valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Hey Kevin, I do appreciate you answering here. I don't mean to be overly negative and I know you guys can't do everything all at once, as quickly as some of us want. I do hope I'm back here in a few months saying "Wow!" I know there have been a lot of changes and some difficulties this year and I'm very willing to give the new leadership a chance to make us sit up and take notice. My point is just that you guys really *are* gonna have to come through on the "bigger things are coming" part eventually.

And I guess my feedback to take back to the powers that be is just that this tail end of the year has felt pretty flat for the last couple years now. Other than the wall event, which does sound like it could be interesting, I once again find myself being pretty unexcited going into the holiday season and early winter. I think another part of that in addition to the end of the year update feeling a bit light once again, imo, is that events like witches and particularly new life are excruciatingly repetitive for those of us who have been around for a while.

And on the one hand I get it, but on the other hand, the whole "we can't really talk about next year yet" doesn't generate any excitement either.

Imo, it might be beneficial for the team to look at ways to spice up the end of the year and the gap between the end of one year's content and the unknown next year, so that players don't drift away.

No worries, not negative at all. In fact, I want to highlight your response as a great way to highlight frustration, that we're sure others share, while giving constructive feedback. It helpful to get feedback like this because it is something actionable we can take back to the team and leadership.

We want to acknowledge that we understand the frustration here. We tried to be clear about that earlier this year when noting that this year was one of transition. It's setting things up so we can come through on the "bigger things are coming" part. Development and changing things up takes time to set up. But we are getting close to the point of sharing everything we have been working on. So we appreciate everyone's feedback and passion around this. Leadership really wants the team to take our time on this to make sure we are hitting your expectations and addressing your feedback.

Hi all! Just wanted to follow up here. There will be a base game update for U48. It will be focused on bug fixes and minor adjustments, rather than bigger QoL features this patch. The team has added quite a bit of QoL features over the last several patches and working on some good ones that you will see roll out next year, including some from the top pain points list many of you contributed to earlier this year. So this quarter will be lighter in that area.

The focus for this patch will be rolling out The Writhing Wall Event, the Eastern Solstice zone and Vengeance tests as those are both pretty sizable tasks for the team.

Naftal wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

shadoza wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

New Answer from the Reddit AMA

ZOS_Finn on Reddit wrote:

Short answer is: Yes, we are working on it.

Longer answer: We have scoping and are aligning resources for this initiative and will share more when we have better timelines.

For the time being, I can say that the some core values for this are...

\- This is optional and no one will be forced into it
\- There will be varied levels of difficulty players can opt into
\- We will NOT be separating players

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/8dqcougkjN

ZOS_GinaBruno on Reddit wrote:

Yes, it would include older content.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/4BKTqd1Hai

These responses personally make me feel like the timeline has been pushed back but I'm not sure.

@ZOS_Kevin

Is this still slated for the current content pass?

Was it ever slated for the current content pass? I do not remember seeing/hearing any mention of it. Would be great to see a quote if it exists.

Yes. I asked about it coming out this year, 2025, after the April livestream. My question was referencing a statement made at the end of 2024 that we'd know more in 2025. And I was reassured that the current plan was still that it would come out this content pass.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Thank you for the response. I guess my follow up question is if this is something still so early into prototyping, is this is something still planned to drop this year? I know last year, it was stated that it would be coming this year which lead to many of expecting news during the live. The new content cadence was stated to help with speed of releases so I wonder if this is still possibly coming this year?

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As of right now, the goal is to still have this out during the content pass timeline. But if that changes, we will update once we have a clear picture if anything changes.

However, between the statements made in the AMA and the layoffs, I am not convinced that this is still the case. A lot has changed at ZOS and those statements make it sound like it's not that far in development.

@spartaxoxo Thanks a lot. I would be very surprised if we get this this year.

You're welcome. I'd be surprised too but I'd still like confirmation since we were told we'd be updated if things changed. Seems easy enough since the Livestream is this Thursday.

Just to level set, while overland difficulty is in active development, it's not something that will be ready to be released before the end of the year. We're definitely excited to share more information on it as development progresses, though!

So sad to hear exclusion is coming. Keep expanding difficulty levels and handing out higher rewards and you are perpetuated the problem.

We don't want to exclude anyone with this feature, and I'd like to reiterate the core values that Finn mentioned during the AMA:

• This will be optional and no one will be forced into it
• There will be varied levels of difficulty players can opt into
• We will NOT be separating players

If people on different difficulties are in the same instances, why even add this feature?

