Are people starting to give up on ZOS?

Rayste

BalticBlues wrote: »

Marrtha wrote: »

Look at any other MMO. People are always complaining and they are toxic 90% of the time. Just look at WoW. Nobody is happy with it anymore. Everyone complains about it, saying it's dead, saying it sucks.

People LOVED ESO with patch 1.6.
The version released for consoles was GREAT.
Not perfect, but still GREAT.

Then comes IC and patch 1.7 and introduces "features" as:
- game breaking bugs on console
... non working guild stores
... buggy guild banks
... invisible beams, quests and bosses with beams impossible to solve
- IC with
... only zergs and pure grinding
... flyspeck grinding so that people buy motifs in crown store
- overall balance put upside down
... old gear devaluated
... lower level chars have much lower values, some PVE dungeons now are impossible
... shield breaker set undermines core gaming rules
- trials worthless because of no upscaling
- loading screens unlimited
- and many more things

1.7 ruined large parts of the game.
Partly because of missing QA (has there been any on consoles?),
partly because of design decisions devaluating former content.

For many people, ESO is the most important thing in their free time.
They still LOVE the game from 1.6 - but they HATE many things that happened with 1.7.
With 1.7, ESO became an unhappy love affair. This is why the forums show such reaction.

This was well said.

Dru1076

PinoZino wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that other people with my background would say the same.

Nobody says it better than the Dude:

http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XVCtkzIXYzQ

Hiero_Glyph

PinoZino wrote: »

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

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?

Newton was not a noob from Barcelona who knew nothing about his subject(s). He was a schooled academician, studied at Cambridge, and offered his life to study a lot of things.

It's not that Newton was some uber noob who physically could walk into the world and declared himself as a physicist. That's more the UX noobs their play: they play a game and declare themselves as UX experts.

Sure Newton observed things, later he backed it up with mathematic evidence. His approach isn't that weird anyway. His reference framework was rather small. For many things he was a pioneer.

It isn't working like that in the world of UX. I have a usability study from the USAF in my library. It's dealing the usability of cockpits in fighter aircrafts. About 90% could be used in modern software and games. It's dated 1962.

And since that time countless other studies are carried out. Our reference framework is much bigger than the one of Newton.

Fringe science isn't science. It's a kind of club with many trials and even more errors. By coincidence they achieved in a few things. The list of failures is 1000 times longer. It's cost/efficient a ridiculous approach.

If you would use this approach in the software development business, you would go broke before release. Really.

The users don't care about the code and its complexity. For them the UI is the software. And the usability determines a lot if they like it or not a lot.

No, the simplest solution isn't making the button bigger. That's dev talk. "Hey, it's functionally working", but they don't care that real humans have to use it.

Yes, ZOS is in the position to evaluate the button properly. Countless companies with fewer resources, less manpower and less budget can manage that button. I see no reason why ZOS couldn't do the same.

There are so many basic features missing from the game that I and many others would perfer to have those added rather than spending their time trying to evaluate the button. Have you even played the game since 2.1? It's certainly not funtionally working so I would love if ZOS could claim what you jokingly stated. As for evaluating the button properly, ESO has been mismanaged for over the last year. I completely disagree that they have the resources, manpower, and budget to work on tweaking the finer details of the game instead of working on the major problems that have been around since the beta. I mean the game doesn't even have UI options for numbers (damage, health, experience, timers, etc.). The only place these exist in-game are on the character sheet or in the skill descriptions (or via add-ons). They have no meaning since you don't even know how much health an enemy has. Is a 9k DoT over 7 seconds good? I'm not sure, but that button functions really well.

How does the community demonstrate that they need numbers? By using inefficienct skill rotations? By not using major buffs against tougher enemies? By letting buffs expire without immediately refreshing them? No, they have to tell ZOS what they want; there is no measure to this request, it does not require further evaluation, nor does it require figuring out which color each type of number should have or how big they should be displayed. Let's continue... how do you measure the need for text chat since ZOS removed it from consoles? What about solving shield stacking? I forgot, Shield Breaker balanced that, my bad. On second thought, you're right, ZOS has ESO on the right track so why not invest time into user experience design. [/sarcasm]

OtarTheMad

After posting what I did a few pages ago I have to say that I probably reached my breaking point today.

I feel they are punishing people with jobs and can't get trophies fast enough to open vaults and get geared up. I have been trying, I took a break and leveled a newbie, to gear up my magicka Nightblade and he is almost done but the willpower rings and necklace never drop. (I know they increased drop rate but I rage quit IC sewers after opening two vault doors shortly after the change that were willpower related and got the same useless drops... two greatswords of willpower anyone? How about a mace and sword?) Not to mention I have my Sorc who also would need the willpower set as well.

For a staff that hates it when we grind that's all this update is. Want the new ring/weapon sets? Grind the sewers for a million hours and get crap drops in the vaults. Already wasted 20-30 keys you say? Keep trying. lol.. WHAT?? How about those new sets that drop from dungeons... oh wait... it's only TWO? That you have to grind like a thousand times to get the right set? Sounds fun.

