Vote For The Next Developer Deep Dive Topic

Telos_Tim · June 25

Item Sets

Wouldn’t be surprised if they went deeper into PvP discussions leading up to Q4 seeing how that is the focus of that update.

That being said, I’m hopeful that Q3 brings some improvements to the three poll choices listed.

ZOS_Kevin · June 25

ProudMary wrote: »

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.

These are the three options we currently have on the list. As noted before, if these three topics do not interest you, please offer suggestions for other Dev Deep Dives we can tackle later in the year.

As for PvP, we noted in January that we will have a PvP update in Q4 of this year. We still have Q3 content to get through before we start talking about Q4. So that will be later in the year.

ZOS_Kevin · June 25

Telos_Tim wrote: »

Wouldn’t be surprised if they went deeper into PvP discussions leading up to Q4 seeing how that is the focus of that update.

That being said, I’m hopeful that Q3 brings some improvements to the three poll choices listed.

Just for clarity, the three topics are more general topics to talk about, rather than being connected to U43. You'll get more info on U43 in a few weeks!

And we'll pass on the PvP Deep Dive note for later in the year. It's surely on someone's list, but will make sure that we also make note of it.

caserdar · June 25

Item Sets

It seems like the topic will be item sets so in that regard i would like to also hear about the sets of no proc ruleset campaign, why are they chosen and what are the future thoughts about the set list. I would also like to suggest changing the concept whole together because the current form is massively unpopular and i think that is because you need to create and store sets that you otherwise would not need in other areas of the game which pushes especially the newer players away from the campaign, which if you think about it no cp campaign should be pulling in. What i want to suggest is disabling all set bonuses together and creating items similar to torc of the last ayleid king for for bunch of focuses like a crit damage one or one for healers with healing done bonuses and make these items available in vendor so it is very easy to get in the action right off the bat. I would love to hear about teams thoughts on this and availability of the idea developing wise.

Destai · June 25

Item Sets

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

ProudMary wrote: »

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.

These are the three options we currently have on the list. As noted before, if these three topics do not interest you, please offer suggestions for other Dev Deep Dives we can tackle later in the year.

As for PvP, we noted in January that we will have a PvP update in Q4 of this year. We still have Q3 content to get through before we start talking about Q4. So that will be later in the year.

Kevin, there's more to PVP than whatever the Q4 update contains. People want to talk about the history and current state of PVP with developers.

React · June 25

Item Sets

caserdar wrote: »

It seems like the topic will be item sets so in that regard i would like to also hear about the sets of no proc ruleset campaign, why are they chosen and what are the future thoughts about the set list. I would also like to suggest changing the concept whole together because the current form is massively unpopular and i think that is because you need to create and store sets that you otherwise would not need in other areas of the game which pushes especially the newer players away from the campaign, which if you think about it no cp campaign should be pulling in. What i want to suggest is disabling all set bonuses together and creating items similar to torc of the last ayleid king for for bunch of focuses like a crit damage one or one for healers with healing done bonuses and make these items available in vendor so it is very easy to get in the action right off the bat. I would love to hear about teams thoughts on this and availability of the idea developing wise.

This is a great point, and I hope the team reads this comment and gives us their thoughts on it.

kyle.wilson · June 25

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

ProudMary wrote: »

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.

These are the three options we currently have on the list. As noted before, if these three topics do not interest you, please offer suggestions for other Dev Deep Dives we can tackle later in the year.

As for PvP, we noted in January that we will have a PvP update in Q4 of this year. We still have Q3 content to get through before we start talking about Q4. So that will be later in the year.

It would be nice if a major part of the game got more than 20 minutes of consideration a year. I'll have been stuck in combat longer than the devs will discuss pvp on that day.
Unless you are planning on something completely unexpected, another battleground map isn't going to interest me.

ZOS_Kevin · June 25

Destai wrote: »

Kevin, there's more to PVP than whatever the Q4 update contains. People want to talk about the history and current state of PVP with developers.

