I want to understand ZOS's side of things

speeez · January 2016

One-liner summary: This isn't just another pvp complain post, I'm a pvper who wants to understand what's happening on ZOS's side instead of just complaining without knowing.

Disclaimer: For those of you who know my name, I make the videos for fun and entertainment purposes, it doesn't accurately reflect how I feel about ESO or the developers at ZOS.

Im a newer player to the game, Im a pvper, I love the game so far and am enjoying it immensely and I can't wait for arenas even though it may take some time (I have the patience, especially since I'm newer

).

Okay now with all of that said, in my experience so far, I have noticed that there are a decent amount of bugs or issues in the game that need fixing or arent working as intended, as well as things (ex: arenas) that the pvp community want implemented in the game. Now my question is this:

Why does it take so long for changes or fixes to happen in the game?

I know there was a similar question asked to Matt Frior in the last ESO Live podcast, however I didn't really understand. He said something in regards to "80 other systems" to be worked on? I don't understand his answer or I misunderstood completely on what he said and I am really confused.

If I were to take a guess myself, I would guess that ZOS is short staffed. I would also guess if they had more employees or more resources we would be able to see changes/fixes faster. But I could be very very wrong so I don't really know.

Also, I'm not familiar with the game development cycle at all. So if anyone knows how it works from an employee standpoint and could shed some light that would help me understand as well.

I'm hoping to hear from ZOS or at least your guys' thoughts on what you guys think

Draxys · January 2016

I legitimately hope that you get a response to this, but unfortunately you shouldn't get your hopes up. Zos do not like to explain themselves to their customers. We've seen this from PC launch to now. There are some things they will discuss, and others that they will not, regardless of how the player base feels about them- if we even know about them at all.

Jura23 · January 2016

It's been a long time since I played other MMOs, so I don't remember everything into details. But I'm pretty sure they usually separate patches from fixes. Fixes should be coming out on weekly basis while patches can be less frequent and introduce changes and tweaks. ZOS doesn't separate these two things and I don't understand why as well.

Thevampirenight · January 2016

speeez wrote: »

One-liner summary: This isn't just another pvp complain post, I'm a pvper who wants to understand what's happening on ZOS's side instead of just complaining without knowing.

Disclaimer: For those of you who know my name, I make the videos for fun and entertainment purposes, it doesn't accurately reflect how I feel about ESO or the developers at ZOS.

Im a newer player to the game, Im a pvper, I love the game so far and am enjoying it immensely and I can't wait for arenas even though it may take some time (I have the patience, especially since I'm newer ).

Okay now with all of that said, in my experience so far, I have noticed that there are a decent amount of bugs or issues in the game that need fixing or arent working as intended, as well as things (ex: arenas) that the pvp community want implemented in the game. Now my question is this:

Why does it take so long for changes or fixes to happen in the game?

I know there was a similar question asked to Matt Frior in the last ESO Live podcast, however I didn't really understand. He said something in regards to "80 other systems" to be worked on? I don't understand his answer or I misunderstood completely on what he said and I am really confused.

If I were to take a guess myself, I would guess that ZOS is short staffed. I would also guess if they had more employees or more resources we would be able to see changes/fixes faster. But I could be very very wrong so I don't really know.

Also, I'm not familiar with the game development cycle at all. So if anyone knows how it works from an employee standpoint and could shed some light that would help me understand as well.

I'm hoping to hear from ZOS or at least your guys' thoughts on what you guys think

Most likly they are doing this on microsofts and sonies restrictions, Of course pc will get fixes first, then they have to go through both, console companies in order to release any type of patch, which is why they would probaly merge those fixes together instead of separate.

Tors · January 2016

"Why does it take so long for changes or fixes to happen in the game?"

Really? A game of this size and you wonder why they dont implement changes instantly?

On one hand they are slated for breaking things on each fix and on the other that they dont make those changes fast enough.

As @Thevampirenight points out they have multiple platforms and multiple processes for these patches to be both accepted by the relevent compaines and implemented.

As an aside, do you think they are NOT looking to fix issues? Yeah ZOs have been terrrible when it comes to listening to reports from the beta server (time to zone was a specific bugbear of mine) but if somehting is not working as intented, then theres a pretty good chance that this is down to it being hard to fix or a fix impacting on something else.

Final point, people keep saying trite "the Community wants" statements as if it makes their post valid. I am a member of the PvP community and the LAST thing I want is any form of arena.

