Vote For The Next Developer Deep Dive Topic

ZOS_Kevin

Hi All! We're planning out the next few Developer Deep Dives and we want you to choose which of the highlighted poll topics we tackle first. For those unfamiliar with the developer deep dives, it's a blog series where ESO Dev Team members discuss various elements of ESO game design in detail. Players get to learn about our development process and philosophy and our dev team gets to nerd out a bit.

For the next Developer Deep Dive, you get to vote on next blog focus out of the three topics below.

• Item Sets
• Delves and Public Dungeons
• Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

We plan on covering all three, but the results of the poll will decide which topic you get to read about first. The poll is live now, and will be available until Friday, June 28 @10am ET. If the three topics mentioned are not of interest, let us know in the thread what topics you would like to see highlighted in a future Developer Deep Dive. Thanks all and happy voting!

React

Item Sets

Out of these three topics, item sets seems like the most interesting one for us to gain some perspective on.

ESO undoubtedly has an issue with "set bloat". The model of introducing x number of new sets every patch has led to us having hundreds of sets which are considered "useless" by the vast majority.

Have the developers ever considered that instead of introducing new sets with a patch, they could instead go back and rework a certain number of old sets which are under utilized? I'm sure they've got the metrics to see how many players use specific sets, as well as the content those players typically do.

Erickson9610

Item Sets

I'd be interested to know what the relation between Item Set functionality and Skill/Ability functionality is. There are many Item Sets which function like Skills/Abilities, and vice-versa. How does the team decide which effects to make into Skills/Abilities, and which effects to make into Item Sets?

Destai

Item Sets

Of these options, item sets, I guess. How was this list decided on though?

I'd rather see a deep dive on overall performance efforts, pvp and its issues, and the combat system (class identity, hybridization, contradictory changes) in general. Performance issues and combat swings cause the most unrest in the community, so I think that should take priority over these topics.

Thinking back to the combat "deep dive" from December 2022. It wasn't well received because it didn't address any of the specific concerns following U35. It felt like a brainstorm response to a bad situation rather than an actual solution.

My point is - whatever you guys deliver as a "deep dive", should be more than just an affirmation of your design principles. When the "deep dive" label is used, there's an expectation you'll be getting into the nitty-gritty of a topic. Please review that thread, just to make sure we're all getting the most out of precious developer time. Hopefully there's been some lessons learned from that time.

Poss

Item Sets

Was hoping for a “stuck in combat” bug option but anyway I went for item sets. Would be nice to see some of the older and forgotten sets given an overhaul. Make doing the older dungeons worth it again by buffing og monster sets (anyone remember the grind for Molag Kena in the right weight and traits?? 😔)

Way too many redundant sets in the game that just aren’t worth using anymore. Throw a spanner in the meta and make Julianos great again!

TaSheen

Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

SO not interested in item sets or delves/dungeons....

adirondack

out of these selected topics, I would choose none of the above. My write-in options would be server performance or PvP population discussion.

kyle.wilson

We already have too many item sets, that most don’t see any use outside of people that don’t know better.

We need a deep dive into server performance and what’s being don’t to fix it.
We’d also like a deep dive into what ZOS plans for the future of Cyrodiil. It’s obvious none of the recent sets were play tested for large scale pvp.

Tommy_The_Gun

Item Sets

What I would really want to know is that how sometimes a lot of gear sets are on a "game breaking" level when it comes to power budget (especially PvP ones). From player perspective it often looks like developers are trying to "fix" something with just one gear set that does something unique (again, often way too strong). I would really like to know how it is seen from Devs side & what is the thought process that leads to items like this.

Examples: Dark Convergence, Plague Breaker, Sload's Semblance (og pre nerf). There are way more sets to point out here, but those are just the ones I would guess ESO community rememberers the most.

Anachronian

Item Sets

Crafted sets could use a balance pass overall, such that their overall power is tied more closely to the number of traits needed to be researched.

I'm not saying to nerf Order's Wrath, but to buff other sets to be more useful across the board, and if they cannot be buffed to at least as powerful if not more than Order's Wrath for their number of traits, then adjust the trait requirements of existing crafted sets to compensate, i.e. push Order's Wrath to more traits and others to less traits if you are not going to buff weaker sets that currently require more traits.

Jaraal

Item Sets

I'd like to see the discussion about how 600+ armor sets (and growing) is hurting performance. And why out of all that data bloat, only about 10% are actually used on a regular basis.

SeaGtGruff

Item Sets

I think item sets are the topic of greatest interest to most players, so it isn't surprising to see it receiving the most votes.

But I'm a little surprised to see that delves and public dungeons is in last place, as (for me, anyway) repeatable content takes up more playtime in a game than non-repeatable content.

Tyrobag

Item Sets

I'd love to know why, despite having set power goals, the majority of sets blatantly underperform compared to other sets that do the same thing. Just look at the tooltip difference between Pillar of Nirn and Unfathomable Darkness for example. Both pure damage sets, but the DPS on Nirn is so much higher (about 40% stronger) that you can't justify running Unfathomable despite it being an awesome looking set. I don't have any real hope this will actually be talked about, or if it is it'll just be the usual "Everything is sunshine and rainbows, players love this!" But maybe I'll be proven wrong, we can hope.

KlauthWarthog

Item Sets

This can get very entertaining for a wide variety of reasons.

Anachronian

Item Sets

TBH, a lot of sets are clearly overperforming, and I think that Zos definitely has data on which ones are doing so, but probably does not want to rock the boat too much due to fear of backlash, though it may be necessary to nerf overperforming item sets.

