PTS Update 49 - Feedback Thread for Player Experience Improvements

Kendaric · January 14

Outfits and outfit slots:

Accountwide outfit slots were long overdue and so it's a welcome addition.

The ability to hide every armor slot in outfits is also a very good addition and was also long overdue.
It reveals minor problems with the armor designs though, especially where belts are concerned. The actual belts have always been part of the chest armor, with the belt slot just being the buckle.
I would have prefered if some sort of belt or sash would have been part of the waist slot, but it's a minor thing.

Faster riding training and mounts for gold:

Faster training is a nice change, it wasn't really needed in my opinion though.

The mounts for gold are, at least in theory, a good thing. I'm not convinced about the distribution though.

Respec changes:

I'm not a fan. They weren't needed in my opinion and may make respecs too frequent and easy.

imPDA · January 14

H3rBie wrote: »

Please make the solo arenas (MA, VH) resetable, it's so annoying that you have to wait everytime you want/need to reset.

Pretty sure that everyone who is doing score runs there would love it.

(PS: I know that this is no feedback for the current changes, but imho the best place for that wish)

There is trick to group with someone, change difficulty and then enter again - it will be reset forcefully. I think it works for all instances, solo arenas including, but not entirely sure if it still a thing. You can group with twin account and reset

Alanar · January 14

I love the experience improvements!

Agree with the revert to not allow respect during leaderboard content, but I do like keeping it for IA.

A few suggestions for future QoL improvements

1. I find the fast travel fee system annoying. For me, the cost of fast travel is the loading screen and the run time to the destination, not the gold, and seeing the gold and the timer countdown every time I go somewhere is just extra cognitive load. I don''t feel like it really adds anything at this point.

2. I would love to see the anniversary cakes in the Gold Coast Bazaar, since those seem to fit perfectly with the theme of catching up on missed collectibles. Those are particularly painful because unlike other missable collectibles, some of them show up in the Collections screen as Not Collected even though there is currently no way to get them. At least 2023 falls in that buckeet.

3. It feels like free champion point respect fits with the free attribute and skill respec, I'd love to see that. In general, I'm a fan of the time delay being the cost for changing rather than a gold cost.

4. For Infinite Archive, I would love to see the Duo leaderboard split between Two Players and Player + Companion. It really doesn't feel fair for companion runs to be compared against having a full second players, since a companion just isn't anywhere close to the power increase a second player gives you.

5. One more small one. I often play split screen on 3440 x 1440, so ESO is in a window 1720 x 1440. Almost everything in the game works great in that resolution except for Tales of Tribute. There are some important controls that hide outside of the window and don't scale in on the thinner screen.

Again, I'm even more excited about the player experiences than the rest of the content for this year. I love that you have a team just focused on this and I'm looking forward to Update 49 and all the updates after. It really feels like ESO is leveling up in a way that I haven't seen in almost ten years.

Sordidfairytale · January 14

Any other points of feedback?

I know it's not in the list of current changes, but... scrying, more like crying, am I right? Can @ZOS_Kira take a look at this friction skill line unlock? And while you're at it, can you please address if you think we'll ever get a sequel to Dr Horrible?

lillybit · January 14

Just a quick thought on research. The passive now makes the longest timer 10 days but there's still 15 day scrolls in the crown store. I know it said in the patch notes that scrolls are staying the same but is this going to change at some point?

It's probably still going to be cheaper than getting 10 1 day scrolls, but I can see it putting people off having to buy something that much longer than needed

Sordidfairytale · January 14

lillybit wrote: »

Just a quick thought on research. The passive now makes the longest timer 10 days but there's still 15 day scrolls in the crown store. I know it said in the patch notes that scrolls are staying the same but is this going to change at some point?

It's probably still going to be cheaper than getting 10 1 day scrolls, but I can see it putting people off having to buy something that much longer than needed

Good point, however the scroll as is would be useful to someone without all the passives unlocked.