Arenas are allways unbalanced and force you to play a specific build/class to have any sucess. This game is not balanced on small combat, its never advertised itself as such and its imnplementation would have a negative affect (in my view and in my experiance with other games)

They couldnt even make a single player arena work in this game ffs

Rather than Sorcs being the winners (as in VMSA) it would be templars who ruled the PvP arena and the screams from your "Community" would be strong as they realised that lack of one in a group meant they would not stand a serious chance

Ok, last final point. The "Community" is the most vocal 2% of the 3% players who post/read the forums. The other 97% of the playerbase should not really be pressganged into shoring up your arguement for the game to be something other than ESO.

Alcast · January 2016

Short Staffed
Unexperienced Staff (They kicked most devs that developped the game and replaced them with cheaper employees)
Unexperienced Staff
Unexperienced Staff
Unexperienced Staff
Bad Resource Management Overall I would say
Broken Systems

And if there really are 80 different systems, then well good luck not f...ing up smth xD

Thevampirenight · January 2016

Alcast wrote: »

Short Staffed
Unexperienced Staff (They kicked most devs that developped the game and replaced them with cheaper employees)
Unexperienced Staff
Unexperienced Staff
Unexperienced Staff
Bad Resource Management Overall I would say
Broken Systems

And if there really are 80 different systems, then well good luck not f...ing up smth xD

They are releasing a japenese mega server soon, so they will most likly have to have people to work on that as well, and from what I know they quit, few of them maybe to better jobs or because they did not like the way the game was going. Who knows. I am refering to the main devs.

sadownik · January 2016

Thevampirenight wrote: »

speeez wrote: »

One-liner summary: This isn't just another pvp complain post, I'm a pvper who wants to understand what's happening on ZOS's side instead of just complaining without knowing.

Disclaimer: For those of you who know my name, I make the videos for fun and entertainment purposes, it doesn't accurately reflect how I feel about ESO or the developers at ZOS.

Im a newer player to the game, Im a pvper, I love the game so far and am enjoying it immensely and I can't wait for arenas even though it may take some time (I have the patience, especially since I'm newer ).

Okay now with all of that said, in my experience so far, I have noticed that there are a decent amount of bugs or issues in the game that need fixing or arent working as intended, as well as things (ex: arenas) that the pvp community want implemented in the game. Now my question is this:

Why does it take so long for changes or fixes to happen in the game?

I know there was a similar question asked to Matt Frior in the last ESO Live podcast, however I didn't really understand. He said something in regards to "80 other systems" to be worked on? I don't understand his answer or I misunderstood completely on what he said and I am really confused.

If I were to take a guess myself, I would guess that ZOS is short staffed. I would also guess if they had more employees or more resources we would be able to see changes/fixes faster. But I could be very very wrong so I don't really know.

Also, I'm not familiar with the game development cycle at all. So if anyone knows how it works from an employee standpoint and could shed some light that would help me understand as well.

I'm hoping to hear from ZOS or at least your guys' thoughts on what you guys think

Most likly they are doing this on microsofts and sonies restrictions, Of course pc will get fixes first, then they have to go through both, console companies in order to release any type of patch, which is why they would probaly merge those fixes together instead of separate.

Well when the console version wasnt out it was exactly the same story so i dont know what was the excuse then. And @Jura23 - yes you are right. I spend most of my time in gw2 right now (i know, i know its hated around here) and i was shocked by the Z. attitude. Playing gw2 got me spoiled in so many ways. After expansions release we had 2-3 hotfixes every day for well over a week and then 1 every 1-2 days for 2 more. You are just getting a message ingame - "new version of client available", you log off, download the patch and you are back in game.

Mojmir · January 2016

Understanding Zos' motives is trying to nail jello to a tree

Alucardo · January 2016

I lol'd at the 80 different systems part. What systems? I was astounded by Matt's inability to answer simple questions to the point where people with a simple grasp of the English language (not their mother tongue) actually came to me, or posted on the forums asking wtf he was talking about.
A good example of this was about the economy. Can anyone here honestly tell me what he was going on about?

As for fixes, there have been some where they said it was actually a simple fix, but there "other things" in the way. Without them answering the question in totality I'm going to go ahead and assume these other things are paid content for the DLCs - things that are going to earn them money.
Now that's cool, and I get it, but ffs be honest with us. We're not stupid.