This is just backwards to me. Keep shooting this great game in the foot... won't end well. How about you take a look at how many vaults people opened before you changed it to increase drop rates on jewelry and give us those trophies we WASTED. Yeah didn't think so.

Paulhewhewria

OtarTheMad wrote: »

After posting what I did a few pages ago I have to say that I probably reached my breaking point today.

I feel they are punishing people with jobs and can't get trophies fast enough to open vaults and get geared up. I have been trying, I took a break and leveled a newbie, to gear up my magicka Nightblade and he is almost done but the willpower rings and necklace never drop. (I know they increased drop rate but I rage quit IC sewers after opening two vault doors shortly after the change that were willpower related and got the same useless drops... two greatswords of willpower anyone? How about a mace and sword?) Not to mention I have my Sorc who also would need the willpower set as well.

For a staff that hates it when we grind that's all this update is. Want the new ring/weapon sets? Grind the sewers for a million hours and get crap drops in the vaults. Already wasted 20-30 keys you say? Keep trying. lol.. WHAT?? How about those new sets that drop from dungeons... oh wait... it's only TWO? That you have to grind like a thousand times to get the right set? Sounds fun.

This is just backwards to me. Keep shooting this great game in the foot... won't end well. How about you take a look at how many vaults people opened before you changed it to increase drop rates on jewelry and give us those trophies we WASTED. Yeah didn't think so.

I'm past the point too and its not just gear thats getting to me heres the feedback I sent ZOS not that I think they'll care much about one man leaving the sinking ship(in my opinion and by no means do I think the game will die soon,but I think the population is about to drop again if you ask me).It is with a heavy heart that I must cancel my subscription.Below I sum-up my feelings
I used to think that ZOS was trying to work to a good gaming experience where the game was in a stable state,but after one year of holding out hope I think I'm all most done. If the game isn't fixed and in a good state by 11/11/15 when Fallout 4 comes I'll be gone for good.I'm sure someone will say well you shouldn't have the many characters,so too bad for you.Does anyone else think having no skill reset is going way too far?I mean I have 7 alts and my main have almost every skill point minus like 2 or 3 I mean it'll cost me out of pocket for one reset just for him 100 x 290 plus my alts means I can't play this game if they decide to do this. I've been ok with ZOS till the delays for DLCs started,but I bit my tongue. I really didn't get mad till the long as hell loading screens(sometimes with crashes,but thats not new LOL) came with a DLC that was planed a year ago! Don't even get me started on the champion system and bugs that never have been fixed. At first when I started play last year during pre-beta I thought hay its a elder scrolls game it'll be in a working state one of these days,but now I'm starting to think wth are they doing? Now,listen I'm no arm-chair dev,but some of these decisions their making have no merit at all.
Want to know the real kicker is that ZOS's reason is because console players didn't understand why their skills were reset with the imperial city update.
I wish ZOS would just give us a crown store reset scroll,but I guess that would be too easy for them LOL.

bedlom

Personally I will never give up on ESO its a dream come true for me.

Hiero_Glyph

WarlordGrievous wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

After posting what I did a few pages ago I have to say that I probably reached my breaking point today.

I feel they are punishing people with jobs and can't get trophies fast enough to open vaults and get geared up. I have been trying, I took a break and leveled a newbie, to gear up my magicka Nightblade and he is almost done but the willpower rings and necklace never drop. (I know they increased drop rate but I rage quit IC sewers after opening two vault doors shortly after the change that were willpower related and got the same useless drops... two greatswords of willpower anyone? How about a mace and sword?) Not to mention I have my Sorc who also would need the willpower set as well.

For a staff that hates it when we grind that's all this update is. Want the new ring/weapon sets? Grind the sewers for a million hours and get crap drops in the vaults. Already wasted 20-30 keys you say? Keep trying. lol.. WHAT?? How about those new sets that drop from dungeons... oh wait... it's only TWO? That you have to grind like a thousand times to get the right set? Sounds fun.

This is just backwards to me. Keep shooting this great game in the foot... won't end well. How about you take a look at how many vaults people opened before you changed it to increase drop rates on jewelry and give us those trophies we WASTED. Yeah didn't think so.

I'm past the point too and its not just gear thats getting to me heres the feedback I sent ZOS not that I think they'll care much about one man leaving the sinking ship(in my opinion and by no means do I think the game will die soon,but I think the population is about to drop again if you ask me).It is with a heavy heart that I must cancel my subscription.Below I sum-up my feelings
I used to think that ZOS was trying to work to a good gaming experience where the game was in a stable state,but after one year of holding out hope I think I'm all most done. If the game isn't fixed and in a good state by 11/11/15 when Fallout 4 comes I'll be gone for good.I'm sure someone will say well you shouldn't have the many characters,so too bad for you.Does anyone else think having no skill reset is going way too far?I mean I have 7 alts and my main have almost every skill point minus like 2 or 3 I mean it'll cost me out of pocket for one reset just for him 100 x 290 plus my alts means I can't play this game if they decide to do this. I've been ok with ZOS till the delays for DLCs started,but I bit my tongue. I really didn't get mad till the long as hell loading screens(sometimes with crashes,but thats not new LOL) came with a DLC that was planed a year ago! Don't even get me started on the champion system and bugs that never have been fixed. At first when I started play last year during pre-beta I thought hay its a elder scrolls game it'll be in a working state one of these days,but now I'm starting to think wth are they doing? Now,listen I'm no arm-chair dev,but some of these decisions their making have no merit at all.
Want to know the real kicker is that ZOS's reason is because console players didn't understand why their skills were reset with the imperial city update.
I wish ZOS would just give us a crown store reset scroll,but I guess that would be too easy for them LOL.