I understand that. The comment I responded too was asking about PvP updates. So it was a reminder of that. If they point was they would like the next deep dive to be PvP, then point taken. Which was also address in another answer provided to another player. Was just trying to address the specific question at hand about PvP updates.

ZOS_Kevin · June 25

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Unless you are planning on something completely unexpected, another battleground map isn't going to interest me.

As noted before, we'll have more info to share later in the year. We need to get past Q3 first. We'll let our Q4 content speak for itself and take feedback accordingly.

kyle.wilson · June 25

From the Q4 2023 PVP server test

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_BrianWheeler
Hi Guys,

Can we expect any feedback on this prior to the Christmas break or should we look out for something early next year / after the Global Reveal Show?

Thanks

We should have an update next week.

Did the update get buried somewhere on the forum? Or, was it never put out?

ZOS_Kevin · June 25

kyle.wilson wrote: »

Did the update get buried somewhere on the forum? Or, was it never put out?

The follow up to that was a few comments down on the page. Linked here. But that was also related to the stress test run at the end of Q4 2023. Not part of the announcement of PvP content coming in Q4 2024.

But like we said earlier to address the original comment, we will have news on our PvP update later in the year and we look forward to your feedback regarding that. Not trying to derail the core purpose of this thread, which is the Dev Deep Dive series.

alpha_synuclein · June 26

Item Sets

I would like to read about the reasoning behind creating so huge set bloath. And maybe some ideas to address it in the future.

Hybridization gives lot's of options here, leaving many sets very similar statwise (like those with max stat + three lines of crit), that are redundant and might as well be merged.

And a random idea: signifficantly reduce the amount of new sets that are introduced, but allow us to reconstruct in choosen weight.

VixxVexx · June 26

Item Sets

Can we leave specific questions about one of the three topics in here or should we wait until the (clear) winner is decided?
Is there even a Q&A format or will it just be a dev discussion?

So many sets can become relevant by simply tweaking one of the following: uptime, downtime, cooldown, radius, range, damage type, tooltip, scaling, etc.

Imagine 20 more sets become relevant and suddenly old content becomes attractive again.

ZOS_Kevin · June 26

VixxVexx wrote: »

Can we leave specific questions about one of the three topics in here or should we wait until the (clear) winner is decided?
Is there even a Q&A format or will it just be a dev discussion?

Dev Deep Dives are formatted as a discussion. You can see an example of one here.

However, feel free to leave a question and our interviewer may ask the devs. Not making any promises as I personally don't conduct the interview. So depending on the conversation, not sure how things will pan out. Be we will certainly share the questions with the powers that be.

Muizer · June 26

Item Sets

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

Same. I voted on this on the assumption that this concerns the considerations that go into set stats and 5 (or 2 for monster sets) bonuses. I'm not interested specifically in specific sets, where their names come from or what they look like.

I suppose one specific question I've been having lately is whether there's some principle that sets should be specifically relevant to the content they are sourced from. E.g. there are many sets that seem useful in dungeons that can only be sourced from trials. Why is that?

Cooperharley · June 26

Item Sets

Hi Kevin! Thanks for the heads up!

I voted for item sets because, frankly, and not to be rude, but for a developer "deep dive," I think most people aren't going to be interested in more discussions about inspiration for personification of a new daedric prince, why they chose to make the bosses of Silorn (a public dungeon in West Weald) what they are, or little things about side quests. We've had countless articles and discussions about these already and I think it's time we dive into the meat of this game and what keeps people logging in every single day.

There are so many more significantly important (subjective) topics to discuss in a "deep dive" discussion and usually what these will turn into is more "patting ourselves on the back" sorta questions and answers. What I, and many other veteran players would like to see, is a variety of tougher questions being answered:

- Pertaining specifically to item sets - why are we continuing to follow the same, age-old formula of adding X number of item sets to the game when they're very underwhelming and just further add to the item set bloat? A VAST, vast majority of sets in this game are just simply not used and I think many would agree that older, less-utilized sets - like the new class sets y'all added with IA and seemingly forgot (?) about - are not being updated, re-invigorated, or strengthened. I don't think we need to continually add sets that don't change gameplay, add anything new, or give us really any power increases. Let's change it up!

