makes me think that MS and ZOS also see numbers like this and just salivate about it, and this is a big part of the inspiration and big push for Vengeance campaigns. Just my own tinfoil hat theory since Vengeance was announced.

Stay safe

KalevaLaine · December 17

I would agree here.

Half of my FL ist offline for more than 10 months. The purges in trading guilds is smaller (less players to kick, but not 500 members anymore) and so on.

Craglorn feels empty, even the groupfinder.

Someone says above that many players play it like a solo game and that is true. Sadly! But ZOS promoted this as the way for many years.

Yudo · December 17

I know most in pvp by name. You always fight the same ppl.
I know pug players by name. The same ppl host the trials in group finder every evening, and only a few to find here and there.
Full guilds struggle to talk in chat, in discord and fill group. And for those who do manage to fill, it is the same handful of ppl. (Yes yes, I am sure your guild has regular events full of participants.

)

It is obvious, I wish it wasn't, I want to play more. They gotta fix a thing or two fast.

xR3ACTORx · December 17

Yudo wrote: »

I know most in pvp by name. You always fight the same ppl.

And fighting the same people every night seems to does something to people.

fizzybeef · December 17

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Yudo wrote: »

I know most in pvp by name. You always fight the same ppl.

And fighting the same people every night seems to does something to people.

Mostly boring them out

amiiegee · December 17

fizzybeef wrote: »

While im sure i will have people like ''noo there are plenty of people still playing'' - yes there are still people but overall the population on ALL servers is low and specially on PC wich is the whole European and American servers, we have a great indicator.

While console servers, specially EU are reportedly long time already under drastical low population, it becomes more and more clear, the same is happening fast on PC and the playerbase is shrinking.

It´s really time for ZOS to finally wake up, maybe overthink the priorities and stomp some pointless and unaccpeted projects like vengeance, to finally put ressources into fixing the game, bring players back and together (crossplay FAST) and fix the massive trouble wich was caused with subclassing, whiting wall event and the descisions wich brought us here to this point.

I love the game and it hurts me to see it in such a bad state. Honestly, do something please.

jm42 · December 17

Stamicka wrote: »

Right now the overall player count is low AND it seems to be made up of solo focused players.

just like ZOS wanted. they pushed us sweaty neckbeards away so consistently but suddenly it appears that it's neckbeards who generate most of activity, content and fuss around the game. who could have predicted? of course not the researches on other MMOs accumulated by decades about core groups of players. who could have predicted that MMOrpg can't grow and be successfull only with solo and casual questers? definitely not ZOS

xR3ACTORx · December 17

fizzybeef wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Yudo wrote: »

I know most in pvp by name. You always fight the same ppl.

And fighting the same people every night seems to does something to people.

Mostly boring them out

Or they become obsessed

Radiate77 · December 17

It is the strangest thing when people try to accredit a year’s declining population to anything other than a lack of value.

It’s simple, people.

licenturion · December 17

jm42 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Right now the overall player count is low AND it seems to be made up of solo focused players.

just like ZOS wanted. they pushed us sweaty neckbeards away so consistently but suddenly it appears that it's neckbeards who generate most of activity, content and fuss around the game. who could have predicted? of course not the researches on other MMOs accumulated by decades about core groups of players. who could have predicted that MMOrpg can't grow and be successfull only with solo and casual questers? definitely not ZOS

You do have to take in account that for a franchise like Elder Scrolls, solo content, housing, cosmetics and dungeons is bringing in the big money. Not people playing on the same map for 10 years switching one or two loadout items after a balance patch. Neither are class reworks. ESO has just 2 totally different kinds of people playing who either do the one thing or the other thing only.

A good example was the mount swimming. On the forums people found it waste of many resources. On other socials or when talking to people they all loved it.

Dojohoda · December 17

I have not logged into the game a few times recently. I can name two reasons, poor game performance and ridiculous imbalance. Every time I log into the game and do something akin to endgame content, I get to experience both of the listed problems at the same time.

moderatelyfatman · December 17

licenturion wrote: »

jm42 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Right now the overall player count is low AND it seems to be made up of solo focused players.

just like ZOS wanted. they pushed us sweaty neckbeards away so consistently but suddenly it appears that it's neckbeards who generate most of activity, content and fuss around the game. who could have predicted? of course not the researches on other MMOs accumulated by decades about core groups of players. who could have predicted that MMOrpg can't grow and be successfull only with solo and casual questers? definitely not ZOS

You do have to take in account that for a franchise like Elder Scrolls, solo content, housing, cosmetics and dungeons is bringing in the big money. Not people playing on the same map for 10 years switching one or two loadout items after a balance patch. Neither are class reworks. ESO has just 2 totally different kinds of people playing who either do the one thing or the other thing only.

A good example was the mount swimming. On the forums people found it waste of many resources. On other socials or when talking to people they all loved it.

I put swimming mounts in the same category as a new card game: it's there for a bit of a fun distraction but should have never been considered a main feature of the game.

jm42 · December 17

licenturion wrote: »

jm42 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

Right now the overall player count is low AND it seems to be made up of solo focused players.

just like ZOS wanted. they pushed us sweaty neckbeards away so consistently but suddenly it appears that it's neckbeards who generate most of activity, content and fuss around the game. who could have predicted? of course not the researches on other MMOs accumulated by decades about core groups of players. who could have predicted that MMOrpg can't grow and be successfull only with solo and casual questers? definitely not ZOS

You do have to take in account that for a franchise like Elder Scrolls, solo content, housing, cosmetics and dungeons is bringing in the big money. Not people playing on the same map for 10 years switching one or two loadout items after a balance patch. Neither are class reworks. ESO has just 2 totally different kinds of people playing who either do the one thing or the other thing only.