To be honest, ZOS never updated the message of the day for either console version to explain that this would happen, nor did they send out an in-game email notifying players of this. Console don't have a text system so there are no methods to inform players with mod text either. The only way ZOS informed console players about the skill point reset was via a sticked post in the forums. What percentage of all players do you think actually visit the forums? I know why console players didn't know that every major update is accompanied by a skill point reset, and it certainly wasn't a lack of understanding but a lack of communication.

Maybe ZOS should have had mods standing in major hubs using voice chat to let the console players know about the skill point reset.

Ace_of_Destiny

Are people starting to give up on ZOS?

Yes, and No.

Yes...some people are giving up on ZOS.

No...some people will stick with ESO/ZOS until it shuts it's servers down.


Pick yer poison!

Sensesfail13

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

So let's see what a typical evening for me in ESO might be like...

I log on, check who's online. Look at the guild roster of my small scale PvP guild. Surprisingly, more people are still online, and I'm happy about that because there's a lot of doom and gloom in the air about how long we will play this game anymore, a lot of people are talking about quitting and wishing there was at least some other good MMO out there, something for us to do together online. Then there's the ones who have quit, now permanently offline or just peeking in now and then, only to disappear once more. Like that one prominent member who didn't like the changes to DKs, the CP system and the zerging that has become the norm in PvP.

So what would I like to do? I'm a PvPer in my heart, Loved PvP until 1.6 arrived. After that, fun in PvP has been harder and harder to find. Dailies don't really interest me, I've done the PvE group dungeons so many times already in order to level Undaunted and to get the monster helms so my character would be viable in PvP.

Our group leader is not online yet so I decide to decraft some materials that I farmed the previous night by going in circles in the DC sewers, mostly farming the NPCs, now and then being attacked by some enemies - but wishing that we wouldn't be so that we could actually farm efficiently without interruptions. Yes, PvPr wishing there wouldn't be PvP. I've never been extremely rich as a small scale PvPr, and thus I don't have tons of bag space on my characters and in my bank, but I have purchased many upgrades. It takes 30 minutes to decraft my materials - which aren't that many in the end, considering how many mats it takes to craft a v16 item.

We talk in guild chat about what everyone is doing - the guild is pretty spread out these days, for different reasons, so while we're friends with each other, we don't actually play together much. Many couldn't adapt to the changes in the game in PvP when 1.6 hit - the changes to classes and how it takes more and more skill to play in a small group. Magicka DKs pale in comparison to sorcerers now in small group PvP where we fight outnumbered. In a guild where almost everyone has a v12+ DK, I'm the only one who actually plays it, about half the time, because we do need that healing debuff from DK standard these days.

But man is it difficult to play a magicka DK now - I'm so much squishier and there's No Way I could possibly play a magicka DK now without vampirism so I can mistform to keep up with others, to have some damage mitigation (since my shields and mitigation range from nearly non-existent (igneous shield) to mediocreish (harness magicka with 30k max magicka is not that much, and only applies to spells anyway), and because the blocking stamina regen nerf made blocking pretty much impossible, unless you really want to spec everything into that - but where's the fun then when you can't kill even NPCs with that poor damage output), use Clouding Swarm for a brief respite and get some regen for my high cost DK skills. The thing is, magicka DKs really needed that stamina regen in order to be truly viable. But hey, this is build diversity, courtesy of ZOS! Just level up some other class now (suggest NB or sorc) or play stamina DK, because magicka DK is not a good option anymore.

Group leader / my PvP partner still not on, probably because he's rather reading the forums or doing something else, because PvP just isn't as much fun anymore, or he's waiting for the zergiest time to pass so we could actually find some kinds of reasonable fights where we won't be totally overrun due to the changes in game mechanics which favor the zergs even when they are very much less skilled than their opponents - ultimate gain change, aoe caps, strong aoe healing when in a big group, effectiveness of barrier and purge for big groups, nerfed defensive skills (blocking, roll dodging)... There used to be a time when numbers didn't matter nearly as much, as long as you had skill. These days? Well... all it takes is for one shield breaker to spam light bow attacks from somewhere to make enough of a difference against magicka builds. Doesn't feel very fair, does it, considering how easy it is for them to do that. And when you actually catch a player using shield breaker, it is pretty likely that they can't do much and die fast. Not because the other bonuses of the set would be bad, it's just that they don't know how to play. Like that one guy who continued to attack my DK wings with bow attacks...