Another topic I'm interested in is how Battleground Solo Random Ques work, and whether or not Zos is including singles that que with those that premade groups, because there are not enough full teams to fill the games, and to feed into players desires to feel better than others?

chessalavakia_ESO

Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

I'd lean towards Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests) as I think that's the only area that really has the potential to be more interesting than disagreeable.

Personofsecrets

Delves and Public Dungeons

At some point, I would like to learn how the devs handle the games (various) RNG system(s).

Rkindaleft

Item Sets

Where is the "other" option? I'd much prefer it if you re-did your "deep dive" on combat changes and what your specific goals are for the future. Have a direct conversation with the community. The last one was basically pointless as it was just a confirmation of your design philosophies and didn't address a single concern people had with U35's balance changes which put the end game trial community on life support.

Also, the fact that PvP is not even an option is bewildering, why is that not being considered?

Destai wrote: »

My point is - whatever you guys deliver as a "deep dive", should be more than just an affirmation of your design principles. When the "deep dive" label is used, there's an expectation you'll be getting into the nitty-gritty of a topic. Please review that thread, just to make sure we're all getting the most out of precious developer time. Hopefully there's been some lessons learned from that time.

Precisely.

spartaxoxo

Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

I voted for standalone quests because those are always fun. But, on deeper consideration, I think item sets would be best. There's a lot I don't quite get about why and how developers make so many sets, and why so many sets are so clearly inferior.

Telos_Tim

Item Sets

I would love to know why a set you get from an arena is flat out weaker than a set you get from a dungeon on the build it’s designed for, like Hunt Leader on a pet build compared to Essence Thief.




Or why sets that buff are always stronger than sets that debuff, as seen by Daedric Trickery and Kynmarcher’s Cruelty.




And also why sets designed to counter other ones are always weaker than the set they are supposed to be an answer to, like Nocturnal’s Ploy and the earlier shown Daedric Trickery.



Another example would be the comparison between Wretched Vitality and Langour of Peryite.

Qagh

More for PvP (Cyrodiil)

We have enough sets, dungeons and quests.

UntilValhalla13

Item Sets

Maybe rework utter trash sets like spelunker and the like, instead of adding new ones for a change. Or just remove then from the game because of how laughably useless they are. They literally have no purpose.

Cersenin

Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

[*] Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

Make the quests more challenging; as for difficulty, they can be finished brainless. I don't want to hear just the story; I want to fight to finish the quest. In the current state of the game, I am just hearing the story and not engaging. If all the future chapters will be like they are now, please release a book with them. I'd rather read them than run like a fool on the map just to finish the chapter quests.

Ilumia

None of the three options even crack my top ten of dev-deep-dive topics.
There are so many more mechanics, systems and business/dev decisions I have questions about. Though a lot of them might be considered too critical and will never be addressed except maybe with luck, sarcastically in april fools patch notes

Orbital78

Item Sets

I'd like to hear about plans to make more sets relevant.

Bo0137

Item Sets

Writing to inform I really appreciate silly, not-meta, yet roleplay-friendly items! Such as: The Shadow Queen's Cowl or Barhara's Curse 4 piece bonus (Reduces your damage taken from environmental traps by 40%).

Please talk about roleplay-friendly, not-meta item sets!

Erickson9610

Item Sets

Bo0137 wrote: »

Writing to inform I really appreciate silly, not-meta, yet roleplay-friendly items! Such as: The Shadow Queen's Cowl or Barhara's Curse 4 piece bonus (Reduces your damage taken from environmental traps by 40%).

Please talk about roleplay-friendly, not-meta item sets!

I agree. I don't see an issue with there being a diverse selection of item sets of varying power levels — we don't need to remove, reduce, or standardize every set in the game to be generic and boring. I appreciate the roleplay and/or function of certain sets, and I'd hate to see fewer sets be added in the future.

That is, please keep adding Item Sets at the current rate. We don't need every Item Set to be as good as the popular ones.

Drammanoth

Item Sets

Sets bloat - so many of them, yet with every new content it is "this set is the best now" - how about sets that were added in the earlier content...

Either way and my comment aside, @ZOS_Kevin this poll is a great way to show ZOS' willingness to communicate with us. This, THIS is the way to go.

GO ZOS!

ProudMary

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! We're planning out the next few Developer Deep Dives and we want you to choose which of the highlighted poll topics we tackle first. For those unfamiliar with the developer deep dives, it's a blog series where ESO Dev Team members discuss various elements of ESO game design in detail. Players get to learn about our development process and philosophy and our dev team gets to nerd out a bit.

For the next Developer Deep Dive, you get to vote on next blog focus out of the three topics below.

• Item Sets
• Delves and Public Dungeons
• Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

We plan on covering all three, but the results of the poll will decide which topic you get to read about first. The poll is live now, and will be available until Friday, June 28 @10am ET. If the three topics mentioned are not of interest, let us know in the thread what topics you would like to see highlighted in a future Developer Deep Dive. Thanks all and happy voting!

Where is the PvP option?

Why isn't there a PvP option?

Is ZOS ever going to invest in PvP in the future?

Why has PvP been, as far as we can tell, not seen any priority what so ever in the last 5 years except to determine how low ZOS can get away with lowering population caps?

Does ZOS realize that Cyrodiil still exists and that many of it's customers log in primarily to PvP?

PvP is the true test of skill in ESO. Ignoring it won't make the issues magically go away.

Necrotech_Master

Item Sets

like others said im interested in their thoughts on item sets

i like playing with off meta sets, but theres a lot of them that have extremely underwhelming effects and or extremely specific proc conditions as to make them unusable except in very specific circumstances

React

Item Sets

Despite having voted for item sets, I just wanted to echo the sentiment that many other commenter's have shared, in that PVP & Server performance are the two things I'd like to hear the developers talk about most.

I can't remember the last time there was an open dialogue with the developers regarding PVP.