For those who aren't aware of this class, the arbitrator gets a really interesting ranged weapon. Its a shotpistol (shoots pellets like a shotgun) that also has a shield. It has to be one of the most mechanically diverse ranged weapons I've seen in the game.

• Secondary Action/Aim Button - Doing this will aim the weapon, but will also put you into a blocking stance. Allowing you to block while firing
• Special - Doing the special attack allows you to bash with your shield, staggering enemies in front of you. No damage
• Special Hold - Holding the special button will allow you to do a heavy melee attack. It does damage

What's interesting is that these all trigger with the talents that reference what they do. If there's a talent based around blocking, the block will trigger off of it. If there's a talent based around staggering enemies, it will trigger off of the special. If there's a talent that requires a melee attack or a heavy attack, it will trigger off of the special hold. For example, we have a talent that says "Gain 15% damage for 5s after heavy attack". So doing the special hold will trigger this and give you that 15% damage increase.

But from what I've seen/played, there's not a lot of interactions with the special or the special hold that make it worth it. Many times because the use cases for when these would be good, its better to just swap to your melee weapon. The major thing from the above list that is utilized is just the blocking function. Especially against ranged squads or specials. Only time I've really utilized the special bash is to either buy time in a clutch situation to swap to melee or to interrupt a pox pounce. But watching people far better than me, they often just swap to melee.

I would love more interactions with the special. It feels very under utilized. I'm not saying the weapon is bad or anything. Just that the special feels like it has untapped potential.

Sample Size: 1,015

Havoc Sample Size: 408

Methodology - Over the past week I've been recording the player names, classes, and if they have a current havoc level in the Mourningstar along with the looking for group menu. Using said information to remove duplicates where able. Only players of level 30 (max) were recorded (or if they had a havoc level). So this would be a good view into the "endgame players". The Havoc sample size is taken from the original 1,1015. Not in addition. In other words, out of those 1,015 players I encountered; 408 of them had a Havoc level to display. Percentages are rounded. Server would be US-WEST. I swapped operatives to different classes (I have each one) after recording all I could, just in case my chosen class had some impact of matchmaking.

Total Results:

1. Skitarius - 23%
2. Psyker - 17%
3. Zealot - 15%
4. Veteran - 14%
5. Arbitrator - 11%
6. Ogryn - 11%
7. Hive Scum - 9%

Havoc Only Results

1. Skitarius - 23%
2. Psyker - 17%
3. Veteran - 13%
4. Zealot - 13%
5. Ogryn - 12%
6. Arbitrator - 12%
7. Hive Scum - 10%

Thoughts - Overall not surprising. Skitarius is the new one and is pretty good. So its no surprise it is taking the top spot. Psyker being 2nd is an interesting one. I think this could overall be an interesting insight into what previous class players are most interested in new classes. For example, is the theme/gameplay style of Psyker being so unique/not easily replacable in the new DLC classes one of the major reasons it has maintained its popularity? While a class like veteran had its players drawn towards the new DLC classes (especially Arbitrator and Skitarius) the reason its % of representation is down? Hive Scum being the least popular, I think, is heavily based on its class theme. That would be my first guess. If Skitarius ends up getting nerfed and when the novelty wears off, I wonder where it will end up. When the other DLC classes first came out they dominated the population too. Especially Arbitrator. So will it end up falling behind zealot or vet in a few months?

NCSOFT held their earnings call today, and here are the main takeaways:

• The Guild Wars community was at 6 million back when GW2 released, but it has grown to 30 million today.
• While GW3 was in core development last year, it entered mass production this year and is currently adding content.
• They’re planning to run alpha and beta tests next year.
• They can't state the exact release timing, but you can estimate it by looking at when the loan expires.
• GW2 is currently hitting its highest MAU and revenue in the last 3 years since GW3 was announced.
• GW2 will continue to be maintained even after GW3 releases, with the expectation that players will play both games side by side.

I've been pondering this as of late on what the next leap/standard will be for NPCs and how some of my favorite RPGs in the past have done it. And what is common these days. A lot of big games these days will typically have nameless NPCs (or geneirc names like "Bandit") that will have some kind of routine that they go through. Some games will do a mix will some named NPCs will exist alongside generic ones (like Starfield). But some games have taken it a step further and done surprisingly in depth things. Some of my favorite examples, but there are many others.