- I think a big thing that needs to be discussed is "vision" for combat changes. The problem that I often see with our quarterly updates is that the combat team, who we have VERY little-to-no communication with has a vision per se for a change (see update 35 or grave lord's sacrifice for example). While they may see it as an improvement, I think it's clear for both examples mentioned that they were met with a resoundingly negative response. Why are we not hearing from the combat team or getting communication until the PTS is dropping for a new update where we can no longer make any "real" changes? All we can do in a PTS cycle is get values tweaked at best where this problem can be mediated by open communication well ahead of that point. Going along with this point, I think discussing any combat changes to be featured in Update 43 NOW would greatly benefit both the players AND the combat team/developers. I understand that Update 43 & 44 will have livestreams tied to them directly, but at this point it's very close to the update and we don't generally see the real changes that we'll experiment with during the PTS cycle.

- I'm going to throw a point in here about PvP. I myself am largely a PvE main. But, after seeing what recently happened with the New World Xbox Games Showcase and that situation, I felt this needs to be mentioned. PvP players have been waiting an extremely long time for an update of substance that is not just simply balance changes, set additions, etc. REAL content - arenas, changes to BGs, dueling tournaments, an actual reward structure, etc. I think discussing early with PvP players what y'all would LIKE to do and seeing their response early on will help greatly rather than a simple "trust us," which has been done virtually for the past 7-8 years.

- Finally, discussing optimization and server performance updates is really needed. We don't need to talk about delves - I'm sorry. We need to talk about real things in the game and many of us would like to understand on a deeper level about what's going on, what's being done, and what will be done in the future.

Thanks so much for the poll and communication! It's greatly appreciated

Destai · June 26

Item Sets

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

Kevin, there's more to PVP than whatever the Q4 update contains. People want to talk about the history and current state of PVP with developers.

I understand that. The comment I responded to was asking about PvP updates. So it was a reminder of that. If the point was they would like the next deep dive to be PvP, then point taken. Which was also address in another answer provided to another player. Was just trying to address the specific question at hand about PvP updates.

OK, then can you please also explain why it wasn't included initially. That's the core issue here. For many, things like PVP and performance are the big issues. So there's an expectation that it should be a big issue for ZOS too, and you'd want to "get it out of the way" discussion wise. It doesn't seem like that's the case, at least from a communications perspective. Other topics have been prioritized for quite a while, so I believe that's why people keep bringing this up across multiple mediums.

Anyways, I hope Q4 has some cool features and fixes the issues. Hopefully there's a good PVP deep dive (on existing issues) soon, I think that's a good first step. Thanks for coming here and dealing with these convos, it means a lot.

Erickson9610 · June 26

Item Sets

I'm sure the Q4 PvP update is genuinely the answer to people's complaints about the lack of PvP updates — we already know it's a new feature unrelated to Cyrodiil. That sounds like brand new PvP content to me. But we just need to get past Q3 before ZOS is allowed to speak more about it, so just give them time.

It's disingenuous to say that ZOS doesn't care about the performance issues or PvP. There have been multiple examples this year where they've worked on fixing those issues. We got PvP QoL earlier this year with stackable siege and repair kits, and ZOS has been navigating the performance issues that have popped up recently.

So, just let ZOS get past Q3, and I'm sure they'll be extremely eager to discuss PvP and what Q4 does to show how much they value their PvP community.

That aside, I think the poll is skewed in favor of discussing Item Sets first, because it was asked on the forums. Judging by the poll and the responses in this thread, more people are interested in the combat aspect of Item Sets, rather than the roleplaying factor or the design philosophy. I would assume the demographic of players who actively use the forums are more widely concerned with the balance decisions, moreso than the casual player would be.

From my perspective, there's a reason there are so many Item Sets — diversity in builds (if you're not chasing the meta), stickerbook collection, and vertical progression of Item Sets (you may go from Overland/Crafted sets up to Dungeon/PvP sets and then up to Trial/Monster/Arena sets, for instance). Yes, some older sets are forgotten, but having some sets purposely weaker than other sets not only encourages players to eventually upgrade, but also allows players to run both the weaker and the stronger version of some set, if they wanted to stack similar effects.

