I have seen a lot of players that just want to wait until there is more to do in the game and they fix a lot of the bugs. Hopefully they will come back within the next year, most of them want to.

The adventure guild I am part of is losing, on the average, five people a day to inactivity. And since the player data is account based, they have actually stopped playing the game; not just playing an alt or another faction. Incoming folks have gone down to a trickle.

Well, the good news is you can join 5 guilds.

The bad news is, in a few months there will just enough players to make five guilds.

Trading guilds, yes. But even those are starting to see less members. Where before the ones I am in have been 500 most of the time, now they almost always have open slots.

Something bad is going down with ESO.

Fluctuations in the playerbase are exptected to happen after launch. So you really just pointed out the obvious.

Some peopel only bought it becuase of the hype/group pressure
Some only wanted to do the single player parts
A bunch claim to be totally surprised by a new MMO having bots, bugs and inbalances (wich for me sounds as ludicrous 2 months into the game as it sounded in beta).

If you look at any MMO Forum from shortly after launch you will see the excatly same arguments. Be it WoW, the now dead Star Wars Galaxies or the shortlived Matrix.

I think any MMO developer worth their salt prepares for the initial influx of temporary players trying the MMO out. Large droves leave early after giving the game a test. This is standard fare.

And of course there's the release of Wildstar, which is another example of a known event that will draw players away ... in this case, those raid players who didn't find the gear-driven MMO they were hoping for.



Now, I'll agree that it's a great time for ZOS to put out some concept posts, share their worklog, show us we're still in their eye. But I also don't feel a bit unappreciated right now, since their last 'bug fix' post is less than a week old.

Ideally, they'd plan for a six-month expansion, and spend a good amount of resources bug fixing. Advertise big on the expansion, and draw those players back in who drifted off, let them see that the old bugs are gone, and hook them for real.

In six months, by their proposed timeline (content release every six weeks), they could have three more zones (four new from launch), plus Nightblades fixed (intended for next content release already), plus an assortment of new dungeons and trials to choose from.

Many of us are waiting for the larger features, I know. Player housing. Armor dyes. Thieves Guild and Dark Brotherhood. Crime.

Honestly, if they launched the six months with a grouping mechanic that allowed us to group with our friends (even those of lower level), stay in phase, share in storyline content and expand on player roles? That would be an expansion I'd celebrate, for sure.

PVT_Parts wrote: »

Don't like reading wall of text? Summary. Players are leaving in large numbers.

The player base is constantly shrinking. I know I don't have numbers from ZOS, but I can give you numbers on a small sampling (1500 players). My friends and I started one of the largest auction house guilds in the game that quickly expanded to 1500 members over 3 guilds. I am currently the guild owner of one of them. It used to have 100-200/500 online at a time or more. Now it has 18/500. This is the second guild of the 3, the first guild has 10-15/500(many are VR ranked). People have to realize that players are leaving. Probably because of the Vet grind, lack of endgame, class imbalance, bugs, etc.

I want this game to succeed, so ZOS. Get your head out of your *** and start putting up a reason for ending sub and other things like official "what would you like to see" threads or "What needs to be changed" threads. There has to be some way to keep the player base and get them to return. They love TES enough to have purchased the game, but then they left. You need to analyze why.

Yes, I know there will be flame and "Your numbers are just a small fraction" etc. But come on, you have to have realized that there are far less players than there was at launch in all parts of the game. VR4 zone was almost empty last time I got on my main. DC and AD start zones are pretty empty too.

I want this game to succeed, but I am also starting to get bored. Please figure this out ZOS. We told you in beta that it wasn't ready and urged you to put off the release and fix the problems, but you didn't listen and now it seems like you have lost a lot of money because of it.

End of wall of text.

I have mentioned this before in other threads, it is very concerning at its real. If these are megaservers and when you go to zone and hail in /zone chat even during prime time you will really notice how sad it is.
Waiting for hours not minutes anymore to get help on world bosses or dolmens. Players hailing over and over when only a few are around to help.
Bots keep it busy looking but that is all.

