Thank you

xR3ACTORx · November 15

I am very confident about ZOS figuring out on their own if players voted with their wallets this time or not. I've never witnessed so many people talking about canceling their subscriptions in game chat, on discords and on Reddit before.

Some even compared that to the U35 player exodus.

To be honest when reading what was announced and seeing what people got I understand why people felt lied to when someone said this event was planned for a long time.
I also see a pattern about how MS is ruining Xbox and how ZOS is ruining ESO rn.

And tbh ruining it after building it up successfully seems to be an american tradition these days.

SummersetCitizen · November 15

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

As a senior professional leading teams in a similar area

Same, but I am abjectly ashamed of this team. Horrible.

Gabriel_H · November 15

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

But no test in QA, in beta, in PTS, can compare to Live with hundreds of thousands of players doing weird actions.

I'm going to pull on that particular thread. The BIG bugs that have been reported on Live recently did not need hundreds of thousands of players to spot them.

They were spotted on the PTS, reported, then reported again, then they made it to Live.

Gabriel_H · November 15

Furyous wrote: »

I ran a poll on the event design with 204 votes. The results were clear:
- 32% said “I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall.”
- 48% said “I hate it, but I will keep playing the rest of the game.”
- 16% said “It is just a grind, some folks do not mind the hamster wheel.”
- Only 2% combined said they genuinely enjoyed it.

That means nearly 80% of respondents expressed active dislike, with only a statistical sliver reporting genuine enjoyment.

It's a bias poll. People tend to come to the forums to make a complaint. It skews any poll.

Gabriel_H · November 15

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

D) Bethesda/ZM has by now gotten the reputation of having extremely poor quality control (proof: pretty much any of their projects released in the past 10 years from new games to updates or remasters or even merchandise released broken)

10 years? Bethesda's entire history is littered with buggy as hell games. They have good cores though, and because of that they have a big fanbase, and a big modding community - who take that buggy mess and fix it. ESO cannot be fixed that way though and it shows.

Koshka · November 15

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Furyous wrote: »

I ran a poll on the event design with 204 votes. The results were clear:
- 32% said “I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall.”
- 48% said “I hate it, but I will keep playing the rest of the game.”
- 16% said “It is just a grind, some folks do not mind the hamster wheel.”
- Only 2% combined said they genuinely enjoyed it.

That means nearly 80% of respondents expressed active dislike, with only a statistical sliver reporting genuine enjoyment.

It's a bias poll. People tend to come to the forums to make a complaint. It skews any poll.

It's the same in zone/guild chats, though.
I have a hard time imagining a person who genuinely enjoys doing crafting dailies (that do not even drop good rewards, unlike normal crafting dailies) and dolmens for 40 days in a row. Even Alikr grinders usually have something on the second screen.

LukosCreyden · November 15

Bait used to be believable.

Oblivion_Protocol · November 15

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

As a senior professional leading teams in a similar area, I've watched the progress of this year and this content with deep professional interest as well as player interest.
I've followed the previews, the reports of testing, the news from our Community Liaison team.
I've discussed face-to-face with several very senior folks at ZOS all the way up to Rich Lambert.
I know something, and can guess a lot more, about the efforts that have been put in.

Uh-huh. And my Dad is the CEO of Microsoft, and he tells me all sorts of super important things, and if you guys keep bashing the game, I’ll tell him to shut down your accounts!

licenturion · November 15

The post opened with 'As a senior professional leading teams in a similar area'

Then I already knew what was coming

shadyjane62 · November 15

Gibberish. Not even worth my hate.

Renato90085 · November 15

in last 30day(mean event) steam sell,new pass only 18% buyer like it
your post give me a feel,you never play eso,most bug can live 7 month -4 year and still no fixed when we feed back it a thing all player all know

lostineternity · November 15

let me dissect this utter bs

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

It's a new type of event, a new type of content, and a new type of dungeon.

actually no, daily quest, dolmens and public dungeons are not new content

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

[Did we get Solstice, wall, new creatures and bosses, new mechanics, quest stories, purchase rewards, everything they've promised? Yes.

no, it's a lie
new creatures? where? 99% of creatures are reused assets.
new mechanics? where? ballistas? daily fetch quests? jpg wall?

