Are people starting to give up on ZOS?

PinoZino

NadiusMaximus wrote: »

Laypeople have been reporting the same bugs, exploits,lag, and broken abilities since beta, and nothing much has been done.
You just don't get why people are giving up even after the release of the fix all, balance all, end all mega patch they had been promising since last spring that finally came in form of a dlc and has failed miserably with everyone I know and many others.
But that's just my opinion.

Reporting bugs, exploits and other issues can be carried out by players. Why not?
But don't listen to their solutions.
Btw, not all the bugs are discovered by the users. Mostly, what the users can detect aren't real serious problems.

Any big software project, and ESO is big, contains bugs. All projects are limited by resources, workforce and technical and practical constraints.

It means when a bug is discovered, analyzed and 'official' accepted as a bug, it will get a priority.

Unfortunate the bigger and more complex your software project is, the more bugs will occur.

After some time you could have a lengthy list of open bugs. And they have to choose:

• Will we fix this bug which is problematic for all, which is a showstopper?
• Or will we fix this rather unimportant bug which is having a workaround?

I can imagine that ESO contains a rather long list of bugs of the last category.

Be patient, one day or another they’ll start working on the low priority bugs.

Leandor

PinoZino wrote: »

Btw, not all the bugs are discovered by the users. Mostly, what the users can detect aren't real serious problems.

Ah, those literaly game breaking things that allow exploiting - like animation cancelling (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), purge/wall of elements synergy, dawnbreaker of smiting, camo hunter, rearming traps - are not the important bugs, just the dregs found by players, so they can remain for weeks unchecked and unpunished, because they are not actually bugs in your programmer's sense?

You've got to be kidding me.

PinoZino

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Btw, not all the bugs are discovered by the users. Mostly, what the users can detect aren't real serious problems.

Ah, those literaly game breaking things that allow exploiting - like animation cancelling (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), purge/wall of elements synergy, dawnbreaker of smiting, camo hunter, rearming traps - are not the important bugs, just the dregs found by players, so they can remain for weeks unchecked and unpunished, because they are not actually bugs in your programmer's sense?

You've got to be kidding me.

They are maybe important but less important as show stoppers. Like it or not.

I usually work four levels:

• Level 1 - Showstoppers. Stuff that's crashing the game
• Level 2 - Stuff that's nasty for a significant amount of people
• Level 3 - Bugs with a workaround
• Level 4 - Bugs which are annoying for a small amount of people

But some work with more (or less) levels.

We the players can’t prioritize the bugs, unless it’s a showstopper. We don’t have access to the data, we don’t know about ZOS their planning. As a result what you feel as very important could be not that important at all. Or it’s possible that they know about a specific bug, but keep it in the game because in 4 weeks they already planned to rework the entire functionality.

Leandor

PinoZino wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Btw, not all the bugs are discovered by the users. Mostly, what the users can detect aren't real serious problems.

Ah, those literaly game breaking things that allow exploiting - like animation cancelling (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), purge/wall of elements synergy, dawnbreaker of smiting, camo hunter, rearming traps - are not the important bugs, just the dregs found by players, so they can remain for weeks unchecked and unpunished, because they are not actually bugs in your programmer's sense?

You've got to be kidding me.

They are maybe important but less important as show stoppers. Like it or not.

I usually work four levels:

• Level 1 - Showstoppers. Stuff that's crashing the game
• Level 2 - Stuff that's nasty for a significant amount of people
• Level 3 - Bugs with a workaround
• Level 4 - Bugs which are annoying for a small amount of people

But some work with more (or less) levels.

We the players can’t prioritize the bugs, unless it’s a showstopper. We don’t have access to the data, we don’t know about ZOS their planning. As a result what you feel as very important could be not that important at all. Or it’s possible that they know about a specific bug, but keep it in the game because in 4 weeks they already planned to rework the entire functionality.

Okay, your priorities are definitely different than mine. There can't be anything more important than exploitable game mechanics. No matter what sources you refer to, using these mechanics is a bannable offense in any and every game that is not single-player or ESO. Fixing these has to take precedence over everything else.

So pull out all your theoretical sources and argue however you want, I will still see your defense of ZOS exploit fixing strategy as ridiculous.

