Does this patch pass the Steve Jobs test?

Pelanora · February 7

Steve Jobs said, rather famously:

"You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it, and I've made this mistake probably more than anybody else.... and I've got the scar tissue to prove it.'

"And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with 'What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?'

"Not starting with 'Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we going to market that?'

"And I think that’s the right path to take," Jobs continued.

So...... is this patch something that zos has dreamt up and is now trying to market to us, or is it incredible benefits and experiences for the customer?

ZhuJiuyin · February 7

I guess neither.
Almost every patch is a twisted stitch monster born from a compromise between ZOS's fantasy (80%) and player expectations (20%).
So we have this Necro.

Aerin · February 7

In the current PTS, ZoS's primary focus is refining the upcoming DLC to minimize bugs and ensure a smooth release for profitable sales. However, they offer minimal attention to peripheral adjustments, such as tweaks to various skills.

ZoS should prioritize their customers' needs above all else. Unfortunately, it's impossible to please every player with changes they make. While some may welcome the adjustments, others may not be as receptive. Admittedly, ZoS does require revenue to sustain their operations, and a substantial amount at that. It's understandable that they need to monetize aspects of their game. However, the issue arises when they prioritize monetization over player satisfaction.

The dilemma lies in the fact that ZoS is aware that there will always be dissenters to any changes they implement. Consequently, they often opt to focus solely on monetization-driven alterations, disregarding the desires of their player base. This approach is flawed because the primary focus should be on enhancing the player experience rather than solely maximizing profits.

A compelling demonstration of this principle is evident in the current PTS phase where players are diligently testing and providing feedback on the upcoming DLC, essentially offering their time and expertise for free to assist ZoS in refining their product. However, it's disheartening to observe minimal efforts being directed towards addressing broader gameplay issues. It's evident that the primary focus remains on generating revenue rather than prioritizing the holistic improvement of the game.

For instance, the recent alterations to the Necromancer class, well, I have made the difficult decision to delete my Level 50 Necromancer character and withhold my support from ZoS in their pursuit of their primary objective.

RetPing · February 7

I hope they will not start selling overpriced things.

Ph1p · February 7

Pelanora wrote: »

So...... is this patch something that zos has dreamt up and is now trying to market to us, or is it incredible benefits and experiences for the customer?

Those two aren't mutually exclusive. Everything in this game is something ZOS has dreamt up based on what they believe creates a benefit and fun experience for the customer. They then try to market it to the players to keep the cash flow and update cycle going.

Can ZOS misinterpret their customer data and draw wrong conclusions about player preferences? Can they mess up the implementation of a highly anticipated feature? Can there be unintended, detrimental side effects to a change that most people otherwise enjoy? Can someone just have a brainfart and make a bad design choice somewhere? Absolutely. No way ZOS managed to avoid all this across 15+ years of development.

But given the extraordinary wealth of player data ZOS sits on, plus the passion and positive intent that most video game developers (and people generally) have, it's kind of weird to imply that anybody would intentionally develop a game from an ivory tower while ignoring the customer base.

Woodenplank · February 7

Aerin wrote: »

For instance, the recent alterations to the Necromancer class, well, I have made the difficult decision to delete my Level 50 Necromancer character and withhold my support from ZoS in their pursuit of their primary objective.

So I won't debate whether the Blast Bones redesign is good or bad, that's still up for discussion I feel, but I'm curious; are you saying you hate the Necro changes so much you will no longer throw any money into ZOS, or are you saying the Necro changes are fueled not by concern for Player satisfaction, but monetization incentive?

P.s. Steve Jobs was a knob.

Aerin · February 7

Woodenplank wrote: »

Aerin wrote: »

For instance, the recent alterations to the Necromancer class, well, I have made the difficult decision to delete my Level 50 Necromancer character and withhold my support from ZoS in their pursuit of their primary objective.

So I won't debate whether the Blast Bones redesign is good or bad, that's still up for discussion I feel, but I'm curious; are you saying you hate the Necro changes so much you will no longer throw any money into ZOS, or are you saying the Necro changes are fueled not by concern for Player satisfaction, but monetization incentive?

You've summarized my sentiments accurately. It's not solely about disliking the Necro changes; rather, it's about the broader concern regarding ZoS's prioritization of monetization over player satisfaction. While I may not agree with every change, my decision to withhold support stems from the perception that the company's decisions are primarily driven by financial incentives rather than a genuine commitment to enhancing the player experience.

GooGa592 · February 7

I've never understood why Steve Jobs was held up as such an innovator. Most of the advancements credited to him didn't even come from him. Personally, I despise a business model where the company tells me what I want rather than the other way around. And every Apple product purchased was designed to require the purchasing of more Apple products to get full functionality out of that product. And Apple products have never been significantly better than their android and PC counterparts, and Apple products, unlike android and PC products, are all proprietary and are designed to be compatible only with themselves. Not to mention the gross over pricing of Apple products.