Another thing that bothers me is old bugs that have not been addressed. As an example, the eclipse bug where you go flying around the map, and the broken Khajiit passive, which I don't even think has been addressed completely. Are they OK with leaving one of the primary racial passives broken? Not even a "we're looking into it guys". Nope, just gonna sweep that one under the carpet and sh*t all over the cats.

I was hoping to get some kind of class balance changes or information with Thieves Guild, because let's be honest, it's well overdue. Nope. Not a damn thing.
I did hear on reddit that DKs were getting a "buff", and by buff I mean work on their DoTs. For crying out loud, Magicka DK needs more than that. DoTs can be weakened by CPs (spell and thick skinned) and purged natively by 2 classes in the game. What they do need is an execute, flame lash buff, stronger ingneous shield - things like that. Their damage is significantly weaker than other classes, and you want to buff their DoTs, the one thing that can easily be purged making that buff mean nothing? Yeah, cool.

Now, I know we haven't tested the upcoming animation cancelling fix, but it worries me. Look at what happened with camo hunter. They tried to fix that and broke duel wield attacks. They just can't get things right.
I understand a few mishaps here and there, but ZOS has track record of messing things up. It's like this crap doesn't even go through QA. Just commit the change and push it to live boys!

I won't bother going into the state of PVP, because that horse has been beaten a lot.

Technically, I've left the game already, but that doesn't mean I won't be watching its progress. Contrary to what some believe, I actually wanted this game to succeed and wasn't just hating on it. Hence my lengthy comments, to try and benefit ZOS by providing them with some feedback from a less than happy customer.
It does have a great combat system, and PVP can be fun when it's not lagging. You know what? I even enjoyed Imperial City for the most part. With a bit of TLC, that could be the perfect place to PVP, no lie.
So yeah, I really hope ZOS pull their thumbs out of their arse and make this game as good as it used to be. But if they ruin animation cancelling, a technique we were told by Wrobel was legit and here to stay, don't fix the performance issues in Cyrodiil and class balance, then I don't see myself coming back, ever. Don't get me wrong, I hope that's not the case. I really, really hope they fix this mess.

If it wasn't for Brian Wheeler I would have lost all hope for this game. He stepped up to the plate and answered pretty much every question PVPers had about Cyrodiil. Much respect to that guy, and I'm sure I'm not alone there.
Wrobel seemed to make a half-assed attempt by creating threads and never doing anything with them. Did he go AWOL? I've heard nothing from him.
Honestly, if he came on ESO Live and ran us through what he's planning to do with classes, AOE caps, and a rough ETA when we can expect the changes, I would probably be totally fine. It's the not knowing that's the hardest part.
The last MMO before this I played for 7 straight years. Yeah, I'm pretty loyal when it comes to MMOs, so leaving ESO was extremely hard for me, and testament to the direction this game is heading.
Why did I play the same game for 7 years and nothing else? Communication, man. The devs would patrol the forums and answer questions. We always knew what was happening and when it was getting deployed, or if it wasn't happening at all. It felt like the players were building the game with them, and it was great.
The game was no where near as polished as ESO, and the combat system wasn't even half as good, but the PVP was solid and always entertaining, good performance, and the events the GMs held regularly were pretty nice. There was a good bond between the players and staff, there's no denying that.

Good luck ZOS, and I hope at least one thing in this wall of text was beneficial to you. And for those who just started, or have been playing for a while now and love this game, I hope that never changes for you.

And speez. Your videos are fkn hilarious man.

Peace.

Mojmir · January 2016

I was planning on a long run with this game too, after 15yrs with UO,i half expected at least a decent working set of mechanics and slow ride throughout tamriel, the changes and tweaks are expected, but everythings going pear shaped and extreme with lop-sided changes, theres no fine tuning, just bell-end decisions that lack a purpose or unwanted by the community. im pretrified at making a new character, theres no stability or consistency. do they talk to each other the same way they talk to us in ESO live?

Alucardo · January 2016

Mojmir wrote: »

theres no fine tuning, just bell-end decisions that lack a purpose or unwanted by the community.

Totally agree with this.

It's like they are incapable of making minor changes, which in most cases, is all we need. No, they can either completely nerf something into oblivion, or make it over-powered.
Unwanted by the community: Does anyone remember all the stealth nerfs Templars received and we still have no idea why? Things like that.

Tors · January 2016

Alucardo wrote: »

Without them answering the question in totality I'm going to go ahead and assume these other things are paid content for the DLCs - things that are going to earn them money.
Now that's cool, and I get it, but ffs be honest with us. We're not stupid.