Zanfire

Alot of game developers, especially in MMORPGs, tend to transform their games, making them more easy and/or approchable for both the old and new players. These kind of games tend to simplify, becomeing a more user friendly experience while time pass.

This is not the treatment ESO is enduring, so far.

End game content is almost only limited to rehearsed groups, leaving the more occasional gamer without much to do when he strike higher levels.

PvP is badly balanced, especially on the few vs few side.

There are not pvp free VR12-16 areas easily approchable in solo play

The game becomed clunky after the last patch, with many players experiencing frustrating loading times that kills exploration (and not a word on them by developers).

The trading system is nice and interesting, but not so friendly.

Console versione can't enjoy a text chat, and are forced to emply headset and, often a language different from their native one to easily communicate with others (ZOS probably think that everyone is/should be good with english).

Etc.

This can be a valid motive for people to move away from the game. I'm still into ESO mostly because, on PS4, I have no other MMORPG options, so I'll wait more, hoping for the game will develop better than it's doing.

Still, Fallout4 is close enough to make mi think about renewing my monthly subscription.

Rosveen

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Btw, not all the bugs are discovered by the users. Mostly, what the users can detect aren't real serious problems.

Ah, those literaly game breaking things that allow exploiting - like animation cancelling (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), purge/wall of elements synergy, dawnbreaker of smiting, camo hunter, rearming traps - are not the important bugs, just the dregs found by players, so they can remain for weeks unchecked and unpunished, because they are not actually bugs in your programmer's sense?

You've got to be kidding me.

They are maybe important but less important as show stoppers. Like it or not.

I usually work four levels:

• Level 1 - Showstoppers. Stuff that's crashing the game
• Level 2 - Stuff that's nasty for a significant amount of people
• Level 3 - Bugs with a workaround
• Level 4 - Bugs which are annoying for a small amount of people

But some work with more (or less) levels.

We the players can’t prioritize the bugs, unless it’s a showstopper. We don’t have access to the data, we don’t know about ZOS their planning. As a result what you feel as very important could be not that important at all. Or it’s possible that they know about a specific bug, but keep it in the game because in 4 weeks they already planned to rework the entire functionality.

Okay, your priorities are definitely different than mine. There can't be anything more important than exploitable game mechanics. No matter what sources you refer to, using these mechanics is a bannable offense in any and every game that is not single-player or ESO. Fixing these has to take precedence over everything else.

So pull out all your theoretical sources and argue however you want, I will still see your defense of ZOS exploit fixing strategy as ridiculous.

I hate exploits is much as anyone else, but no. Just no. The first priority are always literally game-breaking bugs. Technical issues usually. Inability to login, excessive crashes, blocked critical path progress. Game mechanics dont't matter when you can't play the game at all.

Leandor

Rosveen wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Btw, not all the bugs are discovered by the users. Mostly, what the users can detect aren't real serious problems.

Ah, those literaly game breaking things that allow exploiting - like animation cancelling (it's not a bug, it's a feature!), purge/wall of elements synergy, dawnbreaker of smiting, camo hunter, rearming traps - are not the important bugs, just the dregs found by players, so they can remain for weeks unchecked and unpunished, because they are not actually bugs in your programmer's sense?

You've got to be kidding me.

They are maybe important but less important as show stoppers. Like it or not.

I usually work four levels:

• Level 1 - Showstoppers. Stuff that's crashing the game
• Level 2 - Stuff that's nasty for a significant amount of people
• Level 3 - Bugs with a workaround
• Level 4 - Bugs which are annoying for a small amount of people

But some work with more (or less) levels.

We the players can’t prioritize the bugs, unless it’s a showstopper. We don’t have access to the data, we don’t know about ZOS their planning. As a result what you feel as very important could be not that important at all. Or it’s possible that they know about a specific bug, but keep it in the game because in 4 weeks they already planned to rework the entire functionality.

Okay, your priorities are definitely different than mine. There can't be anything more important than exploitable game mechanics. No matter what sources you refer to, using these mechanics is a bannable offense in any and every game that is not single-player or ESO. Fixing these has to take precedence over everything else.

So pull out all your theoretical sources and argue however you want, I will still see your defense of ZOS exploit fixing strategy as ridiculous.

I hate exploits is much as anyone else, but no. Just no. The first priority are always literally game-breaking bugs. Technical issues usually. Inability to login, excessive crashes, blocked critical path progress. Game mechanics dont't matter when you can't play the game at all.