Elrond87 · January 14

Account-Wide Outfit Slots for the people that have paid for 10slots on each of their characters over the years are they compensated?

also could the armoury npc slots be combined account wide?

and lastly it would be a nice feature if the armoury npc could have its own type of limited space 'craft bag' to hold your set items, for players that want to do many builds on one character it takes up all your bag space storing all these different sets.

shadoza · January 14

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Any other points of feedback?

I know it's not in the list of current changes, but... scrying, more like crying, am I right? Can @ZOS_Kira take a look at this friction skill line unlock? And while you're at it, can you please address if you think we'll ever get a sequel to Dr Horrible?

Could you explain why 'scrying is more like crying?'

The first stage (green) is really long and boring. Most players are farming it out on small maps. The items are low-value so the time doesn't feel well spent. Increase the value of the antiquity or improve the value of the bonus finds and the frequency. On the final levels, we need more, new antiquities or the ability to sell the old ones for gold. There are some things one does not need 5 of.

shadoza · January 14

Elrond87 wrote: »

Account-Wide Outfit Slots for the people that have paid for 10slots on each of their characters over the years are they compensated?

also could the armoury npc slots be combined account wide?

and lastly it would be a nice feature if the armoury npc could have its own type of limited space 'craft bag' to hold your set items, for players that want to do many builds on one character it takes up all your bag space storing all these different sets.

I am thinking an armory wardrobe/closet where we can store a set number of amor sets. I would appreciate a storage view that has all the set pieces in one group so I can quickly tell if a piece went missing.

Tigor · January 14

For Cyrodiil experience improvement long lasting tower and keep running could be reduced by a speed penalty when enemies are still in a turned and decontested tower or keep lets say after 5 min and 50% speed reduction. This could be tested.

LonePirate · January 15

The stablemasters in Cyrodiil do not have any new mounts. Perhaps the Imperial Horse or the Imperial War Horse could be added to the six stables in the zone.

Striiiks · January 15

Would it be possible to improve how time consuming it is to open some box in the game ? I've for example the alchemy satchels we can buy both from Tur (with imperial fragment) and general tel var merchant (with Tel var) in Imperial City. When you have a decent amount of Tel var you have to open satchels one by one, and the one from Tur is even worse as you can only have one in your inventory. I remember years ago i just spent hours opening hundreds of satchels while watching a movie...

Pretty sure there are others examples of this that i don't have in mind, but it seems pretty similar to the potions making issue years ago when you had to make them one by one.

Is there anything planned for this @ZOS_Kevin ?

Btw thanks for the hard work, the communication and the transparency, it feels very refreshing !

Sordidfairytale · January 15

shadoza wrote: »

Sordidfairytale wrote: »

Any other points of feedback?

I know it's not in the list of current changes, but... scrying, more like crying, am I right? Can @ZOS_Kira take a look at this friction skill line unlock? And while you're at it, can you please address if you think we'll ever get a sequel to Dr Horrible?

Could you explain why 'scrying is more like crying?'

The first stage (green) is really long and boring. Most players are farming it out on small maps. The items are low-value so the time doesn't feel well spent. Increase the value of the antiquity or improve the value of the bonus finds and the frequency. On the final levels, we need more, new antiquities or the ability to sell the old ones for gold. There are some things one does not need 5 of.

You did an excellent job of explaining, thanks.

Chaebol · January 16

Armory system should gives us free skill&attribute respec.
Or make respec furniture.

Al_Ex_Andre · January 16

I am really looking forward Respec Skills & Attributes in the UI for Free!
Best QoL in the list imo.

Now if we could get Respec 'sets' for free once you fabricated them into gold before, it would make my year. But It would drain memory ressources memorizing all those, so I guess juggling with sets as well won't come into this game.

BruteRX7 · January 16

Give us access to guild trader/guild bank in our personal bankers or at least the banker thats going to be in the Night Den. Please and Thanks!

Destai · January 16

I have another, and this is purely from a console perspective.

