Lagfest....Bugville.....Craptastic

Polwight · May 2014

I have been around the block more than a few times with MMO gaming starting in 99 with EQ and progressing through pretty much every title on the market but this steaming *** you call a product has got to be the worst excuse for an MMO to have ever entered the market. I have been patient and understanding with the roll-out, as I said I was around in '99 for EQ roll-out I know how things progress.

The problem here is that things ARE NOT progressing. Things are regressing rapidly and in a crowded market space like MMO gaming it makes one pause and wonder wtf the priorities are for your resources and time. Honestly what are you people doing to right this ship in a rapid fashion so your retention of subscriptions simply does not continue to bleed away. From where I am sitting the answer to that question is a big zero.

-Lag in PvP is out of control. I ran to ash siege three times tonight only to lag-freeze 15 seconds upon arrival and come back from lag-freeze dead from who knows what. Do you know how not fun it is to spend 5 minutes running to action then lag-lock and die not once, not twice, but three freakin times! FIX THIS LAG NOW!

-Bugs Where does one even begin to express ones' displeasure about the state of bugs in this game. Whether it be wall repair bug, the caltrop bug rendering the centerpiece of your pvp battles,namely siege equipment, all but utterly useless. Ever tried using a forward camp you just purchased for 7,500 ap only to find absolutely no place to put it down because of bug-ville. How pissed does that make somebody after working hard to raise the ap to make a difference in a battle by plopping down a forward camp only to spend 20 minutes wasting time trying to find someplace to actually deploy it. How about the "still engaged in combat" bug preventing you from mounting your horse even though you've been out of combat for three freakin minutes and now have actually run on foot to the destination. Postern door bugs make me just want to scream and they happen without fail two hours into any gaming session. I don't even want to continue the litany of redundancy that is bugs in this game. Seriously where did you find these coders you are using to write this game?

-Unresponsive UI There is nothing more infuriating than this excuse of a UI you instituted in this game. You might as well take weapon swapping option out of PVP because it simply isn't an option due to the 5 second delay required to make it work. Often it swaps after your revived at a keep having gotten your ass handed to you as if to say lets add insult to injury....what a joke. To further pontificate upon this wonderful UI why only six hotkeys per hotbar? Seriously why? You gave me all these terrific choices that I worked my ass off to open up in the skill-tree and I can only use 12 (really six because the weapon swapping is so poorly coded you'll never swap weapons in a heated battle). I pay for the damn skills through my time and my money let me use the damn things and institute a real UI with options that actually allow me to use the skills I've busted my tail to earn.

The core of the problem as I see it is priorities. Your priorities are so far out of whack I don't even know if it is worth the time to elaborate on them. Why are you polishing aesthetics of the game when the core play-ability of it is so far removed from stable that it is literally hit or miss you'll even be able to load into the game. Wonderful new sounds when you open a keep door or pretty new outfits are nice and all but not at the expense of fixing the damn game so the basics actually work. You people honestly feel a pretty game is all you need to be a contender in the market? FIX THE DAMN GAME so it works reliably then pump out your content and aesthetic fixes. You are seriously putting the cart before the horse on this subject matter and it is literally pissing people off to the point they are just giving up hope and leaving. It is seven times less costly to retain customers than to attract new customers to your brand....get this *** fixed now!

On a separate but equally important note. I grow tired of the antics of this industry and how they use a paying player base to beta test their product. In business there are such things as implied and expressed warranties. Your implied warranty to your customer base was a finished product which you have clearly not in any shape or form delivered upon. Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised in the least if a begrudged paying customer sought out legal counsel to see what recourse of class action suits they might have to end this cycle of abuse they continually encounter at the hands of large corporate gaming interests.