• A video on Watch Dogs: Legion's system with all the insane characteristic systems and operatives
• An explanation of STALKER's A-Life system in both 1 and 2
• Morrowind and how all the humanoid NPCs have names. Even bandits/"always-hostile" NPCs. You can use calm spells on these always hostile NPCs and get them to turn friendly in a janky way. Some of them are event skill trainers. So you would use calm on them and then they could train you in abilities. Pretty cool for a game of its age.
• Erenshor, a singleplayer simulated MMORPG
• Where Winds Meet usage of the NPC AI chat bot system with NPCs

I wonder what the next game will be that introduces some really in depth NPC system. I'm really hoping that at least either GTA6 or TES6 will do something crazy with NPCs like the games above.

I can't help but think that one day, it wouldn't surprise if me if the line between NPCs "existing" in the world will be very similar to players in how they behave.

The New Content

Recently I returned to ESO to play through the most recent content, the thieves guild story. Along with trying out the two new content types they added.

Dynamic encounters (like dynamic events in Gw2) and Favors which is a new daily system that they put into the game to encourage players towards specific content, but with significantly more variety.

Some are simple like "Here's an item, deliver it to NPCs at X location". Some of them point you towards content in the game like defeating a world boss in a zone or in a delve. Killing enemies in a zone. Even some of the dailies tell you to go complete a quest given by a certain NPC. If you already did the quest, then the daily/favor auto completes and is just an extra bundle of loot. But apparently there's some quests in the game where less than 1% of the playerbase has completed them. So this system is aimed at pointing players at these underplayed quests. The favors "come from" specific NPCs. And there's a storyline associated with doing favors for them. So you complete a favor, then get mail correspondence from the source of the favor. And there's a story that ties them all together from that specific NPC.

Overall its fun. Its a free content update, so I wont complain about free content. It also feels like with season 0 and season 1, they're kind of testing the waters. Trying to figure out what kind of content players seem to like the most. As someone who mainly plays in the open world and quests, these updates have been up my ally in terms of things I like. With the dynamic encounters, that's going to be a hard one to figure out. Because whenever you look at content like this, most people are going to compare to games like Gw2, the goat of this kind of content. And its a big hill to climb to try to compete. ESO is running into some issues where this dynamic encounter content seems like it was made for ~10-15 people at most. But since its the newest thing to do, you're having 30, 40, sometimes even 50 people show up to these things. Its a funny sight. Its also why I think they're testing the waters.

For something like this to avoid having people just flood the content, you'll want to release a ton of it at once. These encounters aren't meta events. But rather regular events you see in Gw2. There's a few stages and typically some kind of small boss encounter, but it was made for a small group. But when you only release 3 at a time, those 3 get absolutely swarmed. You'd want to release one in almost every zone so people are more spread out. For example. But I'm sure in a month or two, participation rates will go way down since it will no longer be the "shiny new toy".

The difficulty system has been a lot of fun for me. I pumped that slider up to max difficult. Its also extra difficult for me because I'm stubborn and I'm playing a "heavy attack stealth archer build". Which is a horrible build by all metrics, but I like its playstyle. I'm having to pay a lot more attention to mechanics in the open world. I've had to invest a lot into my companion to compensate. Building my companion into a tank. So I have one heal skill that I'll use to help maintain the health on my tank as they pull agro and hold agro. Then I have to manage my own. I can (and do) get one shot by certain bosses or delves. Public dungeons are borderline impossible for me to do solo (its a public dungeon, so I'm not mad at that). Things like traps/bear traps on the floor can one shot me. Its a lot of fun at how much more I have to pay attention to certain things.

I liked the new story. I'm a HUGE fan of the crime/stealing system in this game. I think its one of the coolest things I've seen a MMORPG of this type do. I know games like Mortal Online did it too. But a "themepark" MMORPG doing it is not common. So being able to steal from NPCs, do crime, do assassination missions for the dark brotherhood, etc. I liked that. And this recent thieves guild update was centered around this crime system and some lite puzzle solving. Of course you can just leery jenkins it and ignore the stealth aspects, but still cool it was there.

2026 So Far

All that being said. ESO is in a tough spot right now. Not just the layoff situation, but also they need to figure out what players care about. What keeps them playing. Not to be a typical cynic, but on steamcharts its been bleeding players since 2020. Now people say "The game is also sold off of steam on PC", and yes this is true. But I would not be surprised that steam holds a majority between the two, but also that the trends of steam can apply to the standalone launcher. That is if steam is trending downward, i would not be surprised if standalone is. Especially since ESO was only off of steam for 2% of its life. And right now we're back at "2018" levels on steam.

