ESO´s Population is lowered to 2017 level

ToddIngram · December 22

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

I'm wondering if some person just forget their own words [snip]
[edited for baiting]

It's always best to be consistent and always tell the truth. That way you don't have to worry about making bad faith arguments.

Vonnegut2506 · December 22

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

AScarlato · December 22

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

xR3ACTORx · December 22

ToddIngram wrote: »

I don't believe for a second ZOS can't fix GH. They created it, they can fix it. They're deciding not to make the investment by choice, not mandate.

To be fair after 11 years it's possible that many developers changed companies already. New inexperienced devs fresh out of university get also hired all the time. Brain drain is an issue that can affect companies to a point until their own product may become unfixable.

Vonnegut2506 · December 22

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

I wish ESO had something like a Paladin. Templar is, I think, supposed to be that archetype, but it falls short in so many ways.

xR3ACTORx · December 22

ToddIngram wrote: »

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

I'm wondering if some person just forget their own words [snip]
[edited for baiting]

It's always best to be consistent and always tell the truth. That way you don't have to worry about making bad faith arguments.

Yea, that's true. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. So I paid my price and I am thankful for being alive now.

xR3ACTORx · December 22

Wow

AScarlato · December 22

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

I wish ESO had something like a Paladin. Templar is, I think, supposed to be that archetype, but it falls short in so many ways.

Same. I gravitated towards the Templar in ESO (I have had more Templars than any other class at this point) since I love holy/paladin themes.

There are some things I like, like Jabs (moreso pre-animation nerf), the Sun ultimate, Ritual which is the closest thing to feeling like an Aura to me. Really hope they step up and modernize the Templar when they re-balance the job.

Vonnegut2506 · December 22

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

I wish ESO had something like a Paladin. Templar is, I think, supposed to be that archetype, but it falls short in so many ways.

Same. I gravitated towards the Templar in ESO (I have had more Templars than any other class at this point) since I love holy/paladin themes.

There are some things I like, like Jabs (moreso pre-animation nerf), the Sun ultimate, Ritual which is the closest thing to feeling like an Aura to me. Really hope they step up and modernize the Templar when they re-balance the job.

I wish they would make the sun shield a long-lasting damage field to be similar to an aura. I don't know who thought, "Hey, I bet people would love to keep re-applying damage fields every 20 seconds. That would probably make combat feel more fun." I would love if all damage field abilities were long-lasting or permanent with a constant magicka or stamina cost like banner is now.

tomofhyrule · December 22

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

The TES universe really doesn’t have the “standard” fantasy archetypes, so that is a bit of a damper. Like Elder Scrolls Bards are literally just random dudes who play an instrument in the tavern. And the requirement of an ESO Class to allow using any weapon and any armor for any role means things like your standard Monk idea are more like a Templar with an unarmed weapon line than a full Class.

Still, a Class could be anything, as we saw with Arcanist.
Now there is one sort-of Traditional Fantasy Archetype that they could do, and that’s an Artificer. The Dwemer do give a handle for building automata and traps and grenades or the like, and we have seen plenty of examples throughout the series of characters who use Dwemer tech for their own purposes.

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

And that is another thing that explains a lot, and honestly drives a lot of ESO’s population jumps. It seems we frequently get something very strong that everyone farms for so they can be OP in PvP or PvE for a patch or two before the nerfs.

Still though, if we consider Arcanist: everyone who slots the Herald line had to pay money for a that Class at one point. No Class has ever been made available just from ESO+.

AScarlato · December 22

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

I wish ESO had something like a Paladin. Templar is, I think, supposed to be that archetype, but it falls short in so many ways.

Same. I gravitated towards the Templar in ESO (I have had more Templars than any other class at this point) since I love holy/paladin themes.

There are some things I like, like Jabs (moreso pre-animation nerf), the Sun ultimate, Ritual which is the closest thing to feeling like an Aura to me. Really hope they step up and modernize the Templar when they re-balance the job.

I wish they would make the sun shield a long-lasting damage field to be similar to an aura. I don't know who thought, "Hey, I bet people would love to keep re-applying damage fields every 20 seconds. That would probably make combat feel more fun." I would love if all damage field abilities were long-lasting or permanent with a constant magicka or stamina cost like banner is now.