Not too long ago I remember shores and town packed with players, now even main towns are getting bare.

Some are holding on for some improvements, I think more response from devs or who ever represents them will help. The lack of feed back doesn't help and even if you do use the in game support for help you get this e-mail that actually agrees with the problem you encounter but suggest you to look it up in Google or the forums for answers. Really bizarre.

The reason any zone is packed with players is because the lobby system dumps any random folks it can into an instance until it is 'full', then it starts another one.

A lot of people bailed with the "I'll come back when you fix the bugs" excuse. Give it a few months, there is always a population ebb and flow when a new game launches.

I knew there had to be some sinister plot involved. How sneaky of them.

Lol, Im contemplating playing a MUD I played in the 90s. Woe is me.

I've seen some people leave. I've seen a lot of new people playing the game. I'm starting to hear some really positive things from the new players in regards to ESO. So I think that the work that ZOS is doing to improve the game is certainly helping.

I think predicting doom and gloom is premature at this stage.

I'm waiting for the next " The Road Ahead" as I've been heard that, "maybe", some of the issues the playerbase is concerned will be addressed.

I would love to see a patch that, actually, fix the broken things. To be honest, I don't want to read the plans of what they intend to do in the "near future" just because I think there is no road ahead when the direction followed is to a dead end.

Edit, just to clarify the source of information:

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Hey folks,

We want you to know that we've seen all your feedback and concerns about Veteran Levels, Veteran Content, end-game character progression options, and we're in the process of planning some changes and improvements. We hope to be able to share our plans with you very soon (maybe in the next Road Ahead letter.)

I unsubbed, but I'm sticking around these forums in hopes that the game improves. Currently, it's not worth my time or my money....but that is just a matter of opinion.

Also don't discount that Summer often tends to be bad for mmo pops.

That said, people are definitely leaving. Just in the 5ish weeks I've been playing it's noticeable.

There are LOTs of fixes that need to be made. Primarily in balancing the classes and fixing NBs and Templars and getting the vet content tuned in such a way that every other fight doesn't make people want to quit. But, even tho I play one of those classes, I think the two biggest priorities they should have are these...

1) Bring weapon / stamina builds in line with magicka. And do it quickly. There are lots and lots of people who simply do not care to play casters. Even if they are casters that look and act like melees. When this game winds up in the hall of fame of games that died quickly because an epic fail launch like Vanguard, THIS is what they will talk about.

It's something that affects every single class. And it's particularly s problem because aside from some key points, the first 50 levels are too easy. Practically any build works in it assuming one can adjust for, say, healing in the solo quests. Altar + pots. Done. Then everybody gets to VR and finds that literally half or more of the possible classes/builds just don't work. Or they do, if you don't mind your life flashing in front of your eyes everytimr you have to solo a 3 pack or anypack with a healer. I like the difficulty of the VRs, but it's too abrupt s change too late in the game after being able to sail along for so long and it's compounding with the class and build imbalances so much that people are leaving.

Fix this pronto or your game is doomed. It's not like people are unable to play weird off the wall builds. They aren't able to play archetypical fantasy builds. Like Tanks. Rogues. Archers. Paladins. Clerics. Nothing fancy, the basics. And these people get to VR and are left with the option of toughing it out (make it work doing everything slower and having to work harder than casters) and hope that friends and guildies will help them in the group content since they can't get groups, re roll, or quit. Considering most just did quests till their eyes bled and have 2x that ahead of them, what are they choosing to do?

2) The game must become more group friendly. The phasing problems, the lack of options on LFG tool, etc, etc are killing what makes an mmo an mmo in this game.

Fix this or your game is doomed.

You can leave my class NBs and Templars broken. You can never add another end game dungeon or VR level or dyes or housing or the thieves guild etc etc. Or push them off for years. But if you do not fix these two things ASAP this game is dead before it ever really got started.

And that would be too bad because it has potential to be one of the greats.