I believe ZOS is more interested in talking about the conceptual design of Item Sets, rather than discussing the PvE/PvP combat balance of the game via the deck building aspect of the game with Item Sets. Such as, why did they design Macabre Vintage the way they did thematically and what inspired them to give it that function? I'd like to know what inspires ZOS to make certain effects into Item Sets, and other effects into Skills/Abilities — for instance, Ulfsild's Contingency could've very well been implemented as an Item Set, whereas Pillar of Nirn could've easily been implemented as an Ability.

LunaFlora · June 27

Delves and Public Dungeons

voted for Delves & Public Dungeons.
i would really love to know how the developers designed Leftwheal and Silorn specifically!

i love that Leftwheal seems to be merged with Fargrave/Mirrormoor.

and Silorn has so many new Ayleid assets! i hope some of them become furnishings.
i saw dressers, seats (one of them looked to have leather), urns, tables, counters (i think?). and the trap with fire, lightning, and frost is cool too.
the Aetherial shard thing was beautiful too.

Kallykat · June 27

Stand-alone quests (non-zone story quests)

I will most likely read the deep dive no matter what just out of curiosity. That said, I really couldn't give two hoots about item sets. The only time they get my attention is when they have a unique effect like summoning a temporary minion. If this is just going to be a nitty gritty discussion of mechanics, I will be bored out of my mind. I hope there is at least some part of it touching on the larger vision, the connection to story and theme, the artwork, etc.

colossalvoids · June 27

Item Sets

Lets hope for an actual deep dive talking issues and solutions, and not just a marketing piece praising/explaining something about it.

Orbital78 · June 27

Item Sets

Some sets seem decent but the conditions are too strict for them to be very useful, at least in PVE. I wanted to use this set, but it just isn't useful with strict conditions. If it worked similar to Spell Power Cure to apply Blood Hungry via overhealing it could be much more effective and useful.

Erickson9610 · June 27

Item Sets

One question I've had regarding certain Item Sets is: Why do so many werewolf-themed sets generate Ultimate, reduce the cost of the Werewolf Transformation Ultimate, or consume Ultimate in some way, when Werewolf itself cannot utilize Ultimate at all while transformed?

Sets like Salvation and Shapeshifter's Chain, which reduce the cost of Werewolf Transformation, are fine because they give you some other bonus while you are transformed, but what about the others? Werewolf Hide generates Ultimate, Kraglen's Howl generates Ultimate, and Balorgh consumes Ultimate, but none of those sets are useful while in Werewolf form. The only werewolf-themed sets which aren't related to Ultimate at all are Savage Werewolf, Blood Moon, and Vykosa.

Also somewhat related, the drink item Pack Leader's Bone Broth reduces the cost of Werewolf Transformation, like Salvation or Shapeshifter's Chain, except it does nothing for Werewolves who are already transformed.

StihlReign · June 27

Item Sets

We should probably lower our expectations significantly. A review of recent deep dives reveal an explanation of the process is the primary focus and that's about it.

Deeper discussions are held on the forums and in comment sections elsewhere, by players. It is extremely rare to have a concern answered in this format.

When player concerns are addressed it is most often limited, and usually tied to a game-breaking bug occurring in real time on the server or, PTS.

Read (or re-read) them for yourself and see if you come to a different conclusion.

ESO DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE—DESIGNING TAMRIEL’S BOSSES, PART 1
DEVELOPMENT
03/23/2022

ESO DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE—COMBAT CORE VALUES
DEVELOPMENT
12/20/2022

ESO DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE–GIVING TAMRIEL’S CHARACTERS THEIR VOICE
DEVELOPMENT
05/18/2023

Destai · June 27

Item Sets

StihlReign wrote: »

We should probably lower our expectations significantly. A review of recent deep dives reveal an explanation of the process is the primary focus and that's about it.