Everyone to his own. A couple days of not logging in is less of an issue for me than duping hundredthousands of tempers that kill my fun in trading so thoroughly that I still don't bother to play the market after one and a half years. Or the purge bug and camo bug, both of which made me stop playing the game for months.

And, to return to the topic that made me start posting here, if they continue to ignore players that say that their idea of RNG based rewards is bonkers, ignoring player feedback will definitely lose them one player at least, insignificant as that may be.

PinoZino

Leandor wrote: »

Okay, your priorities are definitely different than mine. There can't be anything more important than exploitable game mechanics. No matter what sources you refer to, using these mechanics is a bannable offense in any and every game that is not single-player or ESO. Fixing these has to take precedence over everything else.

So pull out all your theoretical sources and argue however you want, I will still see your defense of ZOS exploit fixing strategy as ridiculous.

And that's why the players can't prioritize the bugs. You may feel that some bug is very important, while another don't care.

To be able to prioritize, you need more data.

That's not only theoretical the best approach, so is it working with most software projects, including games.

With an exploit, you still can play the game. With a showstopper you can't. Doesn't mean the exploit isn't important, only less important as the showstopper.

FuzzyDuck79

@PinoZino So opinion counts for nothing? Only facts matter? Who are you originally marketing to if you don't know your own customers or listen to them? Do they just put a product out and "hope" people will buy it or like it? And fact is I see a lot of negative posts, a lot of posts about bugs, over a period of time. Again if you want to monitor how people are using your game, where better than to check feedback on the forums? I fail to see how they can give us this product and then sit back and watch how we use it in order to make it better. Nobody from ZoS has popped out my Xbox to see yet...

PinoZino

Zanfire wrote: »

Alot of game developers, especially in MMORPGs, tend to transform their games, making them more easy and/or approchable for both the old and new players. These kind of games tend to simplify, becomeing a more user friendly experience while time pass.

This is not the treatment ESO is enduring, so far.

End game content is almost only limited to rehearsed groups, leaving the more occasional gamer without much to do when he strike higher levels.

PvP is badly balanced, especially on the few vs few side.

There are not pvp free VR12-16 areas easily approchable in solo play

The game becomed clunky after the last patch, with many players experiencing frustrating loading times that kills exploration (and not a word on them by developers).

The trading system is nice and interesting, but not so friendly.

Console versione can't enjoy a text chat, and are forced to emply headset and, often a language different from their native one to easily communicate with others (ZOS probably think that everyone is/should be good with english).

Etc.

This can be a valid motive for people to move away from the game. I'm still into ESO mostly because, on PS4, I have no other MMORPG options, so I'll wait more, hoping for the game will develop better than it's doing.

Still, Fallout4 is close enough to make mi think about renewing my monthly subscription.

Making something user-friendly doesn't mean you're simplifying it. That’s a myth which is still alive in the wild. Some call it dumbing down the user.

In fact, it can happen that you make the interface more complex and more user-friendly at the same time.

User-friendly means, you make the UI usable the best you can, for a specific audience, with specific tasks, with specific tools in a specific environment. Context of use is important.

There's a link with the experience of the user and the complexity of the UI. In general you can serve experienced players a more complex UI. But even that complex UI can be better usable.

I'm not a fan of Voice Chat, but it's possible that most people on Console wouldn't use Text Chat. You could say 'I'm sure they would', but you really don't. Neither do I.

I can only hope that they carried out several user tests and discovered that Console players don't use Text Chat when Voice Chat exists.

You are not 'thé user', you are 'a user'. But more people think 'I have a problem with this, so is everyone'. It's just another argument why you never let the users decide how the UI should look like.

PinoZino

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

@PinoZino So opinion counts for nothing? Only facts matter? Who are you originally marketing to if you don't know your own customers or listen to them? Do they just put a product out and "hope" people will buy it or like it? And fact is I see a lot of negative posts, a lot of posts about bugs, over a period of time. Again if you want to monitor how people are using your game, where better than to check feedback on the forums? I fail to see how they can give us this product and then sit back and watch how we use it in order to make it better. Nobody from ZoS has popped out my Xbox to see yet...