I am taking into account what is happening when it is only one kind of players left. And I am taking into account that raiding commuunity spends money as well, raiding guilds need guild halls with everything, I have been in a lot of guilds since 2018 and they all had fully equipped halls from mundus stones to crafting stations, a lot of players (like me) prefer to not depend of guild and have own house with dummies etc, and quite a lot of pve/pvp players enjoy housing as well. before subclassing you were lvling alts quite often and bought tokens because to grind everything in 10th time is exhausting for many ppl. you can't say so easily that endgamers don't spend money, as it is also type of players who buy all the expansions without considering if they like the theme, they just see new trial/dungeon and get it, eather for achievements of for new sets, or both

SilverBride · December 17

fizzybeef wrote: »

While im sure i will have people like ''noo there are plenty of people still playing'' - yes there are still people but overall the population on ALL servers is low and specially on PC...

Everything I've ever read indicates that PC has the highest population of the servers. An 11 year old game is going to see some decline in population. Players and guilds will come and go. It's the nature of MMOs

JustLovely · December 17

Lucasl402 wrote: »

Most of what ZOS has done since and including U35 has been detrimental to the game. U35 killed the end game PvE community and showed how little ZOS will respond to customer feedback. The 10 year anniversary event was a disaster and the 2025 content was even worse. And vengeance is killing what's left of the PvP community. That leaves only the casual questers who don't sub, rarely buy crowns, and only log on a few times/week if that. ESO can not survive on that.

If everyone at ZOS isn't in crisis mode right now they're even more out of touch than their harshest critics claim they are.

Claiming the population in ESO is just fine is a highly uninformed and biased statement. The statement does not reflect reality.

AzuraFan · December 17

I find that it depends on where I am. In places like Leyawiin, Vivec City, and other major cities in older zones, there seems to be just as many people.

Solstice, on the other hand, is a dead zone. I've been doing Eastern Solstice stuff since the wall dropped, and sometimes I don't even see another player. Contrast this to earlier content drops, when there would be a lot of players clustered around quest givers, and in quest hubs and instances, to the point that sometimes it would be annoying because half the story instance had been cleared already when I entered. Not anymore.

My overall sense is that there has been a population decline. I'm really curious to see what they announce for 2026, because I believe it will be a make or break it year. Will ESO revitalize, or will it just hobble along for a few more years until MS kills it?

Kilthor69 · December 17

Gankform wrote: »

Check your friend list and your guilds and tell me how many have left in recent years...we don't need graphs to understand that the game is not going well

People leave while others want to try out a new game to for themselves. Yes ESO has been out for a long time does not mean it isn't new to somebody in the world. Plus it is only Steam and if you truly look at the graph they gained players fot 6 months and lost players for 6 months this year. Seems natural and notmal.

Mesite · December 17

I don't get why people would move from Steam to Epic. All my games are on Steam. But I don't use the Steam launcher to play ESO.

Mesite · December 17

If the population of ESO has been this low before, that means it can grow again.

Einar_Hrafnarsson · December 17

My Entire Friend list, with exception of 2 people, has stopped playing. Many of them did PvP daily.
I don't need any other indicator that ESO is not doing well.

Vonnegut2506 · December 17

It's the exact same people with their heads in the sand any time Steam data is presented. They make the most ridiculous statements to try and discredit the only available data that shows population trends. Reality is that the game's population is declining, and it is not because of the Epic launcher or any other asinine reason someone wants to put out there. The population is declining because the quality of the game and the amount of content is declining.

SilverBride · December 18

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

It's the exact same people with their heads in the sand any time Steam data is presented. They make the most ridiculous statements to try and discredit the only available data that shows population trends. Reality is that the game's population is declining, and it is not because of the Epic launcher or any other asinine reason someone wants to put out there. The population is declining because the quality of the game and the amount of content is declining.

Disagreeing with Steam data being an accurate representation of the population is not having our heads in the sand. It's a minority that use Steam and that does not necessarily translate to the population in general.

These threads have come up routinely for years now, but we are still here. Unless ZoS (who are the only ones with accurate data) comes forward and states there is a problem I am not going to worry about it.

xR3ACTORx · December 18

SilverBride wrote: »

Disagreeing with Steam data being an accurate representation of the population is not having our heads in the sand. It's a minority that use Steam and that does not necessarily translate to the population in general.

It doesn't matter if you disagree on this because even investors use steam data to validate before investing.

Do you wanna explain to those investors that they are all wrong?

Even if you decide for yourself to not belive in this... It's the truth.

KapiteinBoterham · December 18

It's so sad to experience the game is such a broken state (update 48 animations), it's no wonder people stopped playing. I hope they fix what they broke soon, this game deserves better.

SilverBride · December 18

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Disagreeing with Steam data being an accurate representation of the population is not having our heads in the sand. It's a minority that use Steam and that does not necessarily translate to the population in general.

It doesn't matter if you disagree on this because even investors use steam data to validate before investing.

Do you wanna explain to those investors that they are all wrong?

Even if you decide for yourself to not belive in this... It's the truth.

What investors? Where has the reaction of these investors been posted?

StihlReign · December 18

SilverBride wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Disagreeing with Steam data being an accurate representation of the population is not having our heads in the sand. It's a minority that use Steam and that does not necessarily translate to the population in general.

It doesn't matter if you disagree on this because even investors use steam data to validate before investing.

Do you wanna explain to those investors that they are all wrong?

Even if you decide for yourself to not belive in this... It's the truth.

What investors? Where has the reaction of these investors been posted?

Some of us post in this forum.