I get what they’re trying to do. I get why they have to close down everything to get people in Vengeance. It makes sense for the why there.

But there’s a bigger “why” that they’re not answering. Why now? Why without a PTS test first? Why not listen to the community requests instead of just unilaterally testing things which are obviously going to be unpopular? Why not test things with the community instead of against it? Why not show off this new mode that’s supposed to take the pressure off GH before trying to optimize GH’s replacement?

That’s the bigger issue. I’m sure every PvPer has the goal of “make PvP better” in mind. But there’s way the Combat Team is going seems to be prioritizing things differently than the broader community - namely their priority seems to be “we need 900+ in Cyrodiil however it can happen” while the community is fine with smaller pop caps but more build freedom. The Combat Team seems to hyperfocus on getting more casuals into PvP so they cater to them, but that leaves the veterans with nothing. The Combat Team has this other small-scale siege mode coming so they want to pour everything into Vengeance, but the players don’t have that mode yet so of course they want to keep what they like rather than jumping ship to an unknown.

In light of the recent massacre restructuring, this is not the time to drive away players. There is zero reason this needed to happen now. It could easily have waited until we got good news to soften the blow. Instead, this feels like kicking us while we’re down.

And one of the main things that all players, not just PvPers, want is the refreshes and news on it. I’d wager that focusing on the refreshes is actually more beneficial than anything else they could do for PvP in general… and that’s been silent. If Warden isn’t on PTS next week (even though it should have been finished before the layoffs), players - especially PvPers - will be out for blood. And I don’t blame them.

ZoS haveput themselves in a difficult spot on this, most of the benchmarking was done with vengeance being the only active campaign. From an experimental design perspective 'let's try and judge if this change makes a difference' that should be carried out in the same environment otherwise there may be external influences that could impact results.

We don't even know if the vengeance test is the vengeance live or if all live servers are essentially stood down and a test server stood up, but if there is a way of all environments being up without impacting the results of the test I would be all for it.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

But there’s a bigger “why” that they’re not answering. Why now? Why without a PTS test first? Why not listen to the community requests instead of just unilaterally testing things which are obviously going to be unpopular? Why not test things with the community instead of against it? Why not show off this new mode that’s supposed to take the pressure off GH before trying to optimize GH’s replacement?

I don't fundamentally disagree with what you said, but let me try give some common sense answers to those questions:

Why now? Because it's ready to test something.
Why not listen? The PvP community have demonstrated they don't want to engage. They want GH fixed without a changed ruleset (an impossible task for ZOS).
Why not PTS? They are testing performance data. They need a large number of players.
Why not show? Because it's not ready, and is a separate issue.

Allow me to rebut here:
Why now? Because it's ready to test something.
In light of the layoffs, morale of the players (and devs!) is in the gutter. It would be prudent of the devs to therefore start by tabling all non-essential tasks to build confidence back in their product. Continuing on a path that is known to be controversial will no doubt lead to consternation (as we’re seeing here) and makes the devs seem inflexible. This is exacerbated if non-essentials run on time while essential things (like balance and the refreshes) are pushed back - even if they are not directly related or causal, the optics could not be worse.
(Note that I am using “tabling” in the US English variation, meaning “to set it aside until a later time while focusing on other things”)

Why not listen? The PvP community have demonstrated they don't want to engage. They want GH fixed without a changed ruleset (an impossible task for ZOS).
Yes, the PvP community has demonstrated hostility. But the Combat Team has also demonstrated inability to communicate. Opening lines of communication and bringing players into the conversation would help to make them feel heard (and less hostile) rather than continually shutting them out of the conversation.
This goes beyond Vengeance. The conversation is dominated by Vengeance, but when is the last time PvP has gotten new content (that didn’t involve removing other content)? Every new PvP thing - new BGs, Vengeance… all ended up removing something that existed.
The PTS is also full of people making points. Yes, about 65% of the posts are whining. That leaves 45% that have actionable feedback. And that is summarily ignored. How are players supposed to react when they are never listened to in 12 years?

Why not PTS? They are testing performance data. They need a large number of players.
You misunderstood the question here.
They obviously need Live to stress test the high population, as I fully admitted.
But every prior Vengeance test was first run on PTS to check function and make sure no bugs existed. The PTS version of the test is not designed to be a stress test, but a “does this bug out my game” test.
In this case, they even said it was a known issue that some sets were not functioning properly and giving their 5-piece bonus. Ok, so which? A PTS run would have identified those sets so players would then know which to use when the testing set went live instead of going into Vengeance at a severe disadvantage and not knowing why.
Also, the skill AoE caps are 3. Are the set AoEs also 3? If not, would that be something that could have been caught in a test environment before going live?