Look at my casual 500 member PvE / PvP guild chat, see that they're forming a group to go to Cyrodiil and to the Imperial City. They end up forming a group consisting of 20+ players. On TS, the leader tells people to stick together (this is what happened the one time I joined the group, not realizing how big the group would end up being. In the end, I left when I realized the group wasn't getting split up any time soon). Just stick to crown, you will not die. Cuz dying in PvP is that scary and you wouldn't want to lose the Tel Var stones, or get separated from the group. Hey, there's two enemy faction players there, better kill their characters fast so that there's absolutely no way they could kill any of the 20+ group.

We reminisce in guild chat about the times past, when there were different kinds of campaigns, when we cared about the campaigns, where numbers weren't all that mattered and we could play the characters we wanted to play... We really want to keep playing this game, but it's harder and harder to find something fun to do in the game. And we know we aren't the only ones.

I browse the guild stores, trying to see how the prices are changing for different armor pieces and materials, and how much the new willpower/endurance/agility costs today. I nearly feel like I've become more of a trader/crafter than a PvPr, despite only wanting to be the latter. I lament not being able to use particular interesting sets anymore because they haven't been upgraded to v16. A v12 set would have to be pretty ... good for me to use it. No. All the v12 and v14 sets need to be updated so that they also drop in v16.

My PvP partner finally logs on. He's very good at what he does, so if there's ever a chance at small scale PvP, it is when he's on. I try not to pester him about forming a PvP group right away. Ok who cares, I'm going to do it anyway. He needs to do some crafting / decrafting / guild store browsing first.

Half an hour later we form a small group of three. I play on my magicka DK that I was playing a lot until 1.6. The build is completely different now, extremely squishy, but does relatively good damage. It all goes relatively nicely for the first thirty minutes, but then we only start encountering huge groups, which we cannot get out of resources nor burst them down fast enough. We decide to look for some PvP in outdoors Cyrodiil. I need to switch some of my gear onto my alt, because my DK just isn't viable out there in a small group. I relog, get the gear, and thanks to careful planning of home and guest campaigns, we manage to join a campaign where there seems to be some PvP action in Cyrodiil. We play for a while, have some fights that are alright, but in the end, it just isn't the same. Something is missing. It's not what it used to be.

But maybe tomorrow is different. Maybe tomorrow we will for some reason, find some great fights. They do still exist. But they are hard to find. The stars have to align. The game is still great when it's great. But that's rare. And it's not nearly as awesome as it used to be.

When we were still playing on the Hopesfire campaign, all we had to do was jump right in when we logged on, and have fun. We found fights, we played all over the map (using blood porting, yes), we saw different terrain, we defended many keeps, we won outnumbered fights because knowing more about the game and the way the different classes worked mattered. Those were some awesome times.

The memories of what the game used to be like before 1.6 still keep us playing. Because we know how awesome this game could be. But every day, that resolve, and that faith, becomes a little smaller. Playing less and less, and quitting the game are options that are becoming more and more likely, day by day.

We have formed great friendships here over time, and we would love to keep this game as the environment where we interact and have fun. Who knows whether ZOS will make the right decisions to let us do so.

@ZOS_RichLambert This. This is the entire community. Just give us back that clash, you will always have people that want to cry about this or that but give us back that game where we could have fun nightly and use skill to be a *** hero. Not relegated to a part of a group by ridiculous combat mechanics and blanket nerfs.

IC could have been a huge success if you had kept combat as it was before IC release tweak a couple of skills that were way out of balance and kept stamina regeneration/stamina regeneration skills as they were. Get rid of this ridiculous nerf to battle spirit and give us campaigns to fight for again (Oh, and scale up all of the trial gear to v16 to give people some sort of reason to keep doing them on a regular basis)

@RoamingRiverElk Excellent post.

sadownik

Sensesfail13 wrote: »

RoamingRiverElk wrote: »

So let's see what a typical evening for me in ESO might be like...

I log on, check who's online. Look at the guild roster of my small scale PvP guild. Surprisingly, more people are still online, and I'm happy about that because there's a lot of doom and gloom in the air about how long we will play this game anymore, a lot of people are talking about quitting and wishing there was at least some other good MMO out there, something for us to do together online. Then there's the ones who have quit, now permanently offline or just peeking in now and then, only to disappear once more. Like that one prominent member who didn't like the changes to DKs, the CP system and the zerging that has become the norm in PvP.

So what would I like to do? I'm a PvPer in my heart, Loved PvP until 1.6 arrived. After that, fun in PvP has been harder and harder to find. Dailies don't really interest me, I've done the PvE group dungeons so many times already in order to level Undaunted and to get the monster helms so my character would be viable in PvP.

Our group leader is not online yet so I decide to decraft some materials that I farmed the previous night by going in circles in the DC sewers, mostly farming the NPCs, now and then being attacked by some enemies - but wishing that we wouldn't be so that we could actually farm efficiently without interruptions. Yes, PvPr wishing there wouldn't be PvP. I've never been extremely rich as a small scale PvPr, and thus I don't have tons of bag space on my characters and in my bank, but I have purchased many upgrades. It takes 30 minutes to decraft my materials - which aren't that many in the end, considering how many mats it takes to craft a v16 item.

