Suggested feature: customize order of characters

Dennino

I saw a similar suggestion about a year ago, but figured I would restate it since I don't think it's been addressed.

Basically it would be a nice to be able to re-order characters on the character selection screen. For example, they could be sorted by date created (as they seem to be now), date last played, alphabetically, by level, by alliance, by class, etc. Ideally it would be a drag-and-drop system so players could truly customize the order.

I realize this doesn't greatly affect gameplay, but it would improve the experience of those who like to switch between alts and retain a sense of organization. Although I'm no expert, it also seems like it would be relatively simple to implement. A significant improvement for a small cost.

Would anyone else like to see this feature added?

Jim_Pipp

It's a frequently requested feature. I expect it to be added in the future, either alongside a quarterly update that zos know isn't going to be popular, or maybe as a perk for eso plus subscribers.

Woodenplank

Here was my suggestion from last year
My suggestion was as simple as "add up/down arrows, and let players arrange characters on the list"
Seems like they don't much feel for it.

redspecter23

It should be a very easy change and one that would be very popular. As far as effort:reward goes, this is the definition of low hanging fruit. Probably should have been done ages ago.

Shadowshire

There are many features, as well as design flaws and numerous bugs, which probably would not take either much time or much effort to introduce, to change, or to remedy. But evidently ZOS does not believe that any "inve$tment" to improve the quality of the software and the efficiency of its performance are worth the time and effort to make them. As long as enough of us continue playing, paying for ESO Plus subscriptions, buying DLCs and expansions, and (above all) purchasing Crowns to buy items from the Crown Store, ZOS evidently assumes that we will continue to do so.

Nonetheless, frankly, the total number of sales via five Guild Traders (3 major ones) that I make has been declining. Apparently the number of active TESO players online at any given time has significantly declined since a few weeks after the release of Update 17 (Dragon Bones). The number of other player's characters which mine encounter has quite clearly declined. Where and while I usually encountered 6 - 10 other player's characters, now I encounter 2 - 5 others instead.

I doubt the reduction in encounters has occurred because ZOS/Bethesda has increased the number of "instances", among which all players online during any given time are distributed. (If anything, it would make more financial sense to reduce the number of instances, and we might see that begin to happen.) Of course, each and every Guild Trader is present in each and every instance in which it is appropriate for that Guild Trader to be present. So the number of instances is irrelevant with regard to the overall number of players whose characters are available to buy items.

If I recall correctly, the original release for the next TESO "chapter" (Summerset) was the 4th calendar quarter of this year. About three months ago, ZOS decided that it will be released during the 3rd calendar quarter instead. Unfortunately, less time for development will result in fewer new features, fewer interesting quests, and more bugs. If you thought Update 17 broke too many things, then, IMHO, Summerset is rather likely to be the coup de grace.

For what it is worth, I am not criticizing ZOS or Bethesda in these remarks. I just report what I see and experience during playing TESO, and what I conclude from the behavior of the game software and system. Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the news.

Nestor

We encouraged them to do this when we testing Summerset. ZOS wants to do this. The question is when. The fix is easy, they just need to make it.

Darkmage1337

Shadowshire wrote: »

There are many features, as well as design flaws and numerous bugs, which probably would not take either much time or much effort to introduce, to change, or to remedy. But evidently ZOS does not believe that any "inve$tment" to improve the quality of the software and the efficiency of its performance are worth the time and effort to make them. As long as enough of us continue playing, paying for ESO Plus subscriptions, buying DLCs and expansions, and (above all) purchasing Crowns to buy items from the Crown Store, ZOS evidently assumes that we will continue to do so.

Nonetheless, frankly, the total number of sales via five Guild Traders (3 major ones) that I make has been declining. Apparently the number of active TESO players online at any given time has significantly declined since a few weeks after the release of Update 17 (Dragon Bones). The number of other player's characters which mine encounter has quite clearly declined. Where and while I usually encountered 6 - 10 other player's characters, now I encounter 2 - 5 others instead.

I doubt the reduction in encounters has occurred because ZOS/Bethesda has increased the number of "instances", among which all players online during any given time are distributed. (If anything, it would make more financial sense to reduce the number of instances, and we might see that begin to happen.) Of course, each and every Guild Trader is present in each and every instance in which it is appropriate for that Guild Trader to be present. So the number of instances is irrelevant with regard to the overall number of players whose characters are available to buy items.

If I recall correctly, the original release for the next TESO "chapter" (Summerset) was the 4th calendar quarter of this year. About three months ago, ZOS decided that it will be released during the 3rd calendar quarter instead. Unfortunately, less time for development will result in fewer new features, fewer interesting quests, and more bugs. If you thought Update 17 broke too many things, then, IMHO, Summerset is rather likely to be the coup de grace.

For what it is worth, I am not criticizing ZOS or Bethesda in these remarks. I just report what I see and experience during playing TESO, and what I conclude from the behavior of the game software and system. Don't shoot the messenger because you don't like the news.

Dragon Bones was released in February, the 1st quarter of 2018.
Summerset Isle Chapter is being released in May/June, which is the 2nd quarter of 2018.

We are still getting two more major updates in Quarter 3 and Quarter 4 of 2018.
Quarter 3 is likely to be a quality-of-life focused update (past examples: Homestead, One Tamriel) whereas Quarter 4 could more likely be another content/story zone (past examples: Imperial City, Orsinium, Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood, and Clockwork City) or more dungeon DLC (past examples: Shadows of the Hist, Horns of the Reach, Dragon Bones).