I think that would be a fun idea even if it had some sort of drain as you mentioned for balance reasons.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

The TES universe really doesn’t have the “standard” fantasy archetypes, so that is a bit of a damper. Like Elder Scrolls Bards are literally just random dudes who play an instrument in the tavern. .

True, but ESO is a bit different as they decided to initially go for themed classes. I just wish they removed some schools of magic from a specific staff, since we never had to equip a specific weapon to use a specific spell in the series either.

I am sad we will not have a bard, as that is an archetype I'd also enjoy and would probably multiclass with Templar also.

YandereGirlfriend · December 22

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

IMO, ESO broke bad with class concepts when they abandoned the traditional TES classes and created wonky new classes like Dragonknight and shoehorned in 3rd party archetypes like Templar.

In some parallel dimension we instead have real TES classes like Witchunter, Crusader, Monk, Barbarian, Battlemage, Acrobat, etc. with the game leaning into the unique TES weirdness and the actual series lore that draws players to the franchise.

FoJul · December 22

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

IMO, ESO broke bad with class concepts when they abandoned the traditional TES classes and created wonky new classes like Dragonknight and shoehorned in 3rd party archetypes like Templar.

In some parallel dimension we instead have real TES classes like Witchunter, Crusader, Monk, Barbarian, Battlemage, Acrobat, etc. with the game leaning into the unique TES weirdness and the actual series lore that draws players to the franchise.

Yeah, when Arcanist came out and I cried about how this class isn't lore friendly, and they are just adding stuff as cash grabs, people laughed and told me it was "cope". Arcanist became the strongest class for the next 2 years and you have to pay to access it. Defying all lore and adding just janky mess that just didn't make sense.

Additionally, the whole class themed character creation, is the basis of an MMO version of an RPG series. So classes were expected, but you are right, the classes they chose don't really make sense to the lore.

Now when you play ESO, it doesn't even feel like an Elder Scrolls game at all. This is one of the reasons the game didn't blow up bigger than it did and become that wow killer we all expected it to be, if you know what I mean. Everyone came to ESO expecting an online Skyrim/Oblivion, and what we got was an MMO with Elder scrolls inspiration.

Hawco10 · December 22

Just wanted to say thank you to @xR3ACTORx for an excellent thread. Your use of solid data to counter anecdotal claims, opinions presented as facts, and emotional arguments made for a really compelling and informative read.
I don’t often dive into stats myself—I usually leave that to the BI team at work—but I genuinely enjoyed this one.
Thanks again for taking the time to start the conversation and bring the evidence. Much appreciated!

SneaK · December 22

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

IMO, the marketing is very lackluster. The overall market for what they target is saturated with RPGs that lend to deeper stories and scratch the itch better for solo RPG folk.

Then, you have ESO dropping trailers/cinematics of random new chapter/dlc characters know one knows. They never show gameplay or real combat.

I personally think they need to do something different with marketing, the name Elder Scrolls got them to a certain point but newer generations don’t recognize it and it’s not bringing enough people in with the name alone. I’d really like to see them get more involved with their community, both PvP and PvE. It would be a nice change of pace for the next focused season or chapter or whatever, to see more dev interaction with streams/raids/Cyro nights/etc. Post those clips into a montage showing people having fun while actually playing the game, market that. I mean really, the marketing has to change and when you look into dev gameplay ESO it’s not a positive thing, build the brand around the players, alongside the devs.
The catch, they’d have to work on balancing the game to capture the community having “fun”./spoiler]

I got vertigo the other day recalling that Skyrim came out... 14 years ago.

Nobody younger than their early 20s likely has any connection whatsoever to the TES franchise unless they are somehow individually interested in now-retro gaming or they have some cool family member who introduced them to it randomly.

Some day there will probably be tomes written about the actual reasons that Bethesda decided to go... two decades... of ignoring its core game franchise and insanely lucrative cash cow but that is... a choice... that they seem to have made. Unfortunately, in the absence of a core game release, the people who might try ESO because "it's an Elder Scrolls Game" is basically tapped-out because there are not new members of the fandom being minted in any appreciable numbers.

Which means that you have to sell the game on what the game actually does. You have to sell new players on the gameplay itself not vague nostalgia for the universe.