In summary get your priorities right and FIX THE DAMN GAME already!

zombie2kornout · May 2014

product,

While I agree somewhat with your sentiment here, I think you are being just a tad juvenile. Do you really think that coders, designers, and artists do the same jobs? Is it really your view that if they only took those sound engineers off of those keep doors, maybe they could have fixed the caltrops bug? Should they just lay those people off until they fix these bugs and then rehire them so that it does not look like they are concentrating on other things while they are sorting out their software nightmare? Pull it together, man! You sound like a bratty little turd.

You are right in several respects, I think. They are not doing enough to fix a lot of glaring issues, but I felt like flipping my own view 180 degrees just to disagree with you upon reading that post.

Polwight · May 2014

Zombie,

I see your business acumen is somewhat lacking so I will answer you as directly as I know how. In a corporate structure there is finite time and resources. With those finite time and resources the objective is profit maximization. That objective is brought about by the decision-making of those at the top of the food chain.

If those at the top of the food chain continually make poor decisions about the best-interests of their organization then their organization ceases to be a going-concern. If they are continually repeating mistakes of past failed business ventures and prioritizing trivial features over core fundamental short-comings then yes fundamental changes need to be made abruptly. If allocation of their finite resources is misdirected in areas it will and can impact the core of the organization.

Who and who does not have jobs is not the question it is who is making the decisions and why are they failing so miserably at it. Line workers just do what they are told. Brass are the ones missing the mark entirely and they are the ones that need a serious wake-up call about the state of this enterprise.

I for one am tired of sub-standard performing products in this genre and the only way to affect change is to hold peoples feet to the fire. Perhaps you are satisfied with this mediocre effort but I for one am sorely unsatisfied and I will and can voice that dissatisfaction.

dennis.schmelzleb16_ESO · May 2014

Problem is: amount of programmers during development - 50
Amount of programmers after release: 3 and 2 trainees

Happens to most IT-projects

frwinters_ESO · May 2014

any thread who starts with their game resume should be ignored. I played this for x years, i mastered this Y game.

Just get to your point.

Polwight · May 2014

Dennis,

You are absolutely correct as that is the model of how IT budgets go when games are in full launch. Perhaps it is time to rethink that philosophy these gaming companies hold. In the end it really does become more costly to them in terms of lost revenue than if they would simply retain a qualified staff of IT professionals to ensure functionality. The cost of those IT salaries pale in comparison to what these mistakes cost in terms of customer goodwill, reputation and subscription retention.

frwinters,

I rarely if ever pay much credence to someone who doesn't understand the proper use of there and their. If you wish to argue the merits of the post please do so but if you've nothing constructive to add to actually fix the game please refrain from posting in this thread thanks.

I didn't even get into class balance issues, the economy and the state of the game post-patch....that is another whole ball of wax.

zombie2kornout · May 2014

Polwight,

Let me start by saying that your initial post is not nearly as reasonable as your reply.

As far as I am aware, artists, programmers, sound engineers, etc are not interchangeable. Now, it is not clear whether they do not have enough programming support (or design know-how) to fix balance and bugs, but it is clear that the artists and sound engineers are not hired to do that work.

Clearly they are doing something wrong on one part of the game (which you have noted), but you have no idea why. All you know is that they have not fixed things properly on one end and that they are continuing to forge ahead on another. To you this means that they must have prioritized sound and art over design and quality control. Why? In other words, why is that the only answer?

Is it possible that they are terrible programmers? Is it possible that the lead designer is awful? Is it possible that they made some serious screw ups in the code and are taking awhile to rework some things from scratch?

Sure, all of these things are possible. The simple fact that new art is coming out does not indicate a problem with priorities. It does not indicate that art has won a zero sum game with programming. It could mean a lot of things. Things are clearly wrong on the programming side--I agree. However, your post appeared to be a petulant rage diatribe because you simply noted A and B existed and concluded that A must have caused B. Your reasoning is silly and your attitude in your first post was silly (including your old username "shittyproduct").

Polwight · May 2014

Unreasonable?....really I am being unreasonable in my expectations that when I purchased this product it would work as advertised? I think you are being unreasonable in your accepting half-baked products that with each new title in this genre grow increasingly worse.

