ZOS: If you care about ESO, PLEASE TAKE TIME TO READ

MacCait

PLEASE take time to read this if you care about the game and where it's heading

To make it clear from the get go, this is not an attack thread and I don’t want it to turn into one.

I’ve taken the time to write this LONG post because I care about the game, the community of players, and I believe ZOS can at times be more reasonable than many other developers. So, I write this in the hope ZOS will reconsider some of these drastic changes being proposed before it hits live, or at least see why the community is in meltdown. Of course not everyone will agree with everything in the post and that’s fine by me, but please, if you do care about this game and the direction it is taking, please take the time to read.

To be clear, I think you (ZOS) are good developers, and have provided a lot of fun content, though I fear you do not always listen to your community, especially when it is in your best interest to do so as a company. I particularly think both Jessica and Gina are great and do a great job with the community, especially when they can sometimes come under fire as ZOS representatives.

This post has sections, so if you can, please don’t post until I’ve finished pasting each section:

[*] A History Lesson – Opportunity to learn from the past
[*] Customer Base
[*] Understanding Your Customers
[*] The (seemingly contradictory) Declaration of War on Sustain
[*] Contradictory Patch Notes
[*] The Pay-to-Win argument
[*] As consumers, why should we continue to invest in your product?
[*] Timing of these Changes – Unsettled Community = Loss of Sales
[*] Bombshell - creates - Uncertainty - creates - Negative Emotion - creates Doomsaying = Loss of Players = Loss of Sales
[*] Cause of Drastic Changes - PvP directly affecting PvE
[*] Possible Solutions


A History Lesson – Opportunity to learn from the past

When we first heard about these proposed changes, my friends and I were all shocked. In truth we are still in shock a few days later and are now like many, concerned about the future of the game. The reason for this… as a group, we have all been through this before in another game, DC Universe Online (DCUO); which ironically brought us to migrate to this game 2 years ago.

Around 3 years ago, new owners bought the DCUO game from previous owners. Immediately this new developer began to make drastic changes to the game based on greed and their need to make instant profit. The community was in uproar, but we all stuck through it. Many on the forums asked for the changes to be reversed, but the developers did not listen. Some players began to leave.

Just over 2 years ago the new developers decided to completely revamp and dramatically boost one of the game classes, Quantum, while nerfing other classes. The boost to Quantum wasn’t just a little, but an overwhelming amount, to the point that no other class in the game could compete with the class, even by half. New players with low-level Quantum characters and just a few skill points were able to completely out damage any other class by a frightening amount, even when it came to long-term experienced end-game players with the most skill points. Skill points (their version of champion points) were rendered completely useless by this move. The community begged for this class to be rebalanced, but the developers did not listen, even though it was obviously a serious problem. More players began to leave.

This situation led to a huge population of the community paying for class change tokens, all switching to Quantum. Needles to say, the developers were making a fortune from these class change tokens, which seemed to be their intention, and so the problem became worse. Soon most of the remaining community were Quantum. If you were not a Quantum DPS or Quantum Controller (Mana giver), you could not compete at all. Soon it became impossible to join raids because people only wanted Quantum. Every raid was asking for ‘Quantum players only’. In a raid you would have a tank, a healer, and every other person, controller or dps would be Quantum. It destroyed the game and many, many more players started leaving.

Then, 2 years ago, the developers made even more drastic changes, locking out content from the more experienced player base, forcing experienced end-game players to only be able to play the newest dlc, forcing them to buy replay badges in order to repeat the new content over and over as they were now unable to play older content. Once again the community was in uproar.

While many were bashing the devs, equally many tried to reason with them, but the result was the same, the developers did not listen. Soon even more people left the game. It got to the point that the Watchtower (the main location in the game) was completely empty as so many players had left.

At this time ESO launched on PS4 and many of us loyal DCUO fans all said goodbye to the game we loved for so many years, and we all ended up here and are still here in ESO today 2 years on.

Around a year later, in response to the mass loss of players to DCUO, the developers merged all the platform servers, so all platforms including PC were all on the same server… yet the Watchtower remained almost empty. This really showed what a loss of players the game had