I've always viewed Apple products as a marketing program more than anything else.

But I think the main thrust of the OP holds. It's the customers that should be telling ZOS what we want from the game, not ZOS telling us what we want from the game.

Sleep724 · February 7

Necro and Templars buffs. Nerf undeath passive. Nerfs to Arcanist. Finalizations of the hybrid changes. More build diversity. Nerf to master DW and Vate staff. Changes to limit the power of ball groups. More difficult overland. Story mode for dungeons. More in game rewards and less pushy crown store. Better game performance in both pve and pvp.

How many of these, off the top of my head, has Zos listened to? And how long has it been since some of these things have been asked for by a significant amount of the player base?

Muizer · February 7

GooGa592 wrote: »

But I think the main thrust of the OP holds. It's the customers that should be telling ZOS what we want from the game, not ZOS telling us what we want from the game.

There wouldn't even be a game then.

Aerin · February 7

GooGa592 wrote: »

I've never understood why Steve Jobs was held up as such an innovator. Most of the advancements credited to him didn't even come from him.
Personally, I despise a business model where the company tells me what I want rather than the other way around. And every Apple product purchased was designed to require the purchasing of more Apple products to get full functionality out of that product. And Apple products have never been significantly better than their android and PC counterparts, and Apple products, unlike android and PC products, are all proprietary and are designed to be compatible only with themselves. Not to mention the gross over pricing of Apple products.

I've always viewed Apple products as a marketing program more than anything else.

But I think the main thrust of the OP holds. It's the customers that should be telling ZOS what we want from the game, not ZOS telling us what we want from the game.

“It doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to to , We hire smart people so they can tell us what to do.”
― Steve Jobs, Steve Jobs: His Own Words and Wisdom

you welcome!

edit:
Can you see the difference between Jobs and so many other companies?

chessalavakia_ESO · February 7

Pelanora wrote: »

Steve Jobs said, rather famously:

"You can't start with the technology and try to figure out where you're going to try to sell it, and I've made this mistake probably more than anybody else.... and I've got the scar tissue to prove it.'

"And as we have tried to come up with a strategy and a vision for Apple, it started with 'What incredible benefits can we give to the customer? Where can we take the customer?'

"Not starting with 'Let’s sit down with the engineers and figure out what awesome technology we have and then how are we going to market that?'

"And I think that’s the right path to take," Jobs continued.

So...... is this patch something that zos has dreamt up and is now trying to market to us, or is it incredible benefits and experiences for the customer?

You do get that Jobs approach is focusing more on marketing right?

Much of the time what you produce isn't going to be all that incredible.

Ph1p wrote: »

Pelanora wrote: »

So...... is this patch something that zos has dreamt up and is now trying to market to us, or is it incredible benefits and experiences for the customer?

Those two aren't mutually exclusive. Everything in this game is something ZOS has dreamt up based on what they believe creates a benefit and fun experience for the customer. They then try to market it to the players to keep the cash flow and update cycle going.

Can ZOS misinterpret their customer data and draw wrong conclusions about player preferences? Can they mess up the implementation of a highly anticipated feature? Can there be unintended, detrimental side effects to a change that most people otherwise enjoy? Can someone just have a brainfart and make a bad design choice somewhere? Absolutely. No way ZOS managed to avoid all this across 15+ years of development.

But given the extraordinary wealth of player data ZOS sits on, plus the passion and positive intent that most video game developers (and people generally) have, it's kind of weird to imply that anybody would intentionally develop a game from an ivory tower while ignoring the customer base.

Is it that weird?

If your primary driver for making something is being passionate about it you aren't necessarily likely to be thrilled about going in a direction that opposes your passions and may thus try to avoid doing so. People in passion based industries will put up with lousy situations and will allow them to happen to others if it may let them attempt to fulfill their passions. I would not expect the customers being unhappy with a choice to be a deal breaker unless it actually impacts the developers.

Video Game developers are also frequently people that were gamers in the past. This can easily produce situations where they can overestimate the degree that they understand player's experiences and thus blow off feedback and data they don't like.

Pelanora · February 7

[quote="Video Game developers are also frequently people that were gamers in the past. This can easily produce situations where they can overestimate the degree that they understand player's experiences and thus blow off feedback and data they don't like.
[/quote]

I think this is the vibe i get when i watch a zos video/ interview. A very small section of players aka the zos team, choosing what they want to do, and see.