Exactly, which is why reports from the PTS are basically worthless, by the time code hits the PTS, nothing is going to stop the dates of the next DLC.

Totally understandable, but painfull for the players.

The trouble is that the user base is now seemingly in conflict with the game (by userbase, those who get engaged on forums etc)

Where we crave information, this information is not forthcomming due to any number of reasons. Generally noone at the developers end is willing to get tied down into a "BUT you said" pissing contest.

Think back to games you loved, and think about how involved the devs were with the forums etc

Its a far cry from the wall of silence (or worse, posting on external sites) that we get today.

The TU ESO has failed, time to dump it and make the game a subscription again. Say 20 quid a month, less players, but more resources to throw at the game. Win Win and the freetards can go play a different game

Sausage · January 2016

Patience, young grasshopper. ESO is massive game. Also keep in mind, they gotta have a way to sell their Expansion us too in the future.

Yolokin_Swagonborn · January 2016

Draxys wrote: »

I legitimately hope that you get a response to this, but unfortunately you shouldn't get your hopes up. Zos do not like to explain themselves to their customers.

We aren't their customers. These are their customers. We are their product. I'm sure the board gets full and detailed explanations on the status of the game, and what will be released when. With actual ETAs.

This was to be expected when this game went free to play.

Charging a flat monthly (or subscription) fee means that we will offer players the game we set out to make, and the one that fans want to play. Going with any other model meant that we would have to make sacrifices and changes we weren't willing to make.

- Matt Firor, 2013

Reading the linked article to the quote will give you a lot of insight of where this game came from, and where it took a turn to the buy to play, crown store driven system we have today.

Mojmir · January 2016

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Draxys wrote: »

I legitimately hope that you get a response to this, but unfortunately you shouldn't get your hopes up. Zos do not like to explain themselves to their customers.

We aren't their customers. These are their customers. We are their product. I'm sure the board gets full and detailed explanations on the status of the game, and what will be released when. With actual ETAs.

This was to be expected when this game went free to play.

Charging a flat monthly (or subscription) fee means that we will offer players the game we set out to make, and the one that fans want to play. Going with any other model meant that we would have to make sacrifices and changes we weren't willing to make.

- Matt Firor, 2013

Reading the linked article to the quote will give you a lot of insight of where this game came from, and where it took a turn to the buy to play, crown store driven system we have today.

hehe cal ripken is an investor

WalkingLegacy · January 2016

I'm guessing their server side tech is subpar and inefficient. How many hot fixes have we seen? Hotfixing is where you push a fix live without a client side patch.

They also use their 'quarterly' DLC to push bug fixes and class balances. No idea why but I speculate it's to make their DLC patch look inflated with so much...content?

ADarklore · January 2016

Alucardo wrote: »

For crying out loud, Magicka DK needs more than that. DoTs can be weakened by CPs (spell and thick skinned) and purged natively by 2 classes in the game.

Reminder: not everything revolves around PvP in ESO and much of the nerfs to classes have come because of complainers in PvP and negatively impacted the gameplay in PvE. But let's also not forget that these upcoming attempts at class balance is being made by the same person who thinks Destruction Staff's Wall of Elements "melts" enemies. I too am extremely concerned to hear what the upcoming changes are going to be as they have an extremely poor track record by consistently doing the WRONG things... like giving Stamina Sorcs worthless Stamina versions of class abilities. Whenever they try to 'fix' something, they screw something else up. They seem to have extremely poor internal testing as many of these things should be detected before it even goes to PTS. Their lack of forethought is also unacceptable... do they not sit and think about how making a change here also impacts this over there? It seems they don't because of what us players get shafted with until so much outcry on the forums elicits a fix- something that shouldn't have to occur in order to get ZOS to address it.

kevlarto_ESO · January 2016

speeez wrote: »

One-liner summary: This isn't just another pvp complain post, I'm a pvper who wants to understand what's happening on ZOS's side instead of just complaining without knowing.

Disclaimer: For those of you who know my name, I make the videos for fun and entertainment purposes, it doesn't accurately reflect how I feel about ESO or the developers at ZOS.

Im a newer player to the game, Im a pvper, I love the game so far and am enjoying it immensely and I can't wait for arenas even though it may take some time (I have the patience, especially since I'm newer ).

Okay now with all of that said, in my experience so far, I have noticed that there are a decent amount of bugs or issues in the game that need fixing or arent working as intended, as well as things (ex: arenas) that the pvp community want implemented in the game. Now my question is this:

Why does it take so long for changes or fixes to happen in the game?