In fact you have to know your users very well. It's a cornerstone like context of use or goals of the users.

There are several approaches, I prefer to work with what we call 'User Profiles', it's basically a list with 20 or 30 parameters about a specific category of the user population.

It can happen that (and in ESO it is) you need more than 1 User Profile. Games for the mass do have several categories of people.

What could be interesting?

Age, gender, educational background, experience rate with the game, experience rate with similar games, experience level with computers or consoles in general, when are they playing, what tools are they using playing the game (by instance, do they use a keyboard or not on the consoles), language they use and languages they know, how are they playing (behind a pc at close range or from a distance using a TV), ...

If you don't have that information you still can improve the UI but you're risking you're building stuff for the wrong audience.

A forum-member isn't a good sample, they certainly do not represent the average user. Forum-members in general are dedicated and have a critical attitude. Not all the people are like that. In fact, most are not.

They do have other methods to gather better samples of specific user categories.

Dru1076

PinoZino wrote: »

Dru1076 wrote: »

Very interesting. But just your opinion, and therefore it means nothing.

Fact is, opinions ARE important. But not everyone will have the same opinion, of course.

No, it's not an opinion. Since they studied and analyzed this rather broad and deep.
We know for sure that opinions are crap.

At Apple they didn't went to the customers: "Can we have your opinion about building a phone?" nor didn't they ask "Here is a prototype of a new phone device, tell me your opinion about it".

No, what they did was building low and high-fidelity prototypes, gave them to users and ask them to carry out tasks like 'phone someone' or 'make a picture'.

They just watched what the users did, where they failed, where they had difficulties in executing the task.

Later they analyzed everything, went again to the drawing board and returned to the test users until all were satisfied.

Building an UI or a game idea is a profession. The learning curve is hard and steep. And this academic knowledge is just a start, you also needs tons of experience.

Tell me, why would the learning curve be hard and steep when a utter noob could do the job as well?

Tell me, why do they pay guys like Nielsen, Mayhew, Cooper, Norman and others ridiculous amounts of money per day if an uber noob can do it for free?

I confess I did not read your entire post. I was only referring to your opinion that opinions mean nothing. I hope you see the flaw there, because its a glaring one. I lost interest after that.

PinoZino

Dru1076 wrote: »

I confess I did not read your entire post. I was only referring to your opinion that opinions mean nothing. I hope you see the flaw there, because its a glaring one. I lost interest after that.

You can have statements based on evidence and opinions based on personal feelings and believe.

I can't help it when you can't smell the difference.

Oh and thank you for not answering my 2 simple questions:

• Tell me, why would the learning curve be hard and steep when a utter noob could do the job as well?
• Tell me, why do they pay guys like Nielsen, Mayhew, Cooper, Norman and others ridiculous amounts of money per day if an uber noob can do it for free?

Kleptobrainiac

b92303008rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Complaints and rants are dying down compared to one or two weeks ago. And less than 800 people watched ESO Live yesterday while the number were easily over 1000 in the past few months. Is ESO way past the turning point that it can never recover again?

TL:DR = I don't see enough complaining so here's my complaint.

Seriously? How many times have you seen a thread that references the high number of complaints and then equates that to the death of a game. Now we're getting threads that try to equate the lack of complaint threads to the death of a game.

Seems logical.

Leandor

PinoZino wrote: »

Tell me, why do they pay guys like Nielsen, Mayhew, Cooper, Norman and others ridiculous amounts of money per day if an uber noob can do it for free?

If I have learned anything in engineering (as in mechanical), you pay for them to take responsibility, not knowledge.

Alucardo

ZOS, I heart you and will never give up on you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMBQcR-OPyY

PinoZino

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Tell me, why do they pay guys like Nielsen, Mayhew, Cooper, Norman and others ridiculous amounts of money per day if an uber noob can do it for free?

If I have learned anything in engineering (as in mechanical), you pay for them to take responsibility, not knowledge.

Sure. And without the knowledge, they can't act responsible.

Leandor

PinoZino wrote: »

Leandor wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Tell me, why do they pay guys like Nielsen, Mayhew, Cooper, Norman and others ridiculous amounts of money per day if an uber noob can do it for free?

If I have learned anything in engineering (as in mechanical), you pay for them to take responsibility, not knowledge.

Sure. And without the knowledge, they can't act responsible.