This doesn't mean the game is dead/dying. Between steam + standalone + console; it still has a large playerbase. And from Jan 2026 -> Now, the game has seen a slight growth rate. Which is a good sign. It could indicate this new development plan is working. And the changes they're making are retaining players for longer. And I'm sure the recent layoffs (and responding doom content creator wave) didn't help that. The game is still in the negatives compared to last year. But again, its still growing from a 2026 only perspective. Late 2026 is going to be a major indicator for the game's status.

The Threat of 2028

The biggest thing for this game will be 2028. That is going to probably be the TOUGHEST year for this game. A lot is potentially happening that year that could impact the game

• TES6 - TES6 could be releasing in 2028. Some are suggesting in 2-3 years, so 2028 falls in that realm. Once TES6 releases, a big question will be answered for ESO. Was ESO just a waiting room for TES6? A place to get more TES lore for singleplayer players while they wait? If we see a huge pop drop in ESO when TES6 releases and that drop is maintained/doesn't recover, that will answer that question as a yes.
• Guild Wars 3 - Gw3 may release in 2028. And they are not "shutting down" Gw2. This means not only is Gw2 still going to be competing in the MMORPG space, creating new content, and pulling players. But Gw3 could be a new contender in this genre. New competition that ESO is going to have to contend with.
• Classic WoW Plus - There's a good portion of hints that classic WoW may be releasing soon. If Classic WoW plus releases later this year in the Sep/Nov timeframe. That will not only introduce some major immediate competition due to the hype. But also 2028 has a high chance of being the first major content update for the game, if they follow along a similar timeline as the 2019 release.
• WoW Retail - If they continue down a similar timeilne in WoW Retail, 2028 may see another WoW expansion release.
• Plus other releases that I'm probably forgetting about.

What can ESO Do?

So 2028 is going to be a very very competitive year. The biggest thing is figuring out what can ESO offer that makes it unique. That pulls in players. Games like Gw2, they're known for their open world events/exploration and content (and all the systems in place to support that like mounts). What does ESO have? With their movement system, its going to be hard to compete in the exploration space. Open world events may be a good route to go if they can figure out a good process to manage them (player counts, retention, etc). Another route is just taking a look at the current data. What are people doing now? And for the people who are spending money on your game, what are they doing? If 80% of your revenue is coming from players who spend 80% of their time doing open world content (events, quests, wandering around/exploring, etc). How to build upon that and grow that playerbase. For example, story quests. What if you go a Gw2 route with quests? Make them repeatable. Introduce optional objectives, challenges, etc. "Do this objective without getting seen", "Complete this objective within X time", "Do this story mission on highest difficulty", etc. Or look at games like SWTOR where story is their bread and butter. How to introduce story choices that matter and story related content that people like? Make the game more alt friendly to account for this too so people can replay the quests with new choices (or roll that into the replay feature I mentioned above).

For combat, since I KNOW one of yall are going to mention it. I just don't think with this games current population that a combat rework is going to be worth the risk. I know yall want it, I get it. But this game is still pulling in probably 10k+ peak players on PC a day along with console. Combat rework may turn those players away and not attract new ones. The only thing I can suggest for the developers on this front is that they should look into reworking the effects of Oakensoul and Velothi. Oakensoul allows you to make a build without weapon swapping. While Velothi makes light attacks/weaving must less impactful, meaning you can just ignore LA weaving if you hate it. The people who would benefit most from these things are people turned off by the combat. And those players are not going to want to go buy DLC and then go through a grind to gain these items to do this. Maybe make this something you enable/disable in the settings like difficulty? Or you just run up to one of the god shrines and can enable/disable it? Let players choose how they want to play, as far as combat goes, much earlier and more accessible. And then give oakensoul and velothi new effects so that they're still mythic items that have a purpose.

Conclusion

Overall, I do like the recent updates. I enjoy the story. I like the new content and am curious on where they're going to take it. Right now the game is going through a patch of rough waters right now with the layoffs between 2025 and 2026. And they've got another storm on the horizon in 2028 potentially. But I've enjoyed playing ESO. I return 2-3 times a year to play. I like the freedom it gives you in combat and crafted builds that are a playstyle that I enjoy playing, meta or not. The first person immersion of it was always a lot of fun for me. So I'll be rooting for their success.