Cooperharley wrote: »

We can give feedback all we want, but we never get anything back and then get a week like this where there's literally nothing updated. I know at the top it says that Week 4 will have lots of combat changes, but my goodness dude, most of those changes will end up making it to live more than likely and we just have no idea about what's going on.

This has always been the development process during PTS. And it makes a lot of sense.

Week 1: Release the update, set players loose in it for testing and breaking things. Players submit feedback.

The problem is, actioning on player feedback takes time. And by the time the Week 1 release is pushed out, they are probably already working on Week 2 updates.

Week 2: Generally these are known fixes or adjustments that they likely already planned leading into Week 1 but did not have the time to get things in place for the initial release. Also includes some minor adjustments from very early feedback in Week 1.

Week 3: We generally see a huge swath of adjustments reflective of the Week 1 feedback

Week 4/5 are generally fine tuning and any stray adjustments


I'm not sure how anyone would expect them to force out updates from feedback from one update to the next, especially when they likely need to fully review that feedback, determine a course of action, if any, test any changes internally, and get them into the PTS update.

jaws343 wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

We can give feedback all we want, but we never get anything back and then get a week like this where there's literally nothing updated. I know at the top it says that Week 4 will have lots of combat changes, but my goodness dude, most of those changes will end up making it to live more than likely and we just have no idea about what's going on.

This has always been the development process during PTS. And it makes a lot of sense.

Week 1: Release the update, set players loose in it for testing and breaking things. Players submit feedback.

The problem is, actioning on player feedback takes time. And by the time the Week 1 release is pushed out, they are probably already working on Week 2 updates.

Week 2: Generally these are known fixes or adjustments that they likely already planned leading into Week 1 but did not have the time to get things in place for the initial release. Also includes some minor adjustments from very early feedback in Week 1.

Week 3: We generally see a huge swath of adjustments reflective of the Week 1 feedback

Week 4/5 are generally fine tuning and any stray adjustments


I'm not sure how anyone would expect them to force out updates from feedback from one update to the next, especially when they likely need to fully review that feedback, determine a course of action, if any, test any changes internally, and get them into the PTS update.

It has not always been like this.

The whole do nothing until week 3 routine was not how ZOS originally did the PTS.

And the update process has suffered because of it since they are missing a valuable week to fine tune or flat out change things that are obviously broken.

Once people started reported 170K+ parses, which they did early in week 1, ZOS should have done something, at the least communicated to us what their goal was for the launch: do they plan on living with 170K as long as a wide variety of builds can achieve that (build diversity) or if that power creep was beyond what they were willing to accept (reign in power sub-classing offers).

In both cases, there were obvious preliminary tests they could have put out on week 2 to try to work with some of the world's best parses to better get to their goal (whether build diversity or less power). What would be launched would be a much more tested product, even if the changes made in a potential week 2 of the PTS didn't work - at least they would have a body of knowledge to better plan on attaining their goal.

We managed to do this in ESO's early years. It's nothing about being forced. It's about working with hundreds of free beta-testers. Or even just communicating with us. If we know what they want for their finished update, we can help them get there

Joy_Division wrote: »

jaws343 wrote: »

Cooperharley wrote: »

We can give feedback all we want, but we never get anything back and then get a week like this where there's literally nothing updated. I know at the top it says that Week 4 will have lots of combat changes, but my goodness dude, most of those changes will end up making it to live more than likely and we just have no idea about what's going on.

This has always been the development process during PTS. And it makes a lot of sense.

Week 1: Release the update, set players loose in it for testing and breaking things. Players submit feedback.

The problem is, actioning on player feedback takes time. And by the time the Week 1 release is pushed out, they are probably already working on Week 2 updates.

Week 2: Generally these are known fixes or adjustments that they likely already planned leading into Week 1 but did not have the time to get things in place for the initial release. Also includes some minor adjustments from very early feedback in Week 1.

Week 3: We generally see a huge swath of adjustments reflective of the Week 1 feedback

Week 4/5 are generally fine tuning and any stray adjustments


I'm not sure how anyone would expect them to force out updates from feedback from one update to the next, especially when they likely need to fully review that feedback, determine a course of action, if any, test any changes internally, and get them into the PTS update.

It has not always been like this.

The whole do nothing until week 3 routine was not how ZOS originally did the PTS.

And the update process has suffered because of it since they are missing a valuable week to fine tune or flat out change things that are obviously broken.

Once people started reported 170K+ parses, which they did early in week 1, ZOS should have done something, at the least communicated to us what their goal was for the launch: do they plan on living with 170K as long as a wide variety of builds can achieve that (build diversity) or if that power creep was beyond what they were willing to accept (reign in power sub-classing offers).

In both cases, there were obvious preliminary tests they could have put out on week 2 to try to work with some of the world's best parses to better get to their goal (whether build diversity or less power). What would be launched would be a much more tested product, even if the changes made in a potential week 2 of the PTS didn't work - at least they would have a body of knowledge to better plan on attaining their goal.

We managed to do this in ESO's early years. It's nothing about being forced. It's about working with hundreds of free beta-testers. Or even just communicating with us. If we know what they want for their finished update, we can help them get there

This has been the PTS process since chapters at least, back in 2017.