No offense meant, but that is naive.

PinoZino

Leandor wrote: »

No offense meant, but that is naive.

No, not at all. It are not politicians.

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

It's a competitive market and peer review is the norm.

If one would fail too much, they wouldn't hire him anymore after a while.

I saw this happen here with some company in my country. Fancy website, expensive office at an A-location, slick managers in designer suits, they had it all.

They tried to sell UX together with a neuro-linguistic programming sauce.

At the start they were very successful. Their story sounded good.
Two years later they went bankrupt.

NLP isn't scientific and this company their findings were not based on evidence.

FuzzyDuck79

Based on evidence from playing the game, watching ESO live, looking through the forums and checking guild rosters, player population is declining. The decline happened after the latest patch and DLC. That's statistics and fact. Something is wrong and maybe listening to a few ideas would put "fun" back into the game.

Callous2208

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

Based on evidence from playing the game, watching ESO live, looking through the forums and checking guild rosters, player population is declining. The decline happened after the latest patch and DLC. That's statistics and fact. Something is wrong and maybe listening to a few ideas would put "fun" back into the game.

Still just opinion. 4 of my 5 guilds have grown since IC dropped. The 5th stays locked at 500 because of a sweet trader spot. If you're going by forum opinion, the game was dead prior to launch.

FuzzyDuck79

Look at majority of guild rosters... look at forums... look at numbers of viewers fall watching ESO live... Look at player population in towns in game now... That's not my opinion.

PinoZino

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

Based on evidence from playing the game, watching ESO live, looking through the forums and checking guild rosters, player population is declining. The decline happened after the latest patch and DLC. That's statistics and fact. Something is wrong and maybe listening to a few ideas would put "fun" back into the game.

That's anecdotal evidence and thus an opinion.

The guilds I belong to are all growing, except a smaller one.
In my own guild many members are online a lot. I hope they get some sleep.

Doesn't mean it's growing everywhere.

And I do not have the impression the player population is declining. It depends a bit of the location, I guess.

How did you check the forum activity?

EQBallzz

Jamersonb16_ESO wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

b92303008rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Complaints and rants are dying down compared to one or two weeks ago. And less than 800 people watched ESO Live yesterday while the number were easily over 1000 in the past few months. Is ESO way past the turning point that it can never recover again?

i think its been past it for a long time for alot of people but the lack of another game to go to has kept them here

So much this. The second a decent alternative is released ZOS are in real trouble. They've benefitted massively from a dreadful MMO market over the last year - particularly Archeage being such a disaster.

Pretty much this. Ever since B2P conversion this game is on the downhill slide and is only getting worse. If there was another decent MMO out I think the exodus would have been much more apparent. Hell, I'm even giving Wildstar another shot since it's F2P and I have nothing better to do and I hated Wildstar when it released (played one of the last beta weekends and quit playing before the weekend even ended it was so dull).

If WS doesn't keep me interested (and I doubt it will) I will probably just keep playing single player games for the foreseeable future. Mad Max, FO4, Witcher3 etc..The MMO genre is a complete wreck with this F2P/B2P garbage and there is really nothing on the horizon to change that.

Callous2208

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

Look at majority of guild rosters... look at forums... look at numbers of viewers fall watching ESO live... Look at player population in towns in game now... That's not my opinion.

As I said forum activity or demeanor is not a good indicator as most players don't use the forum and even less comment on the boards. Could be difference in region and perhaps console/pc as well. As I stated my guilds are active and growing, major towns and hubs are loaded with players. This is on pc/na though.

PinoZino

EQBallzz wrote: »

Pretty much this. Ever since B2P conversion this game is on the downhill slide and is only getting worse. If there was another decent MMO out I think the exodus would have been much more apparent. Hell, I'm even giving Wildstar another shot since it's F2P and I have nothing better to do and I hated Wildstar when it released (played one of the last beta weekends and quit playing before the weekend even ended it was so dull).

If WS doesn't keep me interested (and I doubt it will) I will probably just keep playing single player games for the foreseeable future. Mad Max, FO4, Witcher3 etc..The MMO genre is a complete wreck with this F2P/B2P garbage and there is really nothing on the horizon to change that.

The Jehovah's Witnesses also predicted in 1874 the Armageddon would start.

