Desiato wrote: »

I might find this event interesting if I wasn't already completely sick of ZOS constantly trying to engineer how people play via promotions.

I don't care about a single reward I've received from golden pursuits. I only resent that it is an annoyance I can't turn off. Yet I hate the constant reminder that TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!!!! Even though I don't care, it's still stressful. Why can't I opt out?

I miss how I played ESO in 2015. I would log in and ask myself "what do I feel like doing today?" Or maybe I didn't log in at all because I didn't feel like it and there was absolutely nothing to lose by doing so.

I completely agree. And this isn't unique to ESO. I've noticed more and more and more games are adding tasks and limited events and passes and 500 other things that try to lock you into that game being your primary game. Hell, even Sims has added stuff like this to the current title and it's 100% a single player game. But the companies can't sell things if you're not playing so better lock the playerbase in and keep them there are long as possible.

I, too, miss gaming from a decade ago where fun was allowed and my presence as a metric was a little more subtle.

DreamyLu wrote: »

You mean so many? Not everybody is interested.. I'm glad they're giving it a break and hope it will last for another while.

reazea wrote: »

Too few? There are already 8 too many.

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I'd say why do we need so many?

Same reason why we have so many group dungeons?
Some people like 'em.

ImmortalCX, I hold a PhD from Stanford in drama and teach dramatic theory to actors in training at a London drama school. So, thanks, but your assumptions quite literally couldn't be more wrong.

I can only assume that you didn't read the original post.

For those of you complaining about having even mentioned LGBTQ+-friendly, I ask you this (not for the first time):

Are you in all seriousness suggesting that a player saw our guild's name and concluded that, since it uses "Pacrooti", it ought to be reported?


Twice?

In the space of one week, having existed on both PC servers for a DECADE without any problems?

This is the problem with the "just the facts, ma'am" attitude of some posters here (let alone the trope of "I'm gay but...", which is structurally equivalent to the "some of my best friends are [insert whichever identity category you're currently piling onto]"). I laid out in some detail (and yes, sometimes it requires detail -- not all problems are simple or offer simplistic solutions) what the facts were and my logical reasoning process based on those facts.

Another feature of dramatic analysis, ImmortalCX, is the ability to follow a narrative. ZoS have not said that the response to the first report (if indeed there was actually a report) was a hack nor have they said that it was an error. They said that the support ticket's mentioning of "Catzputin" was the error.

I've also argued that the misuse of the reporting procedures are part of a broader problem. That in no way means that we should dismiss the possibility that in this case (as in the case of the other LGBTQ+-friendly guild that was subjected to a forced name-change), it is the result of bad actors in the game motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ sentiments.

As to the stunningly patronising attitude and "advice" of Syldras: I would say, words fail me, but — they don't. This back-of-a-cornflake-box psycho-babble may pass for insight where you are, but from where I'm standing I am most struck by your failure to do what every psychological approach insists upon as a foundation: to consider and integrate into the analysis your own position and motivations -- your apparent desire to "rescue" those poor deluded *** from their self-created phantoms of persecution. When I receive zone-chat messages saying AND I QUOTE "We need an lgbtq+ holocaust" and your response is to tell us to stop imagining things, be more resilient, and think about how it looks to uninvolved others to speak about homophobia and transphobia in public, I can only respond by telling you to take your vacuous positive thinking *** and your boy-who-cried-wolf narrative and shut the *** up. Yes, an emotional response. Deservedly so.

Since my original posting has prompted discussion on related topics, I would also like to share an observation. I've sent time
this year rebuilding the guild(s) on both the EU and NA PC servers. When I've spoken of "cooldowns", I'm talking about a setting within the recruitment add-on that limits how frequently in the same zone an ad can be placed. This is far, far higher than the ingame cooldowns limiting chat spamming. You can post the same message in the same zone fairly frequently and not hit the ingame cooldown. Our recruitment and my observations about how I've gone about it come NOWHERE near that limit. The add on limits one message per zone every TEN MINUTES.

Why is this relevant? Because the attitude of some posters appears to be a form of "you brought this on yourself". We didn't. The guild has recruited in just the same way most other guilds recruit. We haven't been notified by ZoS ONCE -- NOT ONCE -- warning us about spamming. It just hasn't happened. So this idea that we've incurred "mass reportings" is a fantasy. On NA, prior to the launch of Solstice, the guild hadn't advertised quite literally in years.