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

Has it brought the ESO community together to change the overall nature of an entire zone in the world, for the first time? Yes

it's a lie, it turned the community against each other with rigged so called "server race" and stupid quests where every other player is your enemy in attemp to kill quest npc

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

Is it a new scale of event for players to work not just as a dungeon team, a trial team, but as an army across an entire zone? Yes.

no, have you seen Alikr dolmens? lol

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

Has it had some bugs, miscalculations? Sure, show me any software that didn't have a bug on first release.\

obnoxious amount of bugs that ruined experience for thousand of people, also hardlock bugs can't be excused
animation bugs were reported on u46 pts and all of them went to a live server without fixes, amazing work
u48 became a historic patch this is true, smallest patch ever with biggest amount of bugs on PC

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

[*] Are you entitled to whine about bugs existing, and the team not magically fixing all of them in the first hour they pop up?

yes, and you are not entitled to say what customers can or can't do

Yudo · November 15

All that work sure, but only to drain it into the sink through bad execution. If they did not drag the first two phases for sooo long it would have had some impact. Rest of phase 3 was fine actually, just came too late. Sad Sad.

ivaylo.krumoveb17_ESO · November 15

There is no way this is a genuine player post. Just studio staff trying to save face. Absolutely no point arguing with the paid trolls.

Furyous · November 15

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Furyous wrote: »

I ran a poll on the event design with 204 votes. The results were clear:
- 32% said “I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall.”
- 48% said “I hate it, but I will keep playing the rest of the game.”
- 16% said “It is just a grind, some folks do not mind the hamster wheel.”
- Only 2% combined said they genuinely enjoyed it.

That means nearly 80% of respondents expressed active dislike, with only a statistical sliver reporting genuine enjoyment.

It's a bias poll. People tend to come to the forums to make a complaint. It skews any poll.

I understand the concern about forum bias, but it is worth looking at the numbers in context.

Yes, forums often attract more critical voices. That is true of almost any game community. But even with that caveat, the distribution of responses here is telling: nearly 80% expressed active dislike, while only 2% reported genuine enjoyment. A skewed sample might exaggerate negativity, but it does not invent that level of imbalance.

It is also important to note that players are not coming here at random. They are being driven to the forums by frustration. The sheer volume of negative posts on this single subject proves that out. When one topic dominates discussion across threads, it signals a genuine pain point in the player experience.

The poll does not claim to represent every single player. What it does show is that among those motivated enough to engage, frustration is overwhelming compared to enjoyment. That is valuable feedback in itself, because engaged players are the ones who sustain guilds, organize events, and keep communities active.

So while the poll is not a census, dismissing it as “bias” risks ignoring a clear signal. The healthiest approach is to weigh both the positive experiences and the negative ones, and use that balance to inform better event design going forward.

lostineternity · November 15

dcrush wrote: »

This post reminds me of this

https://youtu.be/oSDxjJ15YII

Yeah the tone of this message is absolutely the same.

Btw the guy on the video is Rich Lambert.... it's very suspicious but the person started this topic thanks him so hard for this amazing event.
I'm not a fan of conspiracy teories but I can't help but get rid of this weird feeling that now I know who is Lord_Trurl

excole10 · November 15

Its often said that its a new idea and new content, but its really not.

They decided last year to change to a season model, while solstice as a chapter was probably a good bit in development already. So they just split the chapter in half to have time to develop whatever theyre planing for the actual seasonal content that will come next year.

What they hyped up as this seasons "one of a kind" event is just your normal world event that every chapter has. Thats mainly the siege camp quest. They added some uninteresting fetch and crafting quests and thats it.

Whats truly new about this is only phase 3, the writhing fortress. And thats timegated content that you really only do once because why would you do it more? No incentive whatsoever. And while it is enjoyable that they put the MMO back in, seeing how many people you complete it with, its still no challenge. I appreciate the final boss design, wasnt hard but kind of unique, thats about it.