Can we please make the add-on menus a bit more sensible? Let me start with a question, if you wanted to uninstall an add-on, which of the following would make intuitive sense?

1. Menu\Add-ons\Manage Add-ons
2. Settings\Add-ons\<Find your add-on>\<Uninstall>

Can we just get one place to manage add-ons? It's a bit cumbersome to have to browse all add-ons to find the ones I have installed and do only some of the available actions for them.

Ravenshadow6513 · January 17

Vampire / Werewolf Shrines

I like that new players will come across these new shrines and realize that the Vampire and Werewolf skill lines are an option. When I first started out, I had no idea until much later. And then when I found out the specifics of trying to get a bite, it made me put it off for a while, before my curiosity got the better of me.

Honestly, I was quite excited to get on the PTS and check out these shrines; except the patch notes didn't say where they were located, and the zone completion and/or zone guide don't let you track them.

Would it be possible to get these shrines added to the Map Completion and Zone Guide, to more easily find them?

Stylemaster S'razir

I like that there will be a lot of new skill styles available for gold. But I would like to preview them.

Would it be possible to add skill style previews at the vendor?

Alanar · January 17

Here are some more potential future player improvements.

Account-Wide Armory Slots

The feels parallel to the outfit slots, but significantly more impactful. I would love to have the max number of armory slots unlocked, but I play actively on 20 different characters, and that would be 240,000 crowns, or about $1100 if you buy the largest crown packs on sale. That's just too much for the value.

Assistant Upgrades
The older assistance (Banker, Merchant, Fence) were released with deliberately crippled functionality in order to give players a reason to still physically go to the corresponding NPCs. Have we passed the point where that is necessary? It feels really bad to pay real money for a crippled assistant, and the newer assistance (Deconstruction, Armory) have full features. That would mean banker assistants could access Guild Bank and Guild Listings, merchant assistant could repair for gold, and the fence assistant could launder as well as sell stolen goods. I'm actually okay with the 35% reduction in sale price for the fence, since it bypasses the difficulty of escaping with your stolen goods. For laundering, maybe it could just cost 35% more to launder instead of being impossible?

Here are some small cosmetic ones

Account-Wide Treasure Hunt Achievements
There are a limited set of achievements that are still character-specific, mostly because they give specific character-specific rewards such as access or skill points. A notable exception are the "treasure hunt" achievements, where the character needs to run around collecting a bunch of components. These are fun to play once, but really are not fun to play multiple times (much less 20). I believe they stayed as character-specific because of technical constraints, not design constraints, so maybe that's something to revisit.

Cadwell's Silver / Cadwell's Gold Quests
These are different than just about all of the other quests in the game because they are not directly actionable and instead represent a category of other quests. Since there isn't an equivalent when you're working through the main quest for your own alliance, maybe these are leftover from previous systems and can be removed?

Companion Quest Markers
Since I play on many characters and haven't done all the companion quests on all the characters, I either have to have the companion quest in my quest log or have it constantly above my companion's head. I would love to have the ability to hide the companion quest marker.

Companion Dialogue
When talking to a companion, most of the type I want the Companion Menu instead of Let's talk about our partnership. It would be nice if Companion Menu was the first item instead of the second.

shadoza · January 17

Alanar wrote: »

. . . Cadwell's Silver / Cadwell's Gold Quests
These are different than just about all of the other quests in the game because they are not directly actionable and instead represent a category of other quests. Since there isn't an equivalent when you're working through the main quest for your own alliance, maybe these are leftover from previous systems and can be removed? . . .

The reason for Cadwell's quest is to encourage player to explore the other alliances. Since only the story line quests are needed to complete this quest, I feel it could be broken down to gain a feel a progress. The levels could be by map. A small reward related to the location of the map is provided to celebrate each map story completion.