I know there was a similar question asked to Matt Frior in the last ESO Live podcast, however I didn't really understand. He said something in regards to "80 other systems" to be worked on? I don't understand his answer or I misunderstood completely on what he said and I am really confused.

If I were to take a guess myself, I would guess that ZOS is short staffed. I would also guess if they had more employees or more resources we would be able to see changes/fixes faster. But I could be very very wrong so I don't really know.

Also, I'm not familiar with the game development cycle at all. So if anyone knows how it works from an employee standpoint and could shed some light that would help me understand as well.

I'm hoping to hear from ZOS or at least your guys' thoughts on what you guys think

I think you might be correct about the small staff I believe because they are so slow to do things they just don't have the staff to pump out things quickly as they would like to. I think the statement about the 80 things going on was just an arbitrary number to get a point across that they have a lot of irons in the fire these games have a lot going on and are huge to keep up what may seem like a simple fix for us may take a lot of code and then you have to understand what systems this code may affect then you have to write the correct code then you have to test it quality assurance public testing depending on how large usually you have several departments working on different projects and then in the end they bring them all together to form the final product.

xellink · January 2016

sadownik wrote: »

Well when the console version wasnt out it was exactly the same story so i dont know what was the excuse then. And @Jura23 - yes you are right. I spend most of my time in gw2 right now (i know, i know its hated around here) and i was shocked by the Z. attitude. Playing gw2 got me spoiled in so many ways. After expansions release we had 2-3 hotfixes every day for well over a week and then 1 every 1-2 days for 2 more. You are just getting a message ingame - "new version of client available", you log off, download the patch and you are back in game.

Quick fixes??

LOL, have you seen their mac client. Trading post was not working properly on the mac client for 2 years. Hell, their mac client isn't even out of beta yet and will probably never exit beta.

Memory leaks and bad performance on the mac client too, since they launched it, it has barely improved.

sadownik · January 2016

xellink wrote: »

sadownik wrote: »

Well when the console version wasnt out it was exactly the same story so i dont know what was the excuse then. And @Jura23 - yes you are right. I spend most of my time in gw2 right now (i know, i know its hated around here) and i was shocked by the Z. attitude. Playing gw2 got me spoiled in so many ways. After expansions release we had 2-3 hotfixes every day for well over a week and then 1 every 1-2 days for 2 more. You are just getting a message ingame - "new version of client available", you log off, download the patch and you are back in game.

Quick fixes??

LOL, have you seen their mac client. Trading post was not working properly on the mac client for 2 years. Hell, their mac client isn't even out of beta yet and will probably never exit beta.

Memory leaks and bad performance on the mac client too, since they launched it, it has barely improved.

Im sorry to hear that but since i play on pc i didnt know that and on pc side it all works well,

xellink · January 2016

sadownik wrote: »

Im sorry to hear that but since i play on pc i didnt know that and on pc side it all works well,

I play it on PC too, but i just want to say that GW2 has their own priorities too, neglecting a certain player base is not an acceptable option.

Anet also has more experience than ZOS.:
giving everyone 5 fixed abilities based on weapons instead of freedom to select skills has made balancing easier so they need less manpower to test skills, GW2 doesn't need to spend as much time fixing crap because a lot of these were experienced in GW1. This has however limited player freedom however. I liked playing a dedicated healer and i can't do it anymore in GW2.

In fact, the interaction in GW1 between having so freedom on all 8 slot for skills made it very difficult for balancing and a lot of manpower was dedicated to purely fixing skills and nerfing builds. I have never seen a community cry nerf so hard before. But this is fun, and i don't want my freedom of skill choice to be taken away in ESO, that is enough to make me stay with ZOS despite their slow response and spaghetti code and slow balance and bug fixes..

Elsonso · January 2016

speeez wrote: »

Okay now with all of that said, in my experience so far, I have noticed that there are a decent amount of bugs or issues in the game that need fixing or arent working as intended, as well as things (ex: arenas) that the pvp community want implemented in the game. Now my question is this:

Why does it take so long for changes or fixes to happen in the game?

I know there was a similar question asked to Matt Frior in the last ESO Live podcast, however I didn't really understand. He said something in regards to "80 other systems" to be worked on? I don't understand his answer or I misunderstood completely on what he said and I am really confused.

If I were to take a guess myself, I would guess that ZOS is short staffed. I would also guess if they had more employees or more resources we would be able to see changes/fixes faster. But I could be very very wrong so I don't really know.