We talk in guild chat about what everyone is doing - the guild is pretty spread out these days, for different reasons, so while we're friends with each other, we don't actually play together much. Many couldn't adapt to the changes in the game in PvP when 1.6 hit - the changes to classes and how it takes more and more skill to play in a small group. Magicka DKs pale in comparison to sorcerers now in small group PvP where we fight outnumbered. In a guild where almost everyone has a v12+ DK, I'm the only one who actually plays it, about half the time, because we do need that healing debuff from DK standard these days.

But man is it difficult to play a magicka DK now - I'm so much squishier and there's No Way I could possibly play a magicka DK now without vampirism so I can mistform to keep up with others, to have some damage mitigation (since my shields and mitigation range from nearly non-existent (igneous shield) to mediocreish (harness magicka with 30k max magicka is not that much, and only applies to spells anyway), and because the blocking stamina regen nerf made blocking pretty much impossible, unless you really want to spec everything into that - but where's the fun then when you can't kill even NPCs with that poor damage output), use Clouding Swarm for a brief respite and get some regen for my high cost DK skills. The thing is, magicka DKs really needed that stamina regen in order to be truly viable. But hey, this is build diversity, courtesy of ZOS! Just level up some other class now (suggest NB or sorc) or play stamina DK, because magicka DK is not a good option anymore.

Group leader / my PvP partner still not on, probably because he's rather reading the forums or doing something else, because PvP just isn't as much fun anymore, or he's waiting for the zergiest time to pass so we could actually find some kinds of reasonable fights where we won't be totally overrun due to the changes in game mechanics which favor the zergs even when they are very much less skilled than their opponents - ultimate gain change, aoe caps, strong aoe healing when in a big group, effectiveness of barrier and purge for big groups, nerfed defensive skills (blocking, roll dodging)... There used to be a time when numbers didn't matter nearly as much, as long as you had skill. These days? Well... all it takes is for one shield breaker to spam light bow attacks from somewhere to make enough of a difference against magicka builds. Doesn't feel very fair, does it, considering how easy it is for them to do that. And when you actually catch a player using shield breaker, it is pretty likely that they can't do much and die fast. Not because the other bonuses of the set would be bad, it's just that they don't know how to play. Like that one guy who continued to attack my DK wings with bow attacks...

Look at my casual 500 member PvE / PvP guild chat, see that they're forming a group to go to Cyrodiil and to the Imperial City. They end up forming a group consisting of 20+ players. On TS, the leader tells people to stick together (this is what happened the one time I joined the group, not realizing how big the group would end up being. In the end, I left when I realized the group wasn't getting split up any time soon). Just stick to crown, you will not die. Cuz dying in PvP is that scary and you wouldn't want to lose the Tel Var stones, or get separated from the group. Hey, there's two enemy faction players there, better kill their characters fast so that there's absolutely no way they could kill any of the 20+ group.

We reminisce in guild chat about the times past, when there were different kinds of campaigns, when we cared about the campaigns, where numbers weren't all that mattered and we could play the characters we wanted to play... We really want to keep playing this game, but it's harder and harder to find something fun to do in the game. And we know we aren't the only ones.

I browse the guild stores, trying to see how the prices are changing for different armor pieces and materials, and how much the new willpower/endurance/agility costs today. I nearly feel like I've become more of a trader/crafter than a PvPr, despite only wanting to be the latter. I lament not being able to use particular interesting sets anymore because they haven't been upgraded to v16. A v12 set would have to be pretty ... good for me to use it. No. All the v12 and v14 sets need to be updated so that they also drop in v16.

My PvP partner finally logs on. He's very good at what he does, so if there's ever a chance at small scale PvP, it is when he's on. I try not to pester him about forming a PvP group right away. Ok who cares, I'm going to do it anyway. He needs to do some crafting / decrafting / guild store browsing first.

Half an hour later we form a small group of three. I play on my magicka DK that I was playing a lot until 1.6. The build is completely different now, extremely squishy, but does relatively good damage. It all goes relatively nicely for the first thirty minutes, but then we only start encountering huge groups, which we cannot get out of resources nor burst them down fast enough. We decide to look for some PvP in outdoors Cyrodiil. I need to switch some of my gear onto my alt, because my DK just isn't viable out there in a small group. I relog, get the gear, and thanks to careful planning of home and guest campaigns, we manage to join a campaign where there seems to be some PvP action in Cyrodiil. We play for a while, have some fights that are alright, but in the end, it just isn't the same. Something is missing. It's not what it used to be.

But maybe tomorrow is different. Maybe tomorrow we will for some reason, find some great fights. They do still exist. But they are hard to find. The stars have to align. The game is still great when it's great. But that's rare. And it's not nearly as awesome as it used to be.

When we were still playing on the Hopesfire campaign, all we had to do was jump right in when we logged on, and have fun. We found fights, we played all over the map (using blood porting, yes), we saw different terrain, we defended many keeps, we won outnumbered fights because knowing more about the game and the way the different classes worked mattered. Those were some awesome times.

The memories of what the game used to be like before 1.6 still keep us playing. Because we know how awesome this game could be. But every day, that resolve, and that faith, becomes a little smaller. Playing less and less, and quitting the game are options that are becoming more and more likely, day by day.