You can already remove your gear and/or skills to increase difficulty.

Fair question. Caveat of "this is still in development" but part of this feature will include proper incentives to opting into more difficult content, without making it feel like you are being punished for not doing it.

shadoza wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ESO_player123 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

New Answer from the Reddit AMA

ZOS_Finn on Reddit wrote:

Short answer is: Yes, we are working on it.

Longer answer: We have scoping and are aligning resources for this initiative and will share more when we have better timelines.

For the time being, I can say that the some core values for this are...

\- This is optional and no one will be forced into it
\- There will be varied levels of difficulty players can opt into
\- We will NOT be separating players

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/8dqcougkjN

ZOS_GinaBruno on Reddit wrote:

Yes, it would include older content.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/s/4BKTqd1Hai

These responses personally make me feel like the timeline has been pushed back but I'm not sure.

@ZOS_Kevin

Is this still slated for the current content pass?

Was it ever slated for the current content pass? I do not remember seeing/hearing any mention of it. Would be great to see a quote if it exists.

Yes. I asked about it coming out this year, 2025, after the April livestream. My question was referencing a statement made at the end of 2024 that we'd know more in 2025. And I was reassured that the current plan was still that it would come out this content pass.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Thank you for the response. I guess my follow up question is if this is something still so early into prototyping, is this is something still planned to drop this year? I know last year, it was stated that it would be coming this year which lead to many of expecting news during the live. The new content cadence was stated to help with speed of releases so I wonder if this is still possibly coming this year?

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As of right now, the goal is to still have this out during the content pass timeline. But if that changes, we will update once we have a clear picture if anything changes.

However, between the statements made in the AMA and the layoffs, I am not convinced that this is still the case. A lot has changed at ZOS and those statements make it sound like it's not that far in development.

@spartaxoxo Thanks a lot. I would be very surprised if we get this this year.

You're welcome. I'd be surprised too but I'd still like confirmation since we were told we'd be updated if things changed. Seems easy enough since the Livestream is this Thursday.

Just to level set, while overland difficulty is in active development, it's not something that will be ready to be released before the end of the year. We're definitely excited to share more information on it as development progresses, though!

So sad to hear exclusion is coming. Keep expanding difficulty levels and handing out higher rewards and you are perpetuated the problem.

We don't want to exclude anyone with this feature, and I'd like to reiterate the core values that Finn mentioned during the AMA:

• This will be optional and no one will be forced into it
• There will be varied levels of difficulty players can opt into
• We will NOT be separating players

Destai wrote: »

Thanks for the reply Kevin. I can appreciate where you're coming from; managing community sentiment is challenging at best. So I completely understand that you don't want to say you're baking a cake if you're just going to the store to get flour.

Things like crossplay and overland difficulty - I get it, those are a way off. One of the areas that could use more details is the overall direction of combat. Like what changes are slotted to be made, what pieces want to be fixed. We've talked a few times about roadmaps - that's a big area where having one would be great.

Credit where it's due though - this year's had much better communication and it's noticed and appreciated. It seems like the new leadership is eager to continue that growth.

The leadership team is eager to get more communication going. They also know we need to get a few more things locked in so that the conversation is more meaningful. But this was to help answer what we can now. And reinforce that they want to have a communicative relationship with you, the players.

As others have noted, they are tired of giving feedback and want to see action. Leadership is there too. They want to show you everything we have been working on, but want to make sure that information is solid and not changing drastically. We don't want to mislead anyone or have anyone feel that way.

Just touching on the combat bit. There is a roadmap currently in the works so that we can give everyone the attention it deserves when talking about future changes and general philosophy going forward. It isn't ready quite yet, but it should outline the overall plan to address several core combat initiatives to create a better play experience. We've had smaller adjustments already happen this year, like the heavy attack animation work or the dodge roll work in our last update. But we have more to share. However, that is for Wheeler and his team to share once that roadmap is finished and approved. Again, one of those things that we are getting all of our ducks in a row first.

This year has been one of transition as we noted in the end of year letter last year, so a lot of these things you won't see in game until next year. But between now and early next year, we are trying to share as much as we can with things we know are concrete. You should hear a bit more at the livestream on Thursday. And we plan to have a few more streams this year with more opportunities to chat about other items we are working on.