Now also considering the amount of bugs that actually needed hotfixing(!) because they completly broke parts of this event... i play for 5 years and this many i havent seen so far in that short of a time.

If thats the standard one wants to hold ZOS to, it will not make 30 years. lol

Vaqual · November 15

Thanks guys, those responses cheered me up after reading that post.

SnakeDodger · November 15

Extremely subtle i have to say
/s

Izanagi.Xiiib16_ESO · November 15

Should Devs be bashed or attacked in comments - No ofc not (neither should players be)

However this isn't something the devs do out of the kindness of their heart.
Players paid a lot of money for this content to be delivered to them they should have a right to expect a good product in return. If people aren't happy with that content its not a problem for them to voice their opinions.

loosej · November 15

OP somehow managed to earn the First Anniversary and the Second Anniversary badge on the same day (yesterday)? How does that happen? Genuine question, do you need to visit the forum while logged in for it to trigger?

ivaylo.krumoveb17_ESO · November 15

Oh, please, is everyone too young to remember Ahn’Qiraj gate opening? Writhing wall is a copycat, just that the original was better.

LootAllTheStuff · November 15

The OP makes a very convincing case... for a "Disagree" button.

Ezhh · November 15

loosej wrote: »

OP somehow managed to earn the First Anniversary and the Second Anniversary badge on the same day (yesterday)? How does that happen? Genuine question, do you need to visit the forum while logged in for it to trigger?

Was wondering the same last night. This is the single most suspicious account I've ever seen, though some digging around did show me info that makes me think it might be a player. Of course, zos staff can be players so who knows. Either way I feel it's better to treat it like it might be genuine.

And my genuine response in turn is that if you push people too hard, yes, they will get angry. Sometimes anger is justified depending on the actions taken due to it, and I think making our thoughts known, in the (possibly wild) hope that they get listened to and something changes, is perfectly justified. Let's look at some things. Not everything here will be true for everyone who is unhappy, but enough people seem to feel these things to make it matter.

Cost:

A lot of people already felt the price hike this year wasn't okay compared to the lower amount of content.
Many ESO+ players felt annoyed that it was justified by the dungeons (something they get access to anyway) being included in the price.
The wall event dungeon, which is available for a total of seven days ever is almost impossible to complete for many of us. Even if we complete it, odds are we can't experience the full thing, aka, we lost part of the content.

So many are left feeling there is no value for money here.

Patience:

Many bugs were reported on PTS and yet still made it to live.
We keep getting told there is amazing content coming over and over but this has again been a glorified dolmen event with fetch/carry quests that has forced many players to compete for resources, all while the rewards have felt non-existent to many people (I've played every day and still only on 11 bone shards for example).
Those of us who want to experience the story are constantly interrupted by bugs that break immersion.
Even outside the event, there's been so many complaints about BGs, issues with certain sets and so on... It constantly feels like no one is even listening even when the arguments are made politely and only with facts.

We care about the game or we would not speak up, but how long are we expected to be patient?

Quality:

Game balance between classes/classlines is broken beyond any simple way to fix it.
Various things are left unfinished for years.
The number of bugs in content releases seems to be on the rise.
You can lose a trifecta because a single enemy in a trash pack bugs out (personally experienced this, zos confirmed it was a genuine bug then proceeded to do nothing to help us, or from what I know, fix it).
Bugs that absolutely block progress and prevent completion of things (this event has been a great example of that).
While some things can be hard to see in a test environment, many things that are easy to detect in one are still released to the live servers. PTS feedback is also often ignored.
Animation changes are massively broken, apparently so that support for old consoles can be kept. This really doesn't bode well in terms of what else might be lost from here...

So while I want to think there are many at zos who do deserve some praise and there's a certain degree of bugs that make complete sense, usually you give praise when things provide a positive experience. What many of us are stuck with right now is a game we think could be a really positive experience again if only the issues get solved, and that keeps disappointing us because the hype never matches up to what's delivered.

aetherix8 · November 15

loosej wrote: »

OP somehow managed to earn the First Anniversary and the Second Anniversary badge on the same day (yesterday)? How does that happen? Genuine question, do you need to visit the forum while logged in for it to trigger?