Why not show? Because it's not ready, and is a separate issue.
This is the Combat Team. The Class Refreshes are their issue. And they have been silent.
At this point, we have information on everything that will be in U51 from the DevChat streams except the Refresh. The Refreshes affect all parts of the game, not just PvP. They are unquestionably the highest priority thing since they are unfinished and they have confirmed that new Combat content (e.g. new Classes or Skills) are on hold until they are finished.
If the only communication from the Combat Team is a) via proxy and b) niche, then all players feel as if the game is floundering. And the game in this state cannot afford to push anyone away at this moment.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

I believe ZOS need to do better to communicate their thinking. I'd like to say explicitly what the intent is. Giving how things are progressing, it seems their intent was to strip GH ruleset to the bare bones, then add things back over time and test to see at what point the server calcs become too much, while trying to get as close to the GH ruleset as possible.

It's obvious they are trying to get people into Vengeance, but not because they want people playing the mode, but because they need a large number to provide the performance data. They are going about it very heavy handedly but they are also aware that the hardcore PvPers are also dead set on killing Vengeance simply because it isn't GH that they simultaneously complain about. The whole situation is laughable.

Again, this is all good for normal times. But it is not normal times. It is “drop everything and focus on player retention” times. It is “do whatever we can to save the game from dying” times.
This is going completely counter to that.

Let me again link to the actual source of the “the team is the same size as it was for Summerset” quote, which several people are taking so far out of context and spinning it into thinking that everything is healthy:

baratron wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

ImmortalCX wrote: »

^-

Actually I just checked and apparently prior to the recent layoffs, there were over 300 people, so they are left with around 100, which (apparently) is that size of the studio during their massive Orsinium expansion. They should be able to pull this off. In fact, it begs the question, with an identical size as a decade ago, why wouldn't they be able to produce large yearly expansions?

If they become lean and efficient, the game could continue unscathed.

I keep seeing this: “Oh, they’re the same size as Orsinium and that was amazing! We have nothing to worry about!”

Really? All of the people behind the reasons we liked Orsinium were forced out. The ‘goal’ of these reductions was to remove team leads so every developer is doing their own thing in their own bubble (or, as we know the true goal is, to have Copilot do it for them).

Are we expecting consistency? And if everyone is writing their own code for their own project (or again, having AI vibe code it), are we expecting the spaghetti code problem won’t get way worse?

I don't know where people are getting "we have nothing to worry about" from.

The quote from Jason Barnes was simply that Zenimax Online Studio, after layoffs, is approximately the same size as it was when they made Wrothgar and Summerset.

My exact phrasing, as posted on these forums, on UESP's Discord and on UESP's social media, was "while the layoffs are extremely upsetting for everyone involved (of course including players), this is not necessarily the end of new content or the game going into maintenance mode." I even bolded the "not necessarily".

I could not and did not say that the current ZOS team could produce a DLC as complete as Wrothgar, because:
(a) Wrothgar was produced under the compulsory subscription model.
(b) There is so much more code in the game now, therefore so much more scope for bad interactions and bugs.
(c) We don't know the exact makeup of the team that remains.

All we do know that a "reasonable" number of people are left at the studio.

Since then, a whole load of gaming news sites have copied all or parts of the original post, adding their own spin. It's genuinely alarming how little fact checking has been done in spreading my words. None of the sites have contacted me to ask for permission to quote me, and none of them have asked for any credentials or even proof that I was at the ESO Tavern! At last count, four of the sites have also misgendered me - I am and have always been female, but apparently even in 2026 women aren't considered to be serious gamers.

Also, more news has emerged as I've been travelling home from the Tavern (we always drive rather than fly), and now someone's got hold of a full list of job titles of laid-off staff via a Freedom of Information request to the State of Maryland Department of Labor. It's extremely upsetting to see the job titles and think about the people they represent. I already knew that Rich Lambert had been made redundant, but I didn't know about Susan Kath until a few hours ago.

People think I'm not worried about the future of ESO? I'm extremely worried!

But. It's not dead yet.

Just because the team is the same size doesn’t mean the same skill level is there - indeed, Finn’s departure really hurts because he was involved in everything from Dungeons and Trials to the final story bossed as well. The game is also significantly larger with a lot more spaghetti in the code.

This is not the time to drive players away by doing controversial live testing. This is the time to reassure players that their game isn’t going anywhere and the Team will focus on balancing the game (e.g. the Refreshes) instead of trying to optimize a part of the game that definitely does not affect the majority of the players.

The problem with Vengeance is, what if it ends up replacing Gray Host, okay great we have a new gamemode, fleshed everything out, fixed all sets, fixed bugs, etc. What happens if the same performance issues that is happening currently on Gray Host transfers to Vengeance? Then you're essentially repeating the process, that's a loophole. You're doing the same thing again where you're thinking changing the game mode will change the output, and then you'll develop another gamemode to replace Vengeance. That is called insanity, and it's not a way forward and it certainly isn't a way to fixing the state of pvp. Fixing the state of pvp is to adress all current sets in the game, there are too many sets, either revamp, redesign or just remove them. Then there's the other issue, ballgroups. They are the main cause of performance issues, this combined with sets. Nothing else, we've seen this countless times back, in videos & livestreams.
Honestly, if you cannot fix pvp and if this test does not give you the results you want, just call it there and move forward, AKA focus on the class reworks as so many people are craving this.