They later changed it to 1878, 1881, 1914, 1925 and 1974.

It didn't happen.

B2P was probably a golden move.

As a matter of fact the subscription market in general is shrinking. All the MMO games together had worldwide 30.6 million subscribers in 2010 and 23.4 million in 2014

ZOS could deny that trend or try something different.

They tried something different. We'll see if it will work out.

Callous2208

EQBallzz wrote: »

Jamersonb16_ESO wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

b92303008rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Complaints and rants are dying down compared to one or two weeks ago. And less than 800 people watched ESO Live yesterday while the number were easily over 1000 in the past few months. Is ESO way past the turning point that it can never recover again?

i think its been past it for a long time for alot of people but the lack of another game to go to has kept them here

So much this. The second a decent alternative is released ZOS are in real trouble. They've benefitted massively from a dreadful MMO market over the last year - particularly Archeage being such a disaster.

Pretty much this. Ever since B2P conversion this game is on the downhill slide and is only getting worse. If there was another decent MMO out I think the exodus would have been much more apparent. Hell, I'm even giving Wildstar another shot since it's F2P and I have nothing better to do and I hated Wildstar when it released (played one of the last beta weekends and quit playing before the weekend even ended it was so dull).

If WS doesn't keep me interested (and I doubt it will) I will probably just keep playing single player games for the foreseeable future. Mad Max, FO4, Witcher3 etc..The MMO genre is a complete wreck with this F2P/B2P garbage and there is really nothing on the horizon to change that.

Although a fair point, isn't this what everyone says about every game coming out. If I were a betting man I'd say you'll be making this statement again on the boards of that shiney new mmo when it releases.

Dru1076

You're welcome, @PineZino. if you want me to not answer some more questions you already know the answers to, feel free to ask.

I have a good sense of smell, btw. But I appreciate you taking the time to talk down to me and all.

We all understand that things take time and there are priorities. Discovering your concern is not a priority is not going to make most people patiently wait for it to become higher on the list. It tends to make them go look for solutions through other avenues. It sure works well for me. There are great games out there, and more on the way...so until Zos make playing ESO more appealing to me as a casual (time poor) gamer, my faith in them has burnt out. But yeah, you know, that's just like...my opinion, man...

EQBallzz

PinoZino wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Pretty much this. Ever since B2P conversion this game is on the downhill slide and is only getting worse. If there was another decent MMO out I think the exodus would have been much more apparent. Hell, I'm even giving Wildstar another shot since it's F2P and I have nothing better to do and I hated Wildstar when it released (played one of the last beta weekends and quit playing before the weekend even ended it was so dull).

If WS doesn't keep me interested (and I doubt it will) I will probably just keep playing single player games for the foreseeable future. Mad Max, FO4, Witcher3 etc..The MMO genre is a complete wreck with this F2P/B2P garbage and there is really nothing on the horizon to change that.

The Jehovah's Witnesses also predicted in 1874 the Armageddon would start.

They later changed it to 1878, 1881, 1914, 1925 and 1974.

It didn't happen.

B2P was probably a golden move.

As a matter of fact the subscription market in general is shrinking. All the MMO games together had worldwide 30.6 million subscribers in 2010 and 23.4 million in 2014

ZOS could deny that trend or try something different.

They tried something different. We'll see if it will work out.

I'm not doubting that the trend is away from subs and B2P/F2P may be more profitable to companies but that doesn't make these games good. They could all be profitable Farmville clones but that doesn't mean they are good MMOs. I think ESO could have easily stuck with the sub model and done well but the consoles with their conflicting membership costs made it too complicated to stick with.

Callous2208 wrote: »

EQBallzz wrote: »

Jamersonb16_ESO wrote: »

aco5712 wrote: »

b92303008rwb17_ESO wrote: »

Complaints and rants are dying down compared to one or two weeks ago. And less than 800 people watched ESO Live yesterday while the number were easily over 1000 in the past few months. Is ESO way past the turning point that it can never recover again?

i think its been past it for a long time for alot of people but the lack of another game to go to has kept them here

So much this. The second a decent alternative is released ZOS are in real trouble. They've benefitted massively from a dreadful MMO market over the last year - particularly Archeage being such a disaster.