That’s what I’m saying! I mostly play shooters, never play RPGs. Everyone I play other games with has no idea what ESO even is or that it has PvP. They just think it’s another single player questing game. They’re missing a big market.

fizzybeef · December 22

Hawco10 wrote: »

Just wanted to say thank you to @xR3ACTORx for an excellent thread. Your use of solid data to counter anecdotal claims, opinions presented as facts, and emotional arguments made for a really compelling and informative read.
I don’t often dive into stats myself—I usually leave that to the BI team at work—but I genuinely enjoyed this one.
Thanks again for taking the time to start the conversation and bring the evidence. Much appreciated!

Im not Reactor but the OP and youre welcome 😂
But i agree Reactor has been really good in this discussion

xR3ACTORx · December 23

Thank you, guys. Really means much to me.

I'm really passionate about video games and facts.

I admit that at a certain point the deflections and attacks became incredibly exhausting for me and felt like fighting windmills, but in the end it was all worth.
It was also mentally draining to negate every attempt of derailing this discussion and at one point I was even thinking about derailing this thread by myself just to get it closed.

As I said before I've witnessed several live service games dropped rapidly in their popularity before.
All of them had one thing in common:
The denial of steam data by the same type of users over and over again.
So it was pretty obvious to me what would await me here and I did my research about investors already a while ago.
I also believe that this game can only evolve again when the population drop is acknowledged by the community of players and by the persons in charge for this game.

I admit the use of AI to scan every thread in this forum and to identify pattern among specific users, that already have a history in derailing threads, tag teaming and in presenting their personal experience, feelings and opinions as facts and whose claims were already debunkend and marked in the past, so yea... Some of the called out behavior in this thread was already predictably for me days ago.

I'm just a regular dude and a man got to use the best tools he can find.

A clever guy once told me that it doesn't matter if you are an 1% elitist or living a street hustling life.. 1 will always equal 1 and the truth will always be the truth.

My thanks goes also to users like @SummersetCitizen and @ToddIngram who pointed in the right direction, which was also very insightful to me.
(Good and true points also about how certain forum users deflecting behavior can cause significant damage to the playerbase of the game we all enjoyed.)

And users like @Ph1p and @DarkStrifeYT who backed up with working the given data or providing their own data. Very insightful.

It was exhausting (I wonder if the deflection camp even realizes how much), but absolutly worth the neuronal fireworks that kept my mind awake for this.

Thanks.

In hopes that whenever users will try to mark steam data as invalid someone will point to this thread.

moderatelyfatman · December 23

@xR3ACTORx @fizzybeef
The sad thing is that at the end the day we are right about the game collapsing and being right gives us no joy.

Ermiq · December 23

Well, 2017 is the year of Morrowind release. A big hype for Vvardenfell, a big hype for new release model with big chapters every year.
Now people kind of fed up, the game feels stale and chapters are not something special anymore, it's just another story with another set of PoI. 2 new classes in 8 years is not enough. Archeology and jewelry is not much at all.
To refresh the interest they need to do something special again, new actually fun core mechanics, like stealing and housing were, unique zones like IC... Hopefully the new seasonal model will let them create something actually new.

xR3ACTORx · December 23

moderatelyfatman wrote: »

@xR3ACTORx @fizzybeef
The sad thing is that at the end the day we are right about the game collapsing and being right gives us no joy.

Yea, true. But it's also true that every individual is responsible for creating his own joy. There is a whole world of new games out there that are worth to be played as well.

And let's see what shift in the industry GTA 6 will bring. I was reading it will contain lots of elements that are typical for MMORPGs as never seen before in any GTA game.

Nemesis7884 · December 23

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

I wish ESO had something like a Paladin. Templar is, I think, supposed to be that archetype, but it falls short in so many ways.

Same. I gravitated towards the Templar in ESO (I have had more Templars than any other class at this point) since I love holy/paladin themes.

There are some things I like, like Jabs (moreso pre-animation nerf), the Sun ultimate, Ritual which is the closest thing to feeling like an Aura to me. Really hope they step up and modernize the Templar when they re-balance the job.

honestly the class implementation of eso falls short in many of the themes...they are doing something different thats fine but there is a reason these class archetypes are so established and often used

I wished the warden/druid had a bear transform (as even the druids have in eso) and be built around lightning and earth magic rather than frost

I wished the necro was based around frost and had persistent pets - even 1 ultimate like the warden

I wished the templar was more like a paladin with auras

etc. etc.