Edit- screwed up the quoting lol sorry

Ph1p · February 7

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

If your primary driver for making something is being passionate about it you aren't necessarily likely to be thrilled about going in a direction that opposes your passions and may thus try to avoid doing so. People in passion based industries will put up with lousy situations and will allow them to happen to others if it may let them attempt to fulfill their passions. I would not expect the customers being unhappy with a choice to be a deal breaker unless it actually impacts the developers.

Video Game developers are also frequently people that were gamers in the past. This can easily produce situations where they can overestimate the degree that they understand player's experiences and thus blow off feedback and data they don't like.

Here's what I find funny: Everybody argues that developers must listen to the players, because we are passionate about the game and cumulatively have a massive amount of MMO gaming experience. But the exact same qualities applied to the developers somehow means they can be arrogant, cherry pick data, and willfully ignore the player community.

Of course developers sometimes do behave that way, but it's still a weird double standard...

chessalavakia_ESO · February 7

Ph1p wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

If your primary driver for making something is being passionate about it you aren't necessarily likely to be thrilled about going in a direction that opposes your passions and may thus try to avoid doing so. People in passion based industries will put up with lousy situations and will allow them to happen to others if it may let them attempt to fulfill their passions. I would not expect the customers being unhappy with a choice to be a deal breaker unless it actually impacts the developers.

Video Game developers are also frequently people that were gamers in the past. This can easily produce situations where they can overestimate the degree that they understand player's experiences and thus blow off feedback and data they don't like.

Here's what I find funny: Everybody argues that developers must listen to the players, because we are passionate about the game and cumulatively have a massive amount of MMO gaming experience. But the exact same qualities applied to the developers somehow means they can be arrogant, cherry pick data, and willfully ignore the player community.

Of course developers sometimes do behave that way, but it's still a weird double standard...

The reason developers should listen to players is that we are the ones buying the product.

Our passion and our experience can easily end up being a liability that leaves us disconnected just as it can be for the developers.

If you took virtually any of those of us that are vocal forum users and had us design the next chapter purely on our passion it would be a train-wreck unless we happened to get lucky and do well enough in the area we are passionate about to pull in enough players to replace all of those we'd run off in other areas.

Woodenplank · February 8

Ph1p wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

If your primary driver for making something is being passionate about it you aren't necessarily likely to be thrilled about going in a direction that opposes your passions and may thus try to avoid doing so. People in passion based industries will put up with lousy situations and will allow them to happen to others if it may let them attempt to fulfill their passions. I would not expect the customers being unhappy with a choice to be a deal breaker unless it actually impacts the developers.

Video Game developers are also frequently people that were gamers in the past. This can easily produce situations where they can overestimate the degree that they understand player's experiences and thus blow off feedback and data they don't like.

Here's what I find funny: Everybody argues that developers must listen to the players, because we are passionate about the game and cumulatively have a massive amount of MMO gaming experience. But the exact same qualities applied to the developers somehow means they can be arrogant, cherry pick data, and willfully ignore the player community.

Of course developers sometimes do behave that way, but it's still a weird double standard...

Hey, what in Dagoth Ur's sweet nightmares do you think you're doing?! This is an internet forum, we don't do sympathic and dialectic reasoning here! Seeing a problem from both sides and having self-critisism? Get outta here!

Pelanora · February 9

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

Ph1p wrote: »

chessalavakia_ESO wrote: »

If your primary driver for making something is being passionate about it you aren't necessarily likely to be thrilled about going in a direction that opposes your passions and may thus try to avoid doing so. People in passion based industries will put up with lousy situations and will allow them to happen to others if it may let them attempt to fulfill their passions. I would not expect the customers being unhappy with a choice to be a deal breaker unless it actually impacts the developers.

Video Game developers are also frequently people that were gamers in the past. This can easily produce situations where they can overestimate the degree that they understand player's experiences and thus blow off feedback and data they don't like.

Here's what I find funny: Everybody argues that developers must listen to the players, because we are passionate about the game and cumulatively have a massive amount of MMO gaming experience. But the exact same qualities applied to the developers somehow means they can be arrogant, cherry pick data, and willfully ignore the player community.

Of course developers sometimes do behave that way, but it's still a weird double standard...

The reason developers should listen to players is that we are the ones buying the product.

Our passion and our experience can easily end up being a liability that leaves us disconnected just as it can be for the developers.

If you took virtually any of those of us that are vocal forum users and had us design the next chapter purely on our passion it would be a train-wreck unless we happened to get lucky and do well enough in the area we are passionate about to pull in enough players to replace all of those we'd run off in other areas.

So the sense check on that is to do user testing of the issues and the ideas and the new designs, not just test for bugs in the pts after launch. There's no way a huge change like that to the necro should just be dropped on users without much earlier testing for whether the change was addressing the right pbm, was the right change to make, gave an experience that delighted customers.

Scribing is cool tho..... cld be fun....