I just checked my own badges and I somehow earned both the 1st and the 2nd Anniversary Badge in April 2023. Maybe just some awkward forum mech indeed.

StytchFingal · November 15

Ezhh wrote: »

loosej wrote: »

OP somehow managed to earn the First Anniversary and the Second Anniversary badge on the same day (yesterday)? How does that happen? Genuine question, do you need to visit the forum while logged in for it to trigger?

Was wondering the same last night. This is the single most suspicious account I've ever seen, though some digging around did show me info that makes me think it might be a player. Of course, zos staff can be players so who knows. Either way I feel it's better to treat it like it might be genuine.

The OP is not a fake account, they are an actual player. I've been in a guild with them. That said, I don't agree with the tone or content of their original post which, fortunately, has been preserved via the comments rather than being lost due to a later edit.

ivaylo.krumoveb17_ESO · November 15

OK, another staff post. Move along, nothing to see here.

Pops_ND_Irish · November 15

Lord_Trurl wrote: »

I have heard what commenters are saying; many players are frustrated and disappointed with bugs; that's perfectly valid.
Bugs do exist, and should be fixed. Players explaining that they're upset, is reasonable and their feelings are real.
The majority of folks who feel this way, do express themselves fairly about it.
I did not intend to target the majority of reasonable commentary, nor to make light of players' disappointment.

My intent was to highlight that I've seen some pretty extreme derogatory, hateful, and vindictive personal attacks by a small minority.
Please don't forget that the ZOS team trying to fix the bugs and communicate with you are real people, with real feelings and good intentions.
They worked hard on this event, and they now are working hard to fix bugs and learn from this.
I'm sure they want to fix it as soon as possible, so that you're happy, and they can go home to their families.
Please try to remember to be kind, or at least fair, to them.

To those ZOS employees who are working hard around the clock to fix this, I want to express my thanks, because I know it's difficult.

I've made this as an edit to my original post, else it would be lost in the many comments and since my original intent has been misunderstood by some. [/edit]

I am with ya !

Pops_ND_Irish · November 15

Furyous wrote: »

I respect the effort to recognize the developers’ work, but I think it is important to ground this discussion in actual player sentiment rather than assumptions.

I ran a poll on the event design with 204 votes. The results were clear:
- 32% said “I hate it, this grind makes me want to uninstall.”
- 48% said “I hate it, but I will keep playing the rest of the game.”
- 16% said “It is just a grind, some folks do not mind the hamster wheel.”
- Only 2% combined said they genuinely enjoyed it.

That means nearly 80% of respondents expressed active dislike, with only a statistical sliver reporting genuine enjoyment.

So while the dungeon content itself was well received, the structure and pacing of the event were not. Acknowledging that reality does not diminish the developers’ effort. It simply ensures that future events can be designed with both creativity and player experience in mind. Gratitude and critique are not mutually exclusive, and the healthiest communities make space for both.

P.S. It is also worth noting that the first two phases were absolutely miserable. They dragged on for weeks with repetitive tasks, underwhelming rewards, and appalling drop rates. That structure did not build anticipation, it only burned players out before Phase Three even arrived.

If some want to uninstall, doit !
Bugs are frustrating but they will get fixed.
I see all these polls but why doesn't someone take a poll on all those who say they are quitting and/or uninstalling that actually do it.

Pcgamer · November 15

It's not the heart of zos players are angry with it's the Microsoft business first model people are against. They want more money for less content and less quality. Im personally feeling the change since Microsoft took over and i feel the loss of all those people that were made redundant. It happened in world of war craft and it's happening to eso.
Game is slowly morphing into something it dont recognise. This is just my personal opinion.

Yes I feel awful for zos employees that are working under extreme pressure and timeliness. I just dont like big business attitudes towards their clients which are us the players and the lovely people working for them who are zos team. My heart goes out to our zis team.