Of course you can interpret class themes differently but then they need to be good/better...

Rungar · December 23

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

AScarlato wrote: »

Vonnegut2506 wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Yeah classes can be a big thing for player retention.

Just look at Diablo 4. The excitement for the new season was super low everywhere. Then they shadowdropped Palladin, and now this season has peaked in player numbers since release and everyone is hyped.

It helps that Paladin is so overpowered that everyone wants to play it for this season.

It's also the addition of a popular fantasy archetype, and extremely well done themactically. Templar can't beat diving into enemies with my spear as an Angel, with my righteous auras burning everything around me due to my mere prescence.

I'm not sure what types of classic classes ESO is missing at this point - if anything various schools of mages they could play around with that aren't well represented here.

I wish ESO had something like a Paladin. Templar is, I think, supposed to be that archetype, but it falls short in so many ways.

Same. I gravitated towards the Templar in ESO (I have had more Templars than any other class at this point) since I love holy/paladin themes.

There are some things I like, like Jabs (moreso pre-animation nerf), the Sun ultimate, Ritual which is the closest thing to feeling like an Aura to me. Really hope they step up and modernize the Templar when they re-balance the job.

honestly the class implementation of eso falls short in many of the themes...they are doing something different thats fine but there is a reason these class archetypes are so established and often used

I wished the warden/druid had a bear transform (as even the druids have in eso) and be built around lightning and earth magic rather than frost

I wished the necro was based around frost and had persistent pets - even 1 ultimate like the warden

I wished the templar was more like a paladin with auras

etc. etc.

Of course you can interpret class themes differently but then they need to be good/better...

This is why zos was on the right track with subclassing, because their classes suck despite a few identity enthusiasts endless crying. Zos has once again fallen into the trap of appeasing these people ( like they did with the combat system) rather than finish the job and it will be another disaster.

they should of redesigned the cp system to a specialization system where players could truely be what they wanted, with upsides and downsides to it. Players always pick simple well known archetypes. Fire mage, frost mage, ranger etc.

this would of brought back "identity", lol, but in a way that would actually work.

SaffronCitrusflower · December 23

SummersetCitizen wrote: »

lostineternity wrote: »

I hold a master degree in applied mathematics. My main specialization is mathematical statistics, with a particular focus on social mathematical statistics (everything related to societal trends, opinion polls, elections, etc.

I also hold an MS in the social sciences, with a particular focus on data analysis. The level of statistical illiteracy in these discussions is striking. Personal anecdotes and individual experiences may feel meaningful, but they do not constitute evidence and carry little weight in population-level analysis.

One contributing factor to population decline is the forum environment itself. Long-standing trolls—some of whom have posted thousands of borderline rage-bait messages over the years—appear to be effectively insulated from consequences, potentially due to inconsistent or legacy moderation practices. At the same time, many ordinary in-game players report being automatically banned through AI-driven moderation systems.

These trolls are widely disliked by the player base, yet their posts—often driven by emotion rather than evidence—tend to align with pro-ZOS narratives. As a result, dissenting voices are gradually removed or disengage out of frustration, leaving a shrinking, unrepresentative group that persists until the community itself is effectively shut down.

Nailed it! 10/10

SaffronCitrusflower · December 23

f

xR3ACTORx wrote: »

Thank you, guys. Really means much to me.

I'm really passionate about video games and facts.

I admit that at a certain point the deflections and attacks became incredibly exhausting for me and felt like fighting windmills, but in the end it was all worth.
It was also mentally draining to negate every attempt of derailing this discussion and at one point I was even thinking about derailing this thread by myself just to get it closed.

As I said before I've witnessed several live service games dropped rapidly in their popularity before.
All of them had one thing in common:
The denial of steam data by the same type of users over and over again.
So it was pretty obvious to me what would await me here and I did my research about investors already a while ago.
I also believe that this game can only evolve again when the population drop is acknowledged by the community of players and by the persons in charge for this game.

I admit the use of AI to scan every thread in this forum and to identify pattern among specific users, that already have a history in derailing threads, tag teaming and in presenting their personal experience, feelings and opinions as facts and whose claims were already debunkend and marked in the past, so yea... Some of the called out behavior in this thread was already predictably for me days ago.

