Soarora wrote: »

I’m glad to hear that our pain points are being addressed with such precise communication! My biggest pain point though is still how time consuming it is to set up a character on the PTS (such as having to dig through boxes to get crystals and upgrade mats, dig through boxes to unlock sets, dig through boxes to get a house, dig through the crown store for a merchant and a transmute station, sell all the basic gear to the merchant, reconstruct all the gear, while spamming the transmute crystal…). I’m very much hoping this gets addressed at some point this year.

Yes, template pain points - especially the time needed for set-up, like you mention - are also something we're aware of and investigating options to improve them.

LunaFlora wrote: »

only thing i still want to know, since updates will launch at the same time now,
will PlayStation and Xbox ever get to test on a dedicated testing server too?

That's a great question and one I asked as well when we first heard we were moving toward simultaneous releases on all platforms. While it's something we'd love to extend to our console players someday, it's a bit more complicated than just flipping a switch to allow console players access to the PTS server. As the PTS is built now for PC, it's a separate client download even though it uses the same patcher as the PC EU and NA servers. This would mean splitting our build pipeline further, and asking our console players to download an additional client, which isn't ideal or realistic. There may be additional technical hurdles as well. It's possible this is something we could revisit when crossplay comes online in the future.

SummersetCitizen wrote: »

It’s easy to emphasize communication now, after output and player engagement have clearly declined. This kind of engagement would have mattered far more during ESO’s peak, not as an afterthought as the game shifts into a live-service maintenance phase.

We’ve seen similar communication promises before, and they often failed to translate into meaningful change. The Season of the Worm Cult launched with issues that were widely reported in advance, yet still shipped largely unchanged. That history makes it difficult to view this as a genuine commitment to player feedback rather than an attempt to manage ongoing dissatisfaction.

Improved communication is welcome, but without demonstrable follow-through, it risks feeling reactive rather than sincere.

This is valid, @SummersetCitizen and we recognize it's on us to make good on what we're saying and work toward improving. We'll give this a shot with the upcoming PTS cycle - starting with these small steps - and evolve as needed and based on everyone's feedback.

And @gabbo1928 yes, we're aligned. As part of our conversations about how we can improve the overall PTS experience for our players, the topic of bug reporting did come up. Great suggestions, thank you!

Galagladi Dragonblood wrote: »

Will be there still the seperation of NA being first and EU later?

That is currently still the plan, yes. On our end, we really need to be able to test both databases during a PTS cycle just to confirm there are no issues with either. We understand the separate copies are not ideal and are open to looking at other options that still meet our needs, but we do need to be able to test both NA and EU and are not able to do both copies simultaneously.

Hi everyone! Following our ESO 2026 Reveal, we’d like to share with you how the PTS – and your valuable participation – will continue to play an integral role in ESO’s future.

What We Heard from You
Last September, we sent out a PTS survey with the goal of getting some additional data on how our players engage with the ESO PTS, motivations, and where there are opportunities to improve the PTS experience. These were the main takeaways:

• 61% of all survey respondents have taken part in the PTS at least once. Of the remaining participants, interest in participating was split with the main reasons for not participating being not understanding how to join, the PTS not being offered on consoles, and not wanting to spoil future content.
• 72% of all survey respondents cited getting to see new content early as the main motivating driver for PTS participation, with supporting the game and helping shape the future of the game following with 47% and 43% respectively.
• Overall satisfaction with the current PTS experience is mixed, with 11% of respondents who have participated in the ESO PTS at least once feeling very satisfied, 46% feeling somewhat satisfied, 27% feeling somewhat dissatisfied, and 17% feeling very dissatisfied.
• The main things survey respondents would like to see change with the PTS experience are more consistent dialogue with the dev team during the PTS (71%), and to see bugs identified on the PTS fixed/patched more quickly (38%).

We agree there are opportunities to improve the feedback loop and overall communication and transparency for our PTS participants. (And overall, too!)