ZOS does Chapter-based zone/story content, smaller-scale zone content, DLC dungeons, and major QoL updates in any order per quarter; but, ZOS still follows a pattern for what is coming each year on a quarter-by-quarter basis for 4 major updates each year. (E.g., we're only getting 1 Chapter per year and 1 dungeon DLC per year, but we don't know at what quarter it'll be until ZOS announces it.)

As for the character-order list upon log in, I created a post about this several years ago; during Year 1 or 2 of the game. Many threads have been created about this topic. I recall @ZOS_GinaBruno saying it is something they want to do or work on, but obviously, here we are, 4+ years later with 8-14 character slots, yet still no character-rearrange order/list (like WoW and other games).
ESO is not very alt-friendly.
Maybe we'll get the character-rearrangement order/list feature when we get the account-wide achievements feature (excluding titles). Hopefully both will come in the Quarter 3 2018 or Quarter 4 2018 update. We just have to wait and see and hope that ZOS is not only just reading our feedback, but also has people working on getting these two things implemented sooner rather than later. Both features have been a long-time coming and have been asked for, numerous times, since launch/beta.

Shadowshire

@Darkmage1337

Dragon Bones was released in February, the 1st quarter of 2018.
Summerset Isle Chapter is being released in May/June, which is the 2nd quarter of 2018.

Yes, ZOS moved the release forward by a month since the announcement that Summerset would be released, but they didn't disclose the release date or month at that time. It was nonetheless reasonable to expect that it would be in the 3rd quarter, perhaps in July instead of August or September. But ZOS has since been disclosed that it will be in June -- I don't recall whether an explicit release date has been announced.

Summerset isn't on the PTS yet, as far as I know, but, frankly, in my experience the PTS is just an "advance marketing" tactic to increase player interest in the upcoming release in the expectation that it will also increase sales. The one thing that we can be sure of is that the less time is allowed for development, the more likely the outcome will either be lacking much in new features and interesting content, or contain so many design flaws and implementation errors that it could be effectively unplayable.

What concerns me the most is that every time ZOS releases a DLC or expansion "chapter", features which work in the Base Game are often broken and, usually, never repaired subsequently. Some that have been repaired are subsequently broken again .... ad infinitum. So how long can ZOS keep their game in play?

Darkmage1337

Shadowshire wrote: »

@Darkmage1337

Dragon Bones was released in February, the 1st quarter of 2018.
Summerset Isle Chapter is being released in May/June, which is the 2nd quarter of 2018.

Yes, ZOS moved the release forward by a month since the announcement that Summerset would be released, but they didn't disclose the release date or month at that time. It was nonetheless reasonable to expect that it would be in the 3rd quarter, perhaps in July instead of August or September. But ZOS has since been disclosed that it will be in June -- I don't recall whether an explicit release date has been announced.

Summerset isn't on the PTS yet, as far as I know, but, frankly, in my experience the PTS is just an "advance marketing" tactic to increase player interest in the upcoming release in the expectation that it will also increase sales. The one thing that we can be sure of is that the less time is allowed for development, the more likely the outcome will either be lacking much in new features and interesting content, or contain so many design flaws and implementation errors that it could be effectively unplayable.

What concerns me the most is that every time ZOS releases a DLC or expansion "chapter", features which work in the Base Game are often broken and, usually, never repaired subsequently. Some that have been repaired are subsequently broken again .... ad infinitum. So how long can ZOS keep their game in play?

Summerset has been on the PublicTestServer (PTS) for weeks now, and will be released on ESO PC/Mac Live Servers in 10 days, on May 21st.

Edit: As far as your other points, players don't pay much attention to the PTS because they have no incentive to do so. Any progress made on PTS is deleted/reset every time ZOS does a new character copy over from Live servers. Why play ESO on the PTS when there is already so much to do on the real Live server. Plus, ZOS rarely listens to player feedback on PTS features/updates/changes in the first place, so why would players use their own money and extra free time to further test ZOS's product? (The product being ESO's content/updates/changes). Game development studios companies are inherently supposed to have a QA department. Quality Assurance. You know, game dev people who are paid to test gameplay, find bugs, fix bugs, etc. ZOS skips this and just has the players do so instead, free for them, but on our time and our dime.

Shadowshire

@Darkmage1337

Summerset has been on the PublicTestServer (PTS) for weeks now, and will be released on ESO PC/Mac Live Servers in 10 days, on May 21st.

Ah, well ...... thanks for the info. I've checked the News & Announcements category and realize that it has been a while since I've looked at that section. Aside from upgrading my computer system (I have built and maintained Do-It-Yourself computer systems for 25+ years), there are responsibilities in my personal life which don't leave me nearly enough time to keep track of what is happening in TESO development, and hardly enough time to play the game, too. Maybe I should satisfy my inclination and desire to write on some other website(s) instead.

Starlight_Knight

YES!!! ive been dying for this feature for soooooooo long,
im bored to tears with the same log in screen and character select - Please sort this out!

Darkmage1337

Hayden_Knight wrote: »

YES!!! ive been dying for this feature for soooooooo long,
im bored to tears with the same log in screen and character select - Please sort this out!

Hopefully ZOS will implement this change sometime in Q3 or Q4 in 2018... We can only hope, and keep waiting.

Minyassa

Just gotta keep making a lot of noise about quality-of-life improvements over stupid balance nerfs. Eventually they might hear us over the constant nerf screams.

turlisley

Maybe next update, guys.
Maybe next update...

Turelus

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

It's a frequently requested feature. I expect it to be added in the future, either alongside a quarterly update that zos know isn't going to be popular, or maybe as a perk for eso plus subscribers.

I can't see them locking this behind ESO+ it wouldn't make sense. This would be worse than SWTOR monetisation then.