We have formed great friendships here over time, and we would love to keep this game as the environment where we interact and have fun. Who knows whether ZOS will make the right decisions to let us do so.

@ZOS_RichLambert This. This is the entire community. Just give us back that clash, you will always have people that want to cry about this or that but give us back that game where we could have fun nightly and use skill to be a *** hero. Not relegated to a part of a group by ridiculous combat mechanics and blanket nerfs.

IC could have been a huge success if you had kept combat as it was before IC release tweak a couple of skills that were way out of balance and kept stamina regeneration/stamina regeneration skills as they were. Get rid of this ridiculous nerf to battle spirit and give us campaigns to fight for again (Oh, and scale up all of the trial gear to v16 to give people some sort of reason to keep doing them on a regular basis)

@RoamingRiverElk Excellent post.

Agreed, good post.

What is worrying in long run, we got half justice system, other half is probably shelved fro good, spellcrafting is shelved also, forward camps gone (probably for good), mercenaries - if well implemented they could really help less populated factions - gone, IC comes without essential pvp element ( Z. officially states that they couldn't do it on time, how much time they need for a fully working dlc?).

That is pretty long list for a game that is not 2 years old of things left behind or shelved. Now they lure people with promise of few dlc every year. How they are planning to do that if they couldn't finish IC in over a year?

It is, in my opinion, a sign that Z. overreached. They simply cant handle the project. Why they cant do that with such budget, no idea.

tordr86b16_ESO

Alexandrious

Sighs...I wish I coulda kept playing the game stead of quit a year ago, but the gf hated the game cuz at the time, templars was broken, and she was one, and forced me off to go play....*cringe..* wildstar....then bk to FFXIV for a long while. I coulda been so high in CP by now.....

Sighs...and now Cyrodiil is dead? I loved Cyrodiil, I like Siege pvp, whats a PC EP Imp DK to do now?

Maybe one day ill get lucky and find a awesome highly active PVP guild for cyrodiil.

Im not leaving this time, despite how grim things are looking.

NovaMarx

Personally, I wouldn't use as harsh a term as "given up", but I definitely don't feel myself drawn to ESO like I have done in the past. I still check in now and again - do writs, research, mount upgrade, random quests/dungeons - but after a couple of hours I'm done. It's just too monotonous.
I have felt myself returning to Skyrim, Dragon Age - and other random smaller games, where I feel there are more options and/or more of a challenge. And now I'm trying Echo of Soul beta - because I want the MMO experience.

I'm hoping that Orsinium will bring me back to ESO, because I am without a doubt more of a PvE than a PvP

PinoZino

Hiero_Glyph wrote: »

There are so many basic features missing from the game that I and many others would perfer to have those added rather than spending their time trying to evaluate the button. Have you even played the game since 2.1? It's certainly not funtionally working so I would love if ZOS could claim what you jokingly stated. As for evaluating the button properly, ESO has been mismanaged for over the last year. I completely disagree that they have the resources, manpower, and budget to work on tweaking the finer details of the game instead of working on the major problems that have been around since the beta. I mean the game doesn't even have UI options for numbers (damage, health, experience, timers, etc.). The only place these exist in-game are on the character sheet or in the skill descriptions (or via add-ons). They have no meaning since you don't even know how much health an enemy has. Is a 9k DoT over 7 seconds good? I'm not sure, but that button functions really well.

How does the community demonstrate that they need numbers? By using inefficienct skill rotations? By not using major buffs against tougher enemies? By letting buffs expire without immediately refreshing them? No, they have to tell ZOS what they want; there is no measure to this request, it does not require further evaluation, nor does it require figuring out which color each type of number should have or how big they should be displayed. Let's continue... how do you measure the need for text chat since ZOS removed it from consoles? What about solving shield stacking? I forgot, Shield Breaker balanced that, my bad. On second thought, you're right, ZOS has ESO on the right track so why not invest time into user experience design. [/sarcasm]

You produce some assumptions and you're point of view is the reason why usability issues exist. You do also underestimate the impact of solving these issues. I do even think you don't know very well what an usability or UX mistake is.

You wrote:

"There are so many basic features missing from the game that I and many others would perfer to have those added rather than spending their time trying to evaluate the button."

Here you make the assumption that all the players are like you and that all the players are alike. It isn't even close.

I see the complains of the Veteran players too in the General section. Moaning about caps, the increase of the Vet Levels, the buffs, the overall fight and balance mechanism. And these Veteran players act like we are all suffering from the flaws in these kind of functionality.

But you all make a huge mistake: not all the players are Veterans, surely not on the consoles. On the later most players aren't even a Veteran. At such we are barely aware about the eventual malfunction of some features, nor do they harm us a lot. It could and will hurt us later, when we are Veterans too. Maybe.

You are all making another huge mistake: assuming these 'Veteran' issues are the most important ones to solve. I'm wondering how they know when they don't have access to the raw analysis data. However, it’s human nature at work: your own issues are always more important than the issues of another.

You are trying to make a caricature of UX. At such, you don't have to focus at it. "Give us more and better functionality, instead.", you cry.

Well UX is certainly more than fixing a button. Here you have a list with 26 usability issues. It are just 26 issues and it's certainly not complete. It are even just simple issues, detected by an Heuristic Evaluation. To detect the more complex issues, I would need more data and I would have to start with user testing.