Context on the PTS and How We Use Your Feedback
Before we get into next steps, we’d like to pause here and take a moment to explain how the PTS fits into our development pipeline for ESO. First and foremost, the purpose of the PTS is for us to get hands-on feedback and identify bugs in a live environment before the content goes out onto the live PC and console servers. It is our last stop in the development pipeline before launch. (We also recognize that our players would like a chance to give feedback on content earlier than that “last stop” – more on that a little later in this message.) This is a critical step, as some issues only surface in live environments.

The PTS also allows us to see how players will engage with content and gather valuable data in a live environment ahead of launch. For example, the Dungeons & Trials team will often watch livestreams of new dungeon and trials runs while the content is on the PTS. That real-time, hands-on experience feedback is critical.

As noted above, we also use the PTS to identify things that may be bugged or otherwise not working as intended or resulting in the experience we want. As issues/bugs come in, we prioritize them. We consider scope, impact, ease of the fix, and severity when assigning bug priority. The complexity of an issue and what is needed to resolve it is also a factor. If something is deemed a blocker for launch, for example, it gets higher priority for fixing than a low-impact visual bug. We always try to fix as many things as possible in each update and PTS and live incremental patches, but this is why some things may get fixed before others.

Feedback is another area where the PTS provides us with critical insights. Due to where the PTS falls within our development pipeline, there are limits to how quickly we can respond to feedback, as many of you have noted. There are risks associated with making significant pivots to address feedback that would require complex changes, especially a few weeks before launch. This type of feedback is still valuable; it also takes time to address in the right way, and changes are likely to come after launch or beyond, depending on the scope and complexity. We are exploring options to begin getting your feedback much earlier, ahead of the PTS.

We’ve been discussing how we can best address these challenges with both the timing, the longstanding community desire to be able to give feedback earlier, and the other survey takeaways from above. Below are some things we’ll be trying out, starting with the Update 49 PTS on January 12:

• Begin increasing overall dev team presence on the PTS forums during PTS cycles, with a goal to engage, answer questions, and better acknowledge bug reports.
• Provide a high-level summary of the main PTS topics we are seeing from you each week, and what we’re doing with them. (This is not intended to take the place of patch notes, and we’re aiming to do it on Thursdays or Fridays during PTS cycles.)
• Check in with you after a major PTS cycle concludes to see how we’re doing with our PTS-specific communication, with a short survey.
• While the PTS is generally the last step before launch, we are exploring opportunities to put some content on the PTS well before the scheduled release to allow for longer feedback cycles. This is what we did with Vengeance, for example. When we do this, we will let you know with messaging along the lines of “This content is for testing and not yet confirmed for release.”

Setting Expectations for How You Can Best Help Us
When it comes to how you can best help us on the ESO PTS, reporting bugs, letting us know about things that don’t seem to be working as intended, and providing hands-on feedback about how changes and new content feels will continue to be what we need most.

For reporting bugs, we recommend /bug in-game as the primary approach. A daily report of all /bug reports goes to the dev team leads and QA, and this guarantees it gets into our bug tracking pipeline. If you have screenshots or video to share, reporting the bug on the PTS forum is best since you cannot attach assets to in-game /bug reports.

Lastly, we are taking steps to share what we’re working on and are considering for the future of the game earlier than in years past. This is a fundamental shift for the studio, placing a renewed importance on communication, trust, and collaboration. You may have seen some of this shift begin to take shape late last year with things like our Vengeance Testing & Cyrodiil Community Update and Class Identity Refresh article. Moving forward, you’ll see more of this in the way of livestreams, articles, interviews, and more dedicated to sharing early plans and development updates with you, paired with opportunities to share your thoughts with us. Also, due to how things will be released over time with Seasons versus the previous four big quarterly drops, some upcoming content – like the Night Market – will be on the PTS farther ahead of its launch than before.

We believe all the above will begin moving us in the right direction and enact some meaningful positive changes with our ESO PTS experience and the overall dev-community feedback loop. It’s important to us that you feel like your time on the ESO PTS is valued, and that you understand what we’re doing with your feedback and bug reports. We’re trying some new things here and while this is just the start, that’s where your input and continued collaboration will help ensure we’re on the right track.

Thank you everyone. We look forward to forging the path ahead for ESO with you. If you have any questions about anything you read in this message, please drop them as a reply in this thread. We’ll answer as many as we can.