As it stands now everyone who purchased this product has pretty much been sold a bill-of-goods and forgive me for feeling jaded about that fact but two months removed from launch and the quality of this product is DEGRADING not IMPROVING. That is a serious problem and things need to change abruptly.

The world of budgeting, finance and business is a zero-sum game that is what you are failing to understand. If allocations of resources are being made into aesthetic aspects of improvement, then aspects of functionality stand to take a serious hit due to those misallocations. It really is that simple and for the life of me cannot understand why you live in a world where A,B and C are exclusive from one another. In the real-world of business I assure you they are all interdependent.

Listen mate you can spray all the perfume you want to on a turd, dress it up in designer clothes, but at the end of the day a turd is still a turd and this game at present is a steaming turd.

My patience and good-graces with this company are about expired. I've been unable to play in Cyrodiil since the patch due to ungodly lag and the PVE in this game is nothing but a linear yawn-fest of uninspired kill one, two or three mob clusters. Seriously the only aspect of the game I care to participate and pay for and that can't even be done due to lack of functionality. Where does one seriously draw the line and say enough is enough?

Betamax is in full damage-control at the moment as evidenced by the change of my name with no explanation or even the courtesy of a "hey we changed your name". As for me I refuse to continue to pay for a crappy product and I assure you that by continuing to pay for this product it sends a clear message to other future title entries into this market-space that delivering half completed products in an effort to execute a cash grab is A-OK with the consumer. It is not OK and it needs to end.

P.S. FIX THE DAMN GAME

Polwight · May 2014

So no response in any form or fashion about any of the issues outlined in this post? I would seriously like some communication or statements about how this product is being fixed so I can ascertain whether I wish to continue to be a paying customer or not.

Subscriptions are just about due and some guidance to the consumer so they can make an intelligent informed decision about their purchasing habits would at the very least be greatly appreciated.

frwinters_ESO · May 2014

frwinters,

I rarely if ever pay much credence to someone who doesn't understand the proper use of there and their..

THERE I fixed it.

Mends_from_Shadows · May 2014

Lag, Caltrops exploit, Forward Camp bugs, Merc Spam/Invincibility. WTB ZOS Response. PST.

Wolfahm · May 2014

""Hail Wolfahm, on this Torredas, 27th of Second Seed!

We apologize you are having trouble with the skill delay implemented in the latest patch as well as presumable server lag. We understand how frustrating this can be, having to halt your progression. Recently from the patch update we have received reports of players having issues similar to this. There are several reasons why this might occur.

Although this is quite rhetorical, lag errors can also be caused by graphical errors or server over load.

To test whether the problem is a graphical error, log into a secondary character and then press Esc, which brings up the Options menu. On that menu select Graphic Options. Under Presets select Low. After that, log back into your main character. The lower graphics may enable you to log into your main character. You can then move your graphical settings back.

If your problem is due to a server error, you may be experiencing long load times whenever you try to log in to the game or move from one region to the next. Please check the Service Alerts on our support web site for the latest updates on the game. We will work to resolve issues as quickly as possible.

At this moment there is not a current solution, as our team is just being made aware of the issue. The developmental team will investigate further and upon finding a solution will upload in the following patch. The team will not inform you directly of the progress but you can check online at www.ElderscrollsOnline.com for any updates posted by our team.
Thank you for your continued interest and support!

Warm Regards,
The Elder Scrolls Online Team""

Nitratas · May 2014

Totally agree with you Polwight. I'm feeling the exact same way about this game. The silence of zenimax suggests that either they are totally ignorant and have no idea what's going on or the cashgrab was totally worth and they just don't give a rat's ass anymore.

Oh and seems like most of the PvP guilds and big organised teams are disbanding too. PvP is just impossible with the insane lag, constant crashes, game starting to bug out when theres more than 15 members in the raidgroup etc etc

Mends_from_Shadows · May 2014

Yep. PvP is dying a slow painful death.