Then, instead of stopping Cadwell after the alliance runs, he should offer further quests that are based on the DLC so the player can be directed to catch the stories in that direction. (Allow the purchased DLC to be skippable) Again, run it by a collection of maps with a story related mini reward at the end of the map.

Celas_Dranacea · January 17

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

XimTheBard wrote: »

Hello, a friend and I noticed that while you've increased all these houses to 350/700 maximum furnishing slots, the amount of players that could visit has not changed.

I have several friends in the RP community who were excited to see the increase to 700, thinking the player limit would be increased to 24, which would allow big events to be hosted in these homes, as 350/700 notable homes have been 24 player limited.

Is there plans for the player limit to be updated to 24 for these houses, or will they remain as is?

Hello! Here's a reply directly from Kira and both our Player Experience Improvements and Housing teams:

An interesting callout, to increase housing population caps along with our furnishing limits increases and home categorization rebalancing. Not something that we had initially considered, but as part of this feedback (since we've seen it called out a couple places already), we decided to take the opportunity to adjust the pop caps to better align with the new categories. We've put in a bug that once resolved, will up these (hopefully for a future PTS), and def aiming for U49 proper. Now Staple homes will have a population cap of 6 players, Classic homes will have a population cap of 12 players, and all notable homes will remain at a cap of 24 players. (Note: This will effectively increase the population cap to homes that were previously Classic but have since moved into the Notable category.)

I think I’m confused. I have what I think is a classic home (“Gorinir Estate”) and the pop cap is already 12. Is the pop cap on this house going up?

ShutUpitsRed · January 17

OOF that IC change. Great on paper, terrible if you actually play IC.

If you're going to make it so you can't port from Imperial City, PLEASE remove the doors between the districts/sewers, or allow for their use in-combat.

A common issue when running in a group in IC is trolls keeping you in combat (but not killing you and being evasive enough to not be killed by you) so you can't travel, meaning you can't escape IC zones without either dying or porting. Ranged, fast nightblades are very, very annoying, and now there will be no escape.

That said, as a ganker, now I know exactly where to camp for people trying to leave IC with their tel var. This makes my job much easier, and I don't think that's going to be a popular turn of events either! Overall this change is going to be rough on anyone who can't go invisible at will.

Overall, that change is going to make IC even more of a wasteland. Please reconsider, or address the issues that this change will bring.

LunaFlora · January 17

Celas_Dranacea wrote: »

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

XimTheBard wrote: »

Hello, a friend and I noticed that while you've increased all these houses to 350/700 maximum furnishing slots, the amount of players that could visit has not changed.

I have several friends in the RP community who were excited to see the increase to 700, thinking the player limit would be increased to 24, which would allow big events to be hosted in these homes, as 350/700 notable homes have been 24 player limited.

Is there plans for the player limit to be updated to 24 for these houses, or will they remain as is?

Hello! Here's a reply directly from Kira and both our Player Experience Improvements and Housing teams:

An interesting callout, to increase housing population caps along with our furnishing limits increases and home categorization rebalancing. Not something that we had initially considered, but as part of this feedback (since we've seen it called out a couple places already), we decided to take the opportunity to adjust the pop caps to better align with the new categories. We've put in a bug that once resolved, will up these (hopefully for a future PTS), and def aiming for U49 proper. Now Staple homes will have a population cap of 6 players, Classic homes will have a population cap of 12 players, and all notable homes will remain at a cap of 24 players. (Note: This will effectively increase the population cap to homes that were previously Classic but have since moved into the Notable category.)

I think I’m confused. I have what I think is a classic home (“Gorinir Estate”) and the pop cap is already 12. Is the pop cap on this house going up?

Gorinir Estate is becoming notable so its population cap will be increased to 24

MoonPile · January 17

Me again with a totally predictable comment but...

Stackable Treasure Maps

This was disappointing. The infographic titled it "Treasure Maps - Reworked to improve user experience" – but it really should've just said "Treasure Maps Stack".