I also think it is likely that something like the absurd parsing are expected and intended behavior, rather than something that ZOS has any inclination to adjust.

Stx wrote: »

I would love to be wrong about this. But my running theory for at least 4-5 years now is that this game is just a cash cow for them and they don’t put much effort into maintaining it at all.

If you compare the price tag of this game to other popular MMOs, this game has similar cost but the amount of content is less, and the frequency and total number of balance changes are FAR less. Even games that have a much lower price tag like GW2 roll out more frequent balance patches with more lines of notes.

Again, I could be wrong. But the proof is in the pudding. They seem to put effort into player houses, crown store cosmetics, and other forms of cosmetics that they think will make players buy crowns. That’s what you see being released frequently.

I am very excited for subclassing, and I will always love this game for the zone design, the lore, and I still enjoy it. But I do wish they would put more work in.

I agree completely except for the part about subclassing. I think subclassing will be the last major change we see in ESO. It will be the last nail in the coffin or PvP and end game PvE as well.

Cooperharley wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Comparing zos to GGG is setting yourself up for a major disappointment. I do agree with everything however, if is indeed frustrating and tiring to be on a recieving end whilst still caring about the game so the best you personally can do is to try distance yourself a bit again the very least, helps tremendously. We all know well enough that we won't get the communication we want, it's been ten plus years and every year there's a promise about communication which is different from what dedicated players see as a communication. Vastly different.

I’m comparing ZOS to virtually every other major developer here. I understand it’s vastly different and that’s my point.

What is going on to make it that way? It’s infuriating with less and less content being released, then charging us more for that chapter spread over a year with a rebranded name (seasons) on top of less communication and a rushed feature that’s about to inherently change the foundation of the game.

My brain is soup lol

Well, I think comparing them to BLIZZARD is also a stretch... look at the state of Diablo IV for example; I think the team at ZOS is miles ahead of them in every way.

This is the cold hard truth. This is what I believe, based on the fact that it is the only thing that makes sense.

They have released (I lost track of how) many updates, and every single time, there has been some level of doomsday freak out. Then the update comes, and maybe it is good. maybe it's bad. But for the most part, the doomsdayers go away and life goes on.

I guarantee you the people who make these decisions believe that this will be the same situation. "The players just don't understand how great this will be." So they have their heads down and aren't communicating at all, because why feed into the concern if they're handing us this great awesome laissez-faire take on ESO that we're all going to love and enjoy.

The problem with laissez-faire philosophy is that it's great for a small number of people who benefit. On the PVE side, you have the people who just want to get the highest dummy test possible, and burn through the hardest hard-mode as fast as possible. The people who just want to pal around with absurd builds killing zone NPCs and cackling about being about to solo group world bosses. On the PVP side, you have the trolls who already mix-max to the point that one person can stalemate an entire faction, or a ball group who basically ruins 6 hours of gameplay for everyone else.

Those people are gonna have a blast.

Everyone else? Good luck. You're the working class who will suffer and be expected to deal with it.

Welp, there are a million other options to spend my time on, and the "hook" of sticking with a game because I don't want to give up on 10 years of history is only going to keep me, and many others, around for so long after we watch the worst.. the WORST players with the worst intentions use this new system to make it miserable for everyone else.

And then in their nice offices in Maryland, they will act shocked with it doesn't work out. When the doomsayers were right. and the completely nuked the final stages of this game that could have gone in a completely different direction, a more positive direction, to be more enjoyable for a greater number of players.

Didnt ZoS tell us last year that their plans for 2025 were not to introduce new systems and components but instead focus on improving the existing stuff?? This definitely isn't at all what they told us was happening in 2025...

"This annual cadence pushed the team to focus on short deadlines – every June – where all types of content (systems, content, zones, etc.) had to be completed at the same time and has not left us much time for experimentation or thinking about doing things differently...
"Freeing up the dev team from needing to adhere to a strict annual cycle means we will be able to have teams launch content when it is ready throughout the year and not work to a date in June – this will let us focus on a greater variety of content spread over the year."

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/670691/studio-director-s-letter-2025-beyond/p1

Just a reminder....

Meanwhile, sales team gives yet another deadline:

" Its content will go live in Tamriel throughout the year in the following order:
Fallen Banners dungeon pack (launched in March 2025)
Seasons of the Worm Cult Part 1 (June 2, 2025 for PC/Mac and June 18, 2025 for Xbox and PlayStation consoles)"

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/675896

Oh and they somehow pressured the engineering team to put subclassing into the same update: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/67841

Again, if I may offer my opinion: short term, hyped up release announcements work well in story content, but don't really work for system features like subclassing. Because 1) subclassing was datamined, so hardcore players already knew about it. Honestly, it would've been better to get an official dev article talking about their excitement and plans and obstacles, because that's how you generate trust and hype. And 2) it needs to be extensively tested on the PTS. I think players appreciate the effort spent on polishing and balancing a new feature rather than the sales-driven rush. I absolutely agree that subclassing is a great feature for sales and the game, but imagine going to a restaurant and getting undercooked food. No amount of pretty advertising is gonna fix that.