What I want to share is something that I discovered from rebuilding the guild first on EU (which has experienced no forced name change, suggesting it isn't an AI reporting thing) then on NA.

Advertising garnered phobic zone-chat messages, whispers, and applications to join the guild on both servers. I've shared one such response, but there were many, many more.

One thing that was unique to NA, however, and that I found personally really shocking. I was whispered by gay men who wanted to attack me for advertising a guild as "LGBTQ+-friendly" at all. 'I ought to be ashamed', because such things 'have no place in gaming'. They were keen to tell me how very "proud" they were and that they were married. They seemed to assume that I was young and that they were speaking from a position of greater age and experience. Now, I am a veteran of the LGBTQ+-rights movement in the UK and engaged in direct political action that, in my country at least, helped to win those rights to marry. Sure, I understand that the UK, and Europe more broadly, is a far less phobic cultural environment than the USA is right now. Nevertheless, if you think that LGBTQ+ visibility in this game is harmful to the community, or that we ought to avoid raising concerns when we encounter phobic behaviour in-game, then I can tell you, from my knowledge and experience -- not least reading literally hundreds of applications from players who express their joy and relief at having a guild like ours to play within and countless messages and discussions between guild-members -- you are completely wrong, regardless of your own particular identity. If you disagree, I trust that you will, at your earliest convenience, take yourself along to your local gay soccer club and tell them to disband immediately because sexuality has no place in sport; then, off to your local lesbian reading group to inform them that it has no place in literature; be sure to contact film directors and production companies and tell them to quit what they're doing because it has no place in cinema. Finally, pop into your local LGBTQ+ youth group, escort them out of the building and down to the local branch of whichever far-right extremist organisation is closest, so they can stop being such cry-babies, grow up, face the harsh realities of life and become appropriately resilient.

Fortunately, I have never seen ZoS display such infantile attitudes. On the contrary, ZoS deserves high praise for its commitment to diversity within the game world, its characters and storylines, and its support of LGBTQ+-friendly guilds. Long may it continue.

wow, how has this thread not been shut down yet? When threads discussing actual gameplay/balance go off rails they're closed faster than I can neck a beer, yet here it's just pages and pages of politics and mud slinging....

Current pvp builds are limited by major resolve choice - the best source is from class skills which means you will always have to pick a class skill line that contains major resolve. And because restoring light and storm calling are so good you see everyone using them.

If you don't choose a class skill line with major resolve you need to use mighty chudan as there are no better alternatives but have the opportunity cost of losing better monster sets such as bloodspawn or balorgh.

Existing sources of Major resolve outside of class skill lines other than chudan

• Heavy Armor skill is used by block tank builds in pvp to be as tanky as possible by sacrificing all damage, movement etc. The snare is not worth it on other builds.
• Mages guild balance is not worth using in pvp due to huge nerf to healing done and shield strength which can stack with other similar effects like jeralls, major and minor defile.
• Psijic order mending spirit major resolve at 5 secs is too short for pvp and the caster doesn't get resolve - the ally does. Also, replaces light attack damage with a heal instead, so it's not worth it on pvp damage builds.
• Scribing has no good source of major resolve for pvp because the highest duration is 10 secs which is too short on such an important buff and the skills that can have major resolve are better off with other buffs such as major vitality on healing soul. Some scribe skills can't have major resolve but do have minor resolve such as ulfsiid's contingency.

Suggestions
Add major resolve to:

• Annulment and it's morphs at 20 secs
• Evasion and it's morphs at 20 secs
• Fighter's guild ring of preservation at 20 secs
• Scribe skills that don't currently have major resolve such as contingency, increase duration of major resolve in Scribe skills to 20 secs up from 10 secs

I have to say this is very funny, for months, may be over a year? A lot of us have been begging for the red glow to go away. They fixed that in a way that at least made it better than before, and I was so happy. And then, they go and change the skill itself and take away its best feature. That feature make it overpowered? Probably, a lot seem to think so. But if I had known that was coming, I would not have worried about the red glow so much! 😂