Moratorium after Update 4?

Kungfu

In other words, do you think new content should be put on hold in favor of fixing all "broken" content?

I've been a cheerleader for the development team here for months now but even I am beginning to lose my patience.

Last night, in Cyrodiil:
- My NB failed to escape people due to Dark Cloaks that broke and revealed me at times no human could predict.
- We fought at a tower for at least a good 60 straight seconds (in a fight, that's a long time) during which time, bar switching lagged by 5-10 seconds, NO players took ANY damage (on BOTH sides), and character stats like health / mag / stam bars lagged horribly after rezzing when things did start "running" again.
- I died many times while my health bar was bugged. I know full well when I get smashed... and I don't complain. If I stepped in the bad and four people hit me at once - that's MY fault. But this was different: something would bug out my health bar and I could watch as I took that next-to-last hit you sometimes get... where your last slivers of magicka and stamina disappear... but with a full bar of life, I'd die a moment later.



Seriously, ZOS. I know you read a lot of crap on these forums and I will be the first to admit that there is a LOT of misplaced frustration.

But I don't WANT to give up on ESO. I WANT to play.

That is why you NEED to put a moratorium on new content and concentrate development efforts on (1)making Cyrodiil flawless or close to, (2)fixing broken abilities, and (3)balancing class / magicka / stamina ability scaling.

ers101284b14_ESO

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

If I thought it was the same team doing it I would say yes. But since its not no.

rophez_ESO

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

No, because the only thing keeping me subscribed is the hope that the Spellcrafting and Champion systems give me a reason to keep playing my character. Right now he's done. Been done for a while. Nothing to shoot for as far as character advancement. I'm sure they have a team working on bugs/balance, there's no reason to stop work on those systems.

Kungfu

Yes - I would prefer a long list of fixes over new content in Update 5

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

If I thought it was the same team doing it I would say yes. But since its not no.

That's my point - they need to pull the content team and give their energy to fixes.
-
Just temporarily... a couple months at most.

Pmarsico9

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

I would say to push through to Spell Crafting and Champion Systems because why fix all this when that's undoubtedly going to roll out a ton more bugs.

Additionally, those systems need to smooth out metric differences between classes.

Following that patch, the game will have new end-game solo content, new end-game group content, and will be in a good position to release some serious bug fixes, balancing fixes, and spend some time expanding zone delves.

ers101284b14_ESO

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

Kungfu wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

If I thought it was the same team doing it I would say yes. But since its not no.

That's my point - they need to pull the content team and give their energy to fixes.
-
Just temporarily... a couple months at most.

Thats probably not how it works. what most likely happens is

Team A- Content A
Team B- Content B
Team C- Content C

Team A finishes content
Gives it to main team to push live
Main team finds problems and starts fixing meanwhile Team A starts Content D

Team B Finishes Content B
Gives it to main team to push live
Main Team finds problems and starts fixing meanwhile Team B starts Content E

ect ect ect.

Pseudonym

Different teams work on different things. Bug fixers aren't setup for developing new content and content designers aren't setup for fixing bugs, so I think they should stick to what they're doing.

Short answer; I'd like both.

LonePirate

Apart from another unwanted Veteran dungeon (City of Ash), I don't think we are receiving much new content in update 5, unless they surprise us. You would think that would be a good update to push for fixes but there are no reasons to think so. Update 5 seems like it may top update 2 as the worst update by far.

Pseudonym

LonePirate wrote: »

Apart from another unwanted Veteran dungeon (City of Ash), I don't think we are receiving much new content in update 5, unless they surprise us. You would think that would be a good update to push for fixes but there are no reasons to think so. Update 5 seems like it may top update 2 as the worst update by far.

Well it at least looks like we're getting a new armour set, which I'm rather stoked about.

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

There are no new motifs or styles going into Update 4, but we are planning on adding a new style in Update 5.

PSLAnimal

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

Kungfu wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

If I thought it was the same team doing it I would say yes. But since its not no.

That's my point - they need to pull the content team and give their energy to fixes.
-
Just temporarily... a couple months at most.

Thats probably not how it works. what most likely happens is

Team A- Content A
Team B- Content B
Team C- Content C

Team A finishes content
Gives it to main team to push live
Main team finds problems and starts fixing meanwhile Team A starts Content D

Team B Finishes Content B
Gives it to main team to push live
Main Team finds problems and starts fixing meanwhile Team B starts Content E

ect ect ect.

As a guy who has been self-employed as a quality systems consultant for about ten years now, and who has done a metric buttload of project management, I have to agree; this is almost certainly how this works.

k9mouse

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

Any game is never 100% "fixed" -- there is always something that someone does not like and they will think it needs to be "fixed" and others like how it is now.

Also, a person who is an awesome program will be very bad at doing art or writing lore. Unless, OP wants the NPC models look like stick figures and have the NPC's dialog written in C++ -- "If player get moon sugar, then give player gets a 'sweetroll'" Somehow, that people do not really talk like that.. just a guest.

liquid_wolf

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

Stopping development for bug fixes does not gain you anything.

Development continues. Bug fixes continue to take place in between.