If they would fix these issues (together with other UX issues), the impact on the game would be rather big. The players would use the functionality and enjoy the game more. It would result in more returning players and players would play longer. Players would also make more publicity about the game, influencing people who didn't play the game yet. And they would call or e-mail the support department less.

To give you some idea what improving usability can do, I'll give you a few figures:

* On an average webshop, sales increase on average with 93,2 percent. And we are talking about good looking webshops, produced by professionals who had a rather big budget. I did once, for the lulz, a complete study on a webshop 'created' by a regular guy. You know, he used a service like the fictional create-your-own-webshop-in-one-hour.com. Sales went up with 4000%. Really.

* An internal forum and mail application on the intranet of a big company was used by 20% of the employees and they spend on average 15 minutes a day using the system. After our job, 80% of the employees were using it and they spend on average 1 hour and 20 minutes a day using the system.

* User mistakes, caused by a faulty UI, could be reduced with 80%

* About 85% of the users can finish a random tasks much faster. Mostly they can finish it 2 to 4 times faster.

* After a study for some big manufactory of medical devices, we reduced the amount of false positives of broken parts with 70%. They used an application to detect these broken parts. It was not due the functionality they had a lot false positives but due the lousy UI.

The study and fixing the issues costed about $57.000. The return for the company? About $2.000.000. Each year.

And I'm even silent about the reduce of hidden costs in the above examples like support and maintenance. If fewer people have issues with the UI, they contact less the support department.

These are not weird results. Every professional, well educated, hardworking UX engineer would achieve more or less the same results. In the book 'Cost-Justifying Usability' from Deborah Mayhew you can find a much longer list describing before-and-after situations. Interesting read.

About TextChat for the console, I would be a fan. It is in general not a bad idea to support several roads to use the same functionality. Because in a huge user population, you have several categories of users.

But maybe they're at ZOS just right not to implement it. You can detect that need (or no need) rather simple:

* They have maybe discovered while testing players using the game, that they didn't use a keyboard. Even if the keyboard was right before their noses.

* They have maybe "real world" data and see that few people have connected a keyboard to their Consoles.

Should you build functionality supported by few players?

Sometimes “that's a yes for me”, in other occasions it is not.

It depends about the schedules, other priorities and the cost of analyzing, designing, developing and testing the whole thing and looking to the return.

Fact is: I don't know if they did the above, so I'm unsure if it is a good or bad idea. But the average player is very sure: it should be implemented. I'm wondering how they know if they don't know the data, nor carried out user testing. They also have no clue about cost and return.

If you buy a tool, a scissor by instance and when you are using it, you are hurting yourself because an usability issue. The eyes of the scissor are too small for your 'fat' fingers. What would most do? They would try to avoid using this scissor and many would buy another scissor.

A game is a tool too. It's a tool making sure we have fun. It is wise to make that tool, like any tool, usable. If it's not usable enough a significant amount of players would stop playing before they are Veterans and suffer from the functional problems at that level.

Making the tool more usable has an impact on all players and not only Veterans.

FuzzyDuck79

When you bring out a game, make loads of options then take them away, are you surprised people are complaining that they changed the product? Some good ideas but not a lot of thought. How many of you have ever done a dungeon in the 1st person perspective, and if no then why not? Again choices that aren't really choices. We were given a very pretty area called Imperial City, populated with mobs. But that's it. Nothing new. No objective. It feels empty and hollow and has no point to it beyond grinding stones. When everyone has their stones, what will this new addition be? As empty as Cyrodiil is now. The tool mentioned above has become worn and old very quickly and will need a good restoration to its former glory if it wants people to use it and not throw it away.

Djeriko

I have two words that put a hole into any promise that ZOS gives to actually QA the stuff they put out before actually releasing it.

Those words are SHIELD DYES!

Still having trouble understanding how or why it's so hard to change a shields color when the game kinda, just a little, probably, might be already able to CHANGE THE SHIELDS COLORS! Your game is able to change the shields colors at will whenever its made with a different ingredient or temper and still not sure how to let your players change its color. SAD...

That is all...

failkiwib16_ESO

Alexandrious wrote: »

Sighs...I wish I coulda kept playing the game stead of quit a year ago, but the gf hated the game cuz at the time, templars was broken, and she was one, and forced me off to go play....*cringe..* wildstar....then bk to FFXIV for a long while. I coulda been so high in CP by now.....

Sighs...and now Cyrodiil is dead? I loved Cyrodiil, I like Siege pvp, whats a PC EP Imp DK to do now?

Maybe one day ill get lucky and find a awesome highly active PVP guild for cyrodiil.

Im not leaving this time, despite how grim things are looking.

Welcome back to ESO, there are many pvp guilds. The campaigns have never been more full than now tbh. because of the new Imperial City DLC, many pve players go to Cyrodiil and also do pvp

FuzzyDuck79

Just logged in for the 1st time in a while, went to the arena. killed the mob bosses only the last 1 didn't die... I can't leave the arena to go elsewhere, I can't kill the offending mob that won't let me out, I can't log out because I'm still in combat and I can't even PAY to free myself. The only other option left is to turn the game off. Yes this is FUN...