Also, I'm not familiar with the game development cycle at all. So if anyone knows how it works from an employee standpoint and could shed some light that would help me understand as well.

I'm hoping to hear from ZOS or at least your guys' thoughts on what you guys think

I cannot speak for ZOS (no one outside of ZOS can) but I can say what I think is going on behind the curtains. No conspiracies, no gloom and doom, no sky is falling.

ZOS is a business and they have to balance the expenses of running the entire ZOS division (development, customer support, operations, etc) against the revenue coming in from the sale of the game. For any long term company developing or operating an active MMO, this is going to be the case.

ZOS allocates development resources against this balance in order to deliver for the game. This is necessarily a constrained resource, and to make it worse, many of those resources are so specific that they cannot be interchanged. It is necessary to make sure that they have the right number of the right type of resource available to do what they want in the time they are comfortable with. Getting this balance right takes time and patience as demand for a resource can ebb and flow and you do not want to get in a position where you are chronically overstaffed in an area.

Inevitably, there will be more things to do than can be done. It is an active game with active development. They have to decide what can be done, in what order, at what expense, how long it will take, and with what return (revenue). They have to place all these things in order of importance, taking all of the different aspects into account, and then they assign resources based on this list. This priority list is the key to when things are developed and how long we have to wait.

I would imagine that the list is optimized for resource allocation, revenue, popularity, ease of implementation, time to develop, and probably more. We will never see the list. As players, we would find the order of the items wrong and incomprehensible. We lack the knowledge to properly sort the list, not that we wouldn't try. (The end result would be a zillion different lists, all of them worse than what ZOS has.) It is possible that the list is somewhat biased on the population of the game and what they like to do, as well as the direction they want the population to grow, but there are a ton of factors that get involved, like how much a feature costs and how long it would take to develop. Some parts of the game are easy to develop (pets, costumes, mounts) while others are harder (PVP Arena, housing, etc). It is so hard to attribute ZOS love or hate for a particular demographic in the face of this.

Let's say they want to do a PVP Arena and it has finally risen high enough on the list. It is going to take a specific number of resources from a number of disciplines. I will pretend 9 months for those resources to develop it. There is art to do, probably NPC dialog that needs to be written and recorded, zone work to do, and balance issues to take care of. It is a big project and not one to be undertaken lightly. They can expect to include it in a certain paid DLC content that will generate a projected amount of revenue, or a base game update that will generate a projected amount of license sales. When the moons line up and all the proper resources are available, they allocate the resources. They have to do this 9 months (pretending, remember) before it will be in the game. They do not announce to us that they start working on this. Fairly close to when it is done, they tell us it exists. On the eve of it being done, they tell us a lot about it. When it is done, they deliver it. After that, we get to play with it.

Of course, it is not that easy. It never is. After they start working on things, some times something else comes up that is deemed to be more important and some of the people working on it are needed for that. Perhaps they come across something during development that requires that another thing change first. There are a number of different reasons. In any case, they may have to stop working on it and they set it aside. This is a fact of life in development and the larger the project, the more likely it is. Spell system is likely a very good example of this. When the priority rises on the sidelined project, it will be picked up, dusted off, updated as necessary to fit the current game, and work will resume. A 9 month project might take 12 months to finish. Naturally, there is no guarantee that work will resume, and Justice System PVP is an example of this. Between conception and delivery, things can happen to change the delivery date, or terminate it completely.

The two important points here are that we cannot see their priority list and we have no idea how long it takes to develop something. We cannot tell when they start a project because they don't tell us. We probably won't know about it until the last month before they are done. Until then, it is likely something they are working on but they cannot give a date of when it will be done. The reason is because they cannot guarantee the delivery date. The date has not yet been scheduled. Once the date is scheduled, they change the story pretty quickly and that story gets more solid as the date approaches.

This is what I use to translate ZOS-Plan-Speek to English

"it is something we would like to do, but have no plans at this time" ... it is on the priority list but probably has no resource assigned to it.

"back burner" ... work that was once talked about but has no resources assigned. They have to have talked about it. If they have not mentioned it, they won't say this.

"no ETA" ... work has probably been done on it, but there is no expected update or patch that is close enough to talk about. It may or may not be active work but it is something that could have active work being done on it. This is in the "it is coming" category. This is significantly further out than "Soon™".

"we have no plans to do this" ... not even on the priority list or so far down that it probably won't ever be done.