I'm just a regular dude and a man got to use the best tools he can find.

A clever guy once told me that it doesn't matter if you are an 1% elitist or living a street hustling life.. 1 will always equal 1 and the truth will always be the truth.

My thanks goes also to users like @SummersetCitizen and @ToddIngram who pointed in the right direction, which was also very insightful to me.
(Good and true points also about how certain forum users deflecting behavior can cause significant damage to the playerbase of the game we all enjoyed.)

And users like @Ph1p and @DarkStrifeYT who backed up with working the given data or providing their own data. Very insightful.

It was exhausting (I wonder if the deflection camp even realizes how much), but absolutly worth the neuronal fireworks that kept my mind awake for this.

Thanks.

In hopes that whenever users will try to mark steam data as invalid someone will point to this thread.

This thread has really pointed out the benefits of the forum ignore list for me. I can see the responses, but I didn't have to waste any time to see exactly what's going on. Normally not a fan of ignoring functions, but in this case the value is undeniable. It's a tool, when used sparingly, seems to help.

Mesite · December 23

baltic1284 wrote: »

so i found a 3rd party MMO population tracker for you ESO lost 5.3 Percent of the population
https://mmo-population.com/game/the-elder-scrolls-online

.

That drop by over 90% in one month on that website doesn't seem likely.

Nemesis7884 · December 23

Man I REALLY hope for them, for us, for the game, that on January the 7th they come out with an absolute banger presentation that blows us away

Yudo · December 23

ToddIngram wrote: »

I don't believe for a second ZOS can't fix GH. They created it, they can fix it. They're deciding not to make the investment by choice, not mandate.

My point was it looks like ZOS is trying to put Cyrodiil into maintenance mode. Rather than even try, they're just telling us it is what it is, take it or leave it, they're not even going to try.

I guess it just outside of the scope of priority/time/cost or whatever, rather than being "impossible" to fix.
I would argue they should revisit the alternatives, as I also don't want them to give up on GH.

Here is the key message from me:
If they can make improvements, however small, to the current GH, it will still be miles better.
They can look at cross healing, maybe some learnings from Vengeance might inspire changes to GH, and go from there. This was the original expectation and hope for going into testing. Does feel like a sudden flip to push for Vengeance.

Part of the reason why cyro is in the current state is not purely performance. Subclassing has a lot to do with it with everyone running the same high burst combo and adding more frustration besides performance.
These improvements, and balance together would give us the experience, even with performance issue, the fun environment which we have been able to tolerate for years.

I won't put my money on a smaller GH, because the game cannot handle 3 ball groups in one keep, the size of the map seems to matter little. They could lower the pop, which might help, but also reduces the epic scale of what is GH. Let's see what exactly they announce, I just hope they are reading these and taking in feedback seriously. I hate that I am resorting to compromise facing the potential termination of GH, but this is what I think. Looking forward to the 4th Survey results.

SaffronCitrusflower · December 23

Yudo wrote: »

ToddIngram wrote: »

I don't believe for a second ZOS can't fix GH. They created it, they can fix it. They're deciding not to make the investment by choice, not mandate.

My point was it looks like ZOS is trying to put Cyrodiil into maintenance mode. Rather than even try, they're just telling us it is what it is, take it or leave it, they're not even going to try.

I guess it just outside of the scope of priority/time/cost or whatever, rather than being "impossible" to fix.
I would argue they should revisit the alternatives, as I also don't want them to give up on GH.

Here is the key message from me:
If they can make improvements, however small, to the current GH, it will still be miles better.
They can look at cross healing, maybe some learnings from Vengeance might inspire changes to GH, and go from there. This was the original expectation and hope for going into testing. Does feel like a sudden flip to push for Vengeance.

Part of the reason why cyro is in the current state is not purely performance. Subclassing has a lot to do with it with everyone running the same high burst combo and adding more frustration besides performance.
These improvements, and balance together would give us the experience, even with performance issue, the fun environment which we have been able to tolerate for years.

I won't put my money on a smaller GH, because the game cannot handle 3 ball groups in one keep, the size of the map seems to matter little. They could lower the pop, which might help, but also reduces the epic scale of what is GH. Let's see what exactly they announce, I just hope they are reading these and taking in feedback seriously. I hate that I am resorting to compromise facing the potential termination of GH, but this is what I think. Looking forward to the 4th Survey results.