Right, but I think that's the problem with "deep dive" being the label for these articles. The common interpretation is they'll be getting into the nitty gritty of an issue, not just an overview of a process. So, it's on them to better manage those expectations. Kevin did provide a link, so I think they're making an effort to do so.

I think it'd be helpful to understand the "why" of the deep dive series, and what kind of topics are in scope. Providing a link is one thing, but I think that a little more information would help.

StihlReign wrote: »

Deeper discussions are held on the forums and in comment sections elsewhere, by players. It is extremely rare to have a concern answered in this format.

That's the crux of the matter here. The priority seems to be these pieces over the actual deeper discussions that many are thirsty for. These "deep dive" articles help with publicity, they for sure generate buzz and give us a valuable peak behind the curtain. That's fantastic, they're cool articles, but the deeper discussions need to happen too.

StihlReign wrote: »

When player concerns are addressed it is most often limited, and usually tied to a game-breaking bug occurring in real time on the server or, PTS.

So, what I see here is, people want those concerns addressed with more details. So when these "deep dives" are announced, those concerns color people's expectations. While the effort behind these "deep dives" is appreciated, it also begs the question why that can't happen for the issues.

StihlReign wrote: »

Read (or re-read) them for yourself and see if you come to a different conclusion.

ESO DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE—DESIGNING TAMRIEL’S BOSSES, PART 1
DEVELOPMENT
03/23/2022

ESO DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE—COMBAT CORE VALUES
DEVELOPMENT
12/20/2022

ESO DEVELOPER DEEP DIVE–GIVING TAMRIEL’S CHARACTERS THEIR VOICE
DEVELOPMENT
05/18/2023

Some of these truly are deep dives. Honestly, the only one that I take any issue with was the Combat Core Values one. By itself, it's fine. However, it came after U35, where the promised Q&A didn't happen, after months of players asking for updates. It seemed very disconnected from where the community was.

All they had to do was a Q&A, that they themselves committed to, to address very specific concerns about combat. Instead, they gave us that, and then didn't even answer the questions its thread. So, I think that's why people are so up-in-arms about the "deep dives".

carlos424 · June 27

Item Sets

Just updating items sets could create alot more interest and diversity with usage. Something as simple as removing recovery and max mag/stam lines on many sets, and replacing them with crit or weapon/spell damage lines would probably be all that is needed. It would be easy to do, and would create small increases with set power. This should create many more options and combinations. Better yet, build something into the scribing system that allows players to change the stat lines of sets. Maybe just the base game sets, which see very limited use.

olsborg · June 27

Item Sets

I basicly wonder why proccsets are so much stronger then just statsets. And some proccsets such as wretched vitality is overshadowing any other set for sustain in the game, by a mile.
Any plans to bring some of the crafted sets and other sets up to par with the newer sets? Theres so many old sets that are sooo weak now.

MarioSMB · June 28

Item Sets

I'd like to see some discussion about the homogenisation of item set bonuses and how every meta build is stuck going for the same handful of sets that still have a unique set bonus (i.e. anything with "10% increased damage" that isn't Major Slayer).
Tormentor for example lost its niche as an AoE taunt set now there's no reason to run it, same with any number of sets that just provide Major Protection instead of unique bonuses (Ironblood comes to mind).

Finedaible · June 28

Item Sets

There are several things I would like to know:

How do developers currently balance a new upcoming set between PvE and PvP? Do you have a way of finding a satisfying balance between both game modes, or are some sets just intentionally designed to excel in one mode?

Mostly in regarding 'proc' sets which do something unique, do the developers view item sets as expansions to a character's ability set in terms of power fantasy?

How are proc sets balanced? Are some sets intended to be purely for casual overland roleplay or is any set considered viable in any content no matter the difficulty level?

We now have the Stickerbook, but how else are developers planning to address item set bloat as the game keeps growing?

Will we ever see empowered versions of some overland or dungeon sets for more diverse creativity and roleplay?

Will Twice-Born Star ever be an interesting choice again?

opalcity · June 28

Item Sets

Obviously picking this because there is no PVP option