The biggest pain points of the UX with Maps haven't been addressed at all. Explained in these related posts:

Basically they're not worth buying, as explained across those posts. With maps stacking, more new maps will be hoarded by people waiting for Fishing/Treasure RNG-boost events, making their price rise even more – worsening the problem.

–

Other items on the list are great; overall happy to see a lot of long-requested changes!
Just hope Map Leads will someday be addressed too.

.

DoofusMax · January 18

Request for clarification.

<snip>
Longer Antiquities Lead Expiration
<snip>

The patch notes include a new thing: white leads. I just checked in on PTS with a PTS character for the antiquities folio and have yet to see any white leads (haven't used it in all four dozen-ish zones). Is this something that's in the pipeline or are the patch notes just using the standard white/green/blue/purple/gold template? Inquiring minds want to know.

Cooperharley · January 18

Kendaric wrote: »

Outfits and outfit slots:

Accountwide outfit slots were long overdue and so it's a welcome addition.

The ability to hide every armor slot in outfits is also a very good addition and was also long overdue.
It reveals minor problems with the armor designs though, especially where belts are concerned. The actual belts have always been part of the chest armor, with the belt slot just being the buckle.
I would have prefered if some sort of belt or sash would have been part of the waist slot, but it's a minor thing.

Faster riding training and mounts for gold:

Faster training is a nice change, it wasn't really needed in my opinion though.

The mounts for gold are, at least in theory, a good thing. I'm not convinced about the distribution though.

Respec changes:

I'm not a fan. They weren't needed in my opinion and may make respecs too frequent and easy.

Disagree HEAVILY on faster training not being needed. 180 days per character without crown riding lessons is ridiculous. I don't think it should be time gated at all. This is a better system than before, but i think you should be able to purchase 30/60 training for each in one fell swoop at level 25 and then the last 30 for each at level 50 (max).

Don't understand how you're not a fan of respecing for free and easily. Why do you want friction with this? It allows for experimentation and fun versus a needless gold sink.

GaseousLemr · January 18

Hi,

I am a console player with ESO+ subscription. I understand this testing feedback is for PC platform/players only. I could not immediately find any mention regarding the following elsewhere. Please let me know in case I could post these somewhere else.

Active quest counter limit - It is 25 currently with no option to upgrade via gold/crown store - new/returning player like me are struggling to add/manage interesting quests while doing main, zone & daily quests simultaneously due to this limit

Bookmark quest option - No option to bookmark quests due to above limit to add quests - e.g. map in Cyrodiil even with console addons do not show delves, ruins, etc. - it takes some noting down & searching via net/uesp to get such quests later

Few account/character bound items cannot be deposited in bank but take up bag space - e.g. respec scrolls, dye, containers (first ones received for cyrodiil - defense & siege), quest items (like rubbing, musical instrument), etc.

Numerous weapon/armor/jewellery Sets - there are so many + mythics - confusing & difficult to manage which to retain - since build guides & guidance from guild members ignore most of the sets

No central trader - time is wasted searching from one guild trader to next from one zone to next to get materials / recipes for completing dailies, writs (event based & master), and later for grand master crafter achievement

No option to mute sounds of these in PVP zone like Cyrodiil

exult when a character levels up even while hidden - it does not happen while mounted
whistle sound to call mount
while increasing speed of mount
while/after absorbing Sky shard

No prerequisite alternatives - e.g. to buy from vendor scribing Banner Bearer requires Alliance War achievement - it is a struggle (with lots of frequent revives & time taken to go back to quest area from revive area) to increase Assault/Support overall skill line to get this - but there is no alternative option for this for non-PVP player like me

tomofhyrule · January 21

Regarding the new options we all have with the freedom to “hide X” in the outfit station: here’s another fashion-related thing it’d be great to get.

The Class outfit styles unlocked.

When they released in U40, they were previewable on anyone with no restrictions. But with U41, the locks were specifically applied to restrict them by Class (and breaking the entire outfit system in PTS in the process…). Now, with U46, Subclassing has essentially made it so any character can use any Class line, but we’re still barred from wearing certain fashions (or allowing Bastian to wear them).