Pretty much this. Ever since B2P conversion this game is on the downhill slide and is only getting worse. If there was another decent MMO out I think the exodus would have been much more apparent. Hell, I'm even giving Wildstar another shot since it's F2P and I have nothing better to do and I hated Wildstar when it released (played one of the last beta weekends and quit playing before the weekend even ended it was so dull).

If WS doesn't keep me interested (and I doubt it will) I will probably just keep playing single player games for the foreseeable future. Mad Max, FO4, Witcher3 etc..The MMO genre is a complete wreck with this F2P/B2P garbage and there is really nothing on the horizon to change that.

Although a fair point, isn't this what everyone says about every game coming out. If I were a betting man I'd say you'll be making this statement again on the boards of that shiney new mmo when it releases.

Yep. Probably will..if there is even another MMO that comes out again that looks interesting enough to try. The irony is that ESO was the game I wasn't saying this about..until they completely reversed course and switched to B2P. Prior to that I was mostly on-board and quite pro-ESO. Some might have even called me a white knight as I was quite vocal in defending them on the forums even when they were doing questionable things. I was wrong.

Hiero_Glyph

PinoZino wrote: »

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

No, the point is that informed opinions can come from anywhere. If they have proper support ignoring them is the only mistake. This has been historically proven.

You don't get it, don't you?

Opinions are worth nothing. And sure if they come from laypeople who don't have a clue about what they are talking.

Opinions are personal. My favourite colour is yellow. You can't discuss that, you can't fight it. It's my opinion, you can't push me to change it and there's no need for too.

UX doesn't work that way. UX is measurable. You can actual measure if people use or learn an UI faster or make less mistakes. Even the satisfaction (important with games) can be measured.

And if you can measure it, opinions are worth nothing. You can have the opinion that something is better, I can measure what's the best. Now, what's more solid? Your opinion - which is in most cases wrong due the lack of knowledge about the field - or a measurable fact?

Countless studies are carried out about this issue. Not one is in favour of 'letting users decide what's best'.

Does it mean the user or player is unimportant? Certainly not. Till a certain degree they are nice for detecting problems. But the best is watching them using the software. But what you don’t do is listen too much to their solutions. Behaviour is rather universal among people, opinions aren't.

If someone say to me "mmm, I think this button should be bigger", then I'll answer "Maybe" and write down "Current button could be a problem". It's possible that I have to provide a bigger button, but it's also possible that changing its colour or the location is maybe better. It's even possible that I have to use no button at all or have to replace it with another gizmo. At that moment I have no clue either. I have to analyze and measure what's best. It depends about the context of use, the user profiles and the goal of that UI screen.

And measuring is what users/players never do. They don't measure what's best, they even don't know how to do it.

Letting users decide what's best, is a recipe for a disaster. Letting users their behaviour decide what's best is gold.

Opinions are not worthless and they do not have to be emotional (personal is a result of experience and everyone has natural biases). Take Newton and his opinion of why things fell at a constant rate. Most science is based on a personal opinion of an observation which is not yet proven. These opinions have value because they are the first step in uncovering a new way of thinking so the facts are not yet developed. Fringe science is an entire field that deals with unorthodox concepts that are based on opinions and personal experince/observations. Often fringe science is progressed by people outside of the field in question as they are not limited by a developed method of thinking and are open to things that would be considered exceptions and therefore discarded.

Anyway, I am not discounting UX or its value, but in a game where code is programmed by humans and errors exist in random ways due to human error, code interaction, overwritten data from updates, etc. to simply say that opinions on what is happening are worthless discounts the impossible since no one really knows what can happen because there are far too many variables involved. Sometimes you cannot quantify why a thing happens, nor can you predict the best course of action for an idea that hasn't been developed yet. These opinions on issues come from everywhere, especially from people outside of the gaming industry. They have value even if you do not know how to measure them, especially if enough users are reporting the same issue. Could this be confirmation bias? Certainly, but it could also be a trend in data that leads to a much larger issue.

In closing, let's just be honest that UX is not the best solution for a game that is struglling to continue. While many of the concepts such as prioritization may be similar to UX in some cases worrying about what type of text interface to add isn't as important as just adding a basic text box for consoles. You can measure everything you want about the best button to add but at the end of the day sometimes making it bigger is the simplest solution. Do you really think ZOS is in a position to evaluate the button properly?