You are correct in that the problems in GH are worst at big fights in one location. Making that location smaller, in this case Cyrodiil, will not change anything when it comes to improving performance. The smaller zone would still have the same problem of huge fights in one location, except it would be more frequent because less locations to fight at.

Great point!

baltic1284 · December 23

Mesite wrote: »

baltic1284 wrote: »

so i found a 3rd party MMO population tracker for you ESO lost 5.3 Percent of the population
https://mmo-population.com/game/the-elder-scrolls-online

.

That drop by over 90% in one month on that website doesn't seem likely.

Ohhhh I Know that by one week by the way and they only went back one year, but it was done mainly cause one poster here wasn't accepting Steam pop numbers as a indicator of what is happening to the game so had to find a 3rd party site that did everything so that person couldn't do the but it didn't cover this or that, bottom line the amount of player lose had been massive and the 90 percent wasn't in a month by the way it was over the year from 2023-10 recovery from the last drop to the highest point 2024-1 to current 2025-12 subtract highest point from lowest show the number in a year, not a month. In one month, it was far fewer lose, 2025-11 169 396 to 2025-12 145 787, it was only a loss of 23 609 in a month but over a year it added up. over the year was the larger player drop month to month was in 5 digit lose.

baltic1284 · December 23

SaffronCitrusflower wrote: »

Yudo wrote: »

ToddIngram wrote: »

I don't believe for a second ZOS can't fix GH. They created it, they can fix it. They're deciding not to make the investment by choice, not mandate.

My point was it looks like ZOS is trying to put Cyrodiil into maintenance mode. Rather than even try, they're just telling us it is what it is, take it or leave it, they're not even going to try.

I guess it just outside of the scope of priority/time/cost or whatever, rather than being "impossible" to fix.
I would argue they should revisit the alternatives, as I also don't want them to give up on GH.

Here is the key message from me:
If they can make improvements, however small, to the current GH, it will still be miles better.
They can look at cross healing, maybe some learnings from Vengeance might inspire changes to GH, and go from there. This was the original expectation and hope for going into testing. Does feel like a sudden flip to push for Vengeance.

Part of the reason why cyro is in the current state is not purely performance. Subclassing has a lot to do with it with everyone running the same high burst combo and adding more frustration besides performance.
These improvements, and balance together would give us the experience, even with performance issue, the fun environment which we have been able to tolerate for years.

I won't put my money on a smaller GH, because the game cannot handle 3 ball groups in one keep, the size of the map seems to matter little. They could lower the pop, which might help, but also reduces the epic scale of what is GH. Let's see what exactly they announce, I just hope they are reading these and taking in feedback seriously. I hate that I am resorting to compromise facing the potential termination of GH, but this is what I think. Looking forward to the 4th Survey results.

You are correct in that the problems in GH are worst at big fights in one location. Making that location smaller, in this case Cyrodiil, will not change anything when it comes to improving performance. The smaller zone would still have the same problem of huge fights in one location, except it would be more frequent because less locations to fight at.

Great point!

Another factor to the state of Cyro being what it is was trying to have both PVE players and PVP players in one map zone, the mix didn't work well many PVE players that just wanted to do the PVE content there and the sky shards couldn't which frustrated theme, PVP wouldn't PVP as much and chase the PVE players around to kill for an easy win, which then frustrated the PVP part of that community that was trying to do PVP content and take forts but couldn't due to low player count, although it wasn't as big a Performance, or skill line changes, nerfs, Op'ed gear then nerfed, the Op'ed again then Nerfed again and back and forth.
That itself the insolation of the community and a us v theme mentality can cause it, PVE vs PVP on cyrodiil instead of having one for PVP that has the PVE stuff removed and one for PVE that has the PVP stuff removed to better focus on meaningful changes for PVP and PVE as the two can't be balanced to face each other. Also doesnt help that for months the company said nothing on changes to PVP but was real quick with the hammer in stopping any question or ideas to help which also had an impact on it and PVP player feeling unwanted for the business model, and ignoring the pleas of the PVE part of the community when it came to Cyrodiil didn't on that front either although not a big of impact at first it did add up as PVE content in that zone was now cut off and you couldn't get it at all unless you accepted being bullied, or chased by the more bad part of the PVP community.