PSLAnimal

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

Kungfu wrote: »

In other words, do you think new content should be put on hold in favor of fixing all "broken" content?

Kungfu

Yes - I would prefer a long list of fixes over new content in Update 5

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

Kungfu wrote: »

ers101284b14_ESO wrote: »

If I thought it was the same team doing it I would say yes. But since its not no.

That's my point - they need to pull the content team and give their energy to fixes.
-
Just temporarily... a couple months at most.

Thats probably not how it works. what most likely happens is

Team A- Content A
Team B- Content B
Team C- Content C

Team A finishes content
Gives it to main team to push live
Main team finds problems and starts fixing meanwhile Team A starts Content D

Team B Finishes Content B
Gives it to main team to push live
Main Team finds problems and starts fixing meanwhile Team B starts Content E

ect ect ect.

With all due respect, I'm a dev myself - full understanding of SCRUM and all the hot-topic buzzwords flyin' round these days.

Assuming for a moment that their setup IS the way you describe, having Team A drop what they're doing and fix the crap THEY wrote incorrectly any time the "main team" finds issues would be effectively the same... they just have to go way back and fix what they've done wrong.


If I walked into ZOS today, I'd really expect more to see a "deployment" team, a "content" team, a "fix" team, a "support tools" team, and a "QA" team.
Nothing goes live without full QA, of course. However, when QA finds an issue, it's documented and sent back to the original owner(s) for review & revision.

Even then they're more likely to have back-end, middle-tier, and front-end separations in all of those teams. Assuming this has been written with ANY kind of scalability in mind.


What I see in my mind's eye is that at least one or two of these teams now have a backlog of "issues" that need to be resolved.

Regardless of whether they're structured the way you suggest or the way I imagine, the point is that having the person / people who originally wrote the product dive in to chop down that backlog on a short-term basis is not that hard to do. Sure, it'll take managers a week two weeks to organize, developers a couple of weeks to get their tasks divvied up and get their heads wrapped around the stuff they were doing MONTHS / possibly YEARS ago...

Then they can knock this crap out, get some real stability for the customer base, and regenerate some good-faith in their brand.

Pseudonym

The best analogy I can come up with to explain the situation is this;

You have a team of people; a tank (new content), a healer (customer support) and two DPS (bug fixing). If the DPS is taking a long time, the solution isn't for the tank and healer to abandon what they're doing to help out; it's to simply be patient with the DPS.

Best I could do.

Kungfu

Yes - I would prefer a long list of fixes over new content in Update 5

Pseudonym wrote: »

The best analogy I can come up with to explain the situation is this;

You have a team of people; a tank (new content), a healer (customer support) and two DPS (bug fixing). If the DPS is taking a long time, the solution isn't for the tank and healer to abandon what they're doing to help out; it's to simply be patient with the DPS.

Best I could do.

Out of curiosity, how often have you toured ZOS? Or how much do you really know about their internal structure? How many years have you been coding professionally, yourself?

It's frustrating when so few can understand what's proposed. Head + sand = bad.

Pseudonym

Kungfu wrote: »

Pseudonym wrote: »

The best analogy I can come up with to explain the situation is this;

You have a team of people; a tank (new content), a healer (customer support) and two DPS (bug fixing). If the DPS is taking a long time, the solution isn't for the tank and healer to abandon what they're doing to help out; it's to simply be patient with the DPS.

Best I could do.

Out of curiosity, how often have you toured ZOS? Or how much do you really know about their internal structure? How many years have you been coding professionally, yourself?

It's frustrating when so few can understand what's proposed. Head + sand = bad.

I'm not a programmer, and I'm not even in the industry. My best friend and two other good friends of mine have worked in the industry for over a decade though.

I wasn't posting specifics; it was a simple analogy to point out that there are different people working on different things, and that one person might not be suited to other roles. One of my friends works almost exclusively on animation, and never touches programming.

TheMachineKiller

OP said, "No human could predict" //lol. What if I'm not human.

LonePirate

Kungfu wrote: »

If I walked into ZOS today, I'd really expect more to see a "deployment" team, a "content" team, a "fix" team, a "support tools" team, and a "QA" team. Nothing goes live without full QA, of course. However, when QA finds an issue, it's documented and sent back to the original owner(s) for review & revision.

All three sentences in this paragraph made me laugh hysterically.

RDMyers65b14_ESO

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

I rather see the things that have been promised to us such as fixes, the champion system, thieves guild/Dark Brotherhood, player housing than more stuff like Craglorn 2.0. Deliver on the promises and fix the bugs before you start making other things.

TehMagnus

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

"Dear Zenimax,

Please put all resources into bug fixing and fire all your graphic designers/world builders, that will be out of work for months while bugs get fixed since they are unable to fix bugs and no developers will be able to work with them.

Yours truly,

A happy customer that wants to keep this game alive in a extremely logical way."

stefan.gustavsonb16_ESO

Yes - I would prefer a long list of fixes over new content in Update 5

Pseudonym wrote: »

You have a team of people; a tank (new content), a healer (customer support) and two DPS (bug fixing). If the DPS is taking a long time, the solution isn't for the tank and healer to abandon what they're doing to help out; it's to simply be patient with the DPS.