FuzzyDuck79

Had to forcibly close the game as there was no other option. Now I'm stuck on a loading screen when restarting. Its been 5 minutes now. I'm still having lots of FUN tho. The effort gone into making the loading screen look pretty is impressive.

FireCowCommando

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

Had to forcibly close the game as there was no other option. Now I'm stuck on a loading screen when restarting. Its been 5 minutes now. I'm still having lots of FUN tho. The effort gone into making the loading screen look pretty is impressive.

ZoS agrees!

The artwork is so awesome, they increased the loading times for you to enjoy the art. Players seem to forget that art is content, so enjoy the increased content provided!

FuzzyDuck79

Still loading...

FuzzyDuck79

Still loading...

Cherryblossom

Ojustaboo wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Mojmir wrote: »

PinoZino wrote: »

Stikato wrote: »

https://hbr.org/2011/08/henry-ford-never-said-the-fast/

That's true. But it's a good story and the content is so true.

Learn from the master:

First Rule of Usability? Don't Listen to Users

You keep using that but it doesn't apply.

And why would it not apply?

Did the players study game development? What do they know about game UX?

No, they didn't and like Manuel from Barcelona they "know nothing" about game UX.

Why would you ask a non-qualified one some advice?

Imagine doctors, engineers, airplane pilots or architects would work like that way...
.

In my example from the zombie game I'm playing, it works very well.

The big difference between what your saying and what I am saying is that many very very good programmers also play games, hence can often offer help when another programmer comes up against a brick wall.

ignoring someone elses expertise just because they aren't on your payroll or you think your superior to them is simply foolish.

The more people I can learn off the better.

Loads of top games programmers have never ever studied game development, if anything studying such a subject would likely constrain ideas, make them churn out more of the same old tired ideas.

The zombie game, players come up with ideas, many of them the devs discard as it doesn't fit in with their vision, many others they hadn't though of and think its great.

Just like the slaughterfish in ESO was a player suggestion.

To add to your points, the game had a great addon community, who have shown that they are able to improve upon ZOS's own really poor UI design, I'm not talking about the minamalistic idea, but the simple usability of Guild Stores, inventory, mail etc....
Some of the design decisions for the game show a lack of understanding or imagination on behalf of ZOS, which have been remedied by the Addon Community (which has sadly diminsihed)

FuzzyDuck79

Guess what? Still loading... I'm gonna leave it on so ZOS can "watch" And "record" how I'm "playing" their game so they can make it even better.

FuzzyDuck79

Nearly at the half hour mark now that I have been waiting to play

FuzzyDuck79

Ok it's not going to load... so I'm going to have to forcibly close the game again. I have played 3 mins, was forced to close the game, logged back in and waited for over 30 mins on a loading screen just to forcibly close the game again. How is this playable? A Sinclair ZX Spectrum took 10 mins to load the game off a cassette, you could spend 5 mins playing the game before you had to wait another 5 minutes to reload. By comparison the ZX Spectrum is way faster at loading and you get to play longer.

FireCowCommando

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

Nearly at the half hour mark now that I have been waiting to play

You have encountered a glitch known as the "infinite load screen"

You are never going to get past it. You need to force close the application and try again.

Cherryblossom

HairyFairy wrote: »

People need to either *** or get off the pot. Weigh your complaints with your enjoyments. which one is higher?

Enjoyments for me, thus I will not constantly complain about every little thing i don't like.

If it is the reverse for you, are you still having fun? or do you spend most of your time on the forums, and complain about the game, that you only spend time on the forums for.

Is that what you would call..fun?

Your argument is flawed;

If people do not voice their concerns or report bugs, then how would the Development team understand what the community required.

If everyone who was unhappy with certain aspects of the game did what I think you meant with your weird ananlogy and left, there would be few players in the game. People voice their concerns because they want to see the game move in a positive way, it's obviously in ZOS's hands whether or not they think the community is majorly in agreement with certain directions.

The Majority of negative threads in the forum are about the actual BUGS not the game play, yeah sure people will always no matter the game call for Nerf's, it's part and parcel of MMO (I never do, I always hope the Combat Teams are looking at the data). when something new comes in there will always be those that don't like change and also a certain amount of tuning required. But if people were not pointing out these things it's more likely that things would not be fixed as quickly (Big bugbear with this game) and changes to make small gradual improvements would not happen.

i'd imagine most people who frequent the Forums do so from work! The time when they are unable to play!

PinoZino

FuzzyDuck79 wrote: »

Guess what? Still loading... I'm gonna leave it on so ZOS can "watch" And "record" how I'm "playing" their game so they can make it even better.

No, they don't. They only watch good players.

But there are rumours they created a link between the moaning forum-members and the loading screens. The more you moan, the longer you may watch the loading screens.

FuzzyDuck79

So I'm a" bad" player? Right now I'd be happy to be a "player" And just be able to play the game. I'm terribly happy for you that you can play the game, that you have not had any problems, that's great. But personally not being able to log into a game that I have paid for, for no reason of my own is frustrating.