It would be great if those locks could be removed so characters of any Class can wear all of the existing Class styles (and any we get in the future, considering I’m now at the point were I desperately need two new Classes)

Also, on a semi-related note with respect to character customization: we see loads of NPCs using hair/eye/skin colors that are unavailable to players. People always point to Earl Leythen’s dark hair for Altmer, but I also notice several Altmer (like the Guild Trader Erwurlde in Mournhold) with blue eyes as well. The big thing for me is a legit green skin for Orcs like we see on Mordra, Skordo, and several of the Orsinium NPCs. None of these are collectibles; they’d come from increased choices in the hair/eye/skin colors choosers in Create-a-Character mode.

I will say that I was very frustrated that so many NPCs in Solstice were using these unavailable cosmetics. The Vale of Revelry delve quest was an exercise in frustration at the number of NPCs rubbing their unavailable cosmetics in my face. Please let our Altmer have dark hair and royal blue eyes, and by Mauloch let me have my tusking green skin!

(I also wouldn’t say no to getting Siravaen’s skin and ears as cosmetics so I could make a legit Maormer cosplay on an Altmer base)

coop500 · January 21

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Regarding the free respecs:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/687436/the-new-respec-system-absolutely-must-be-restricted-in-scored-content#latest

This is absolutely something that could lead to toxicity in groups, and Subclassing showed exactly how this could roll out.

While the idea is that players could use it if they need to, the actual practice of it will mean that raid leads will start to dictate exact setups to swap players' skill lines and even rolls constantly throughout the trials.

It needs to be restricted at first. If it goes well, then those restrictions could be loosened down the line, but starting with a free-for-all and then trying to put the cat back in the bag will only infuriate people and drive them off.

Thank you, I tried to make a thread about this and everyone just laughed me out.
To pretend players won't be toxic about this even in dungeons is absurd.

Emeratis · January 21

Forgot to add my any other feedback part but since it's been on my mind, several QOL things I would really like to see in the future (in no particular order):

Release several longstanding in game unreleased styles (IC monsters, Asylum weapons, Rootmender Staff, wearable mythics, etc)
Lead system/pity overhaul for lore/completionist hunters, adding a proper reliable progression to leads
Taking a look again at uber rare item drops (chef's thesis, tales of tribute heavy played cards, etc). An example of this is I have done ToT dailies every day for 2.5 years now and still only have 5/10 heavily played tribute cards and that feels incredibly frustrating for an emote I'd like to actually use and not just collect.
Increase the quest limit and daily cap at least slightly (maybe up to 50/100 from 25/50)
Add a reliable preview for both skills and skill styles that actually zooms out and shows proper view of it (furnishing preview zoom out could be a starting point for it). Currently you can really only preview crown store/crate skill styles and even though some are hard to properly see since it uses the outfit/skin/etc preview.
Better collections sorting overhaul for pets like was done for mounts a while ago
Would really like to see more ways to interact with pets and mounts and friendly critters.
Ability to hide mount saddles when they're placed in houses would be amazing
Screenshot support system-would love to have a screenshot mode where we could maybe pause animations and at least slightly tweak the lighting and other perks. After playing Infinity Nikki I wish other games had a similar system to support players having fun and being creative. I also noticed a lot of people who used to do really nice eso screenshots gravitating to IN. Considering how big of an impact fashion is in eso, it would be cool to have more things to support showing that off in and out of game. The ability to preview skills and skill styles I mentioned above could be a step towards supporting this maybe?
Armory slots becoming account wide like outfit slots are
replayable story quests is also high up there on my wishlist (or at least some sort of access to some of the lovely quest locked areas like the Orrery of Elden Root for example)
interactable emotes like the ability to hug or handshake with another character would be really cool to see

If I think of more I'll post it but I think that's most of what I want off the top of my head.