As far as analogies go, this one is pretty good. In those terms, consider this:

One of your DPS guys insists on running ahead to aggro the next boss before you are even half done with the current one, leaving you with just one DPS for the current boss, forcing you to fight on two fronts and ruining every chance you have of winning the fight. Would you still have patience with him, or tell him to get his ass back where he can do some good for the team instead of getting you all killed?

I don't buy the "separate teams" argument. When a product hits release in a state as bad as ESO, you need to restucture and prioritize bug fixes over new content. It doesn't help your bottom line much if you create content for VR12 players if the majority of players are fed up with the game bugs long before they reach level cap. Keeping players from quitting in frustration long before level cap is more important than giving the content gluttons another few days of fresh entertainment every six weeks or so.

It is impossible to create content faster than people can get through it. The most important thing is making existing content enjoyable and repeatable. Cyrodiil is a nice playground when it works. When it doesn't work, which is smarter: develop something else, or fix Cyrodiil so people can enjoy it and keep enjoying it?

Kego

Yes - I would prefer a long list of fixes over new content in Update 5

I can just say that since the Maintainence stopped on weekly base the performance of the server went totally down. Atm. we have lags in every zone, be it PvE or PvP. In Cyrodiil even worse.

There must be major improvements because dealing with minor bugs in the game is one thing, but dealing with lags is gamebreaking an leads to masses of players leaving the game because than it is just unplayable.

purple-magicb16_ESO

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

It wouldn't make a difference. There's a team that maintains the game and fixes bugs, then there's a development team that adds new content. New content always comes with bugs, that can't be helped. It's a fact of gaming. But they need to be staying current and giving players new content in order to stay competeitive. Look at it from their perspective: if they put all their resources into fixing and nothing into new content, they would put themselves out of business b/c no one would want to play the same old content over and over despite the fact that it works perfectly. Dropping the new content means they will no longer have their competitive edge, they lose all their membership, go f2p then the game dies a slow and painful death. Even to do it temporarily is a big risk. To us this is just a game, but the reality is that its a business and this would be a very risky business decision. And as I said earlier, you will never get all the bugs out. Even if it works, the minute they go back to adding new content, you will see new bugs.

BTW: your choice selections really put words into people's mouths. Its not quite the way I would say it but my answer is no.

Tavore1138

Neither - let them get through the announced content as it is already underway, lets see Imperial City, Champion system, Wrothgar etc...

THEN lets see a push to maximise stability once they have fleshed out enough content to keep people busy.

dennissomb16_ESO

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

Neither. Continue on as they have been doing, adding content, tweaks, bug fixes etc

spoqster

No - New content is the main reason I play and I can't get more fast enough

I voted NO, but not for me. I am still at VR5 so I have a god 6-8 weeks of PvE content at my current rate. But I presume the VR12 need more content to be happy.

But this doesn't mean that I'm not with you. I've had some serious lag issues yesterday. I got smashed in PvE by Hadran and Azum (Nightblade with Healer), trying to do them alone at veteran level. Together they have almost 18k hitpoints. I can handle that alone if it's a single enemy, but two with one of them being a healer and the other doing a stun on every second attack is a tough job for a tank. I beat them one out of 10 or 15 times, so it's possible if I pull off my best game.

The point I am trying to make is that at a perfect difficulty level - which I regard this opponent pair to be - an opponent is only beatable if you pull off your best game AND the game responds to your commands. I've had bar-switching lags multiple times, and every time it results in a few hundred magicka or stamina points lost, and every time it disrupts my pattern, usually to point a can't recover from. I won't die instantly, but shortly thereafter.

To sum up, in a tough PvE boss fight a single bar-switching lag can result in a lost fight. That's pretty tough on motivation. So while I voted NO because I believe new content is key and players are going to leave the game if the justice system is not released soon, I still believe at least bar-switching should be smoothed out and this should be a high priority.

OrangeTheCat

Yes - I would prefer a long list of fixes over new content in Update 5

Yes, a 1000 times yes!

raglau

No, my sub doesn't pay for dev time to fix what should be fit for purpose upon release, that should be fixed at ZoS cost in their own time.

My sub pays for value add.

robertlive2014

Kungfu wrote: »

... [have] the person / people who originally wrote the product dive in to chop down that backlog on a short-term basis is not that hard to do.

This is the kind of thing that can only come from good leadership. It's not uncommon to hear stories several years afterward about product teams on now enormously successful products, that were once directed to stop all development on "vnext" and instead focus first on eliminating the backlog of issues with the product's current version. These stories usually go something like this, "When so-and-so took over our group, the first thing he/she did was put a moratorium on new development, insisting that the entire group participate in fixing the existing product. It was a ton of work! When we finally started on new development again, everyone was much more careful, and a lot fewer new bugs were created."

KhajitFurTrader

This poll... this question -- it seems familiar. Like, I think I've seen it before. Once or twice, maybe even three times before.

The idea that there are in fact several different teams simultaneously at work on different aspects of the game doesn't seem to have taken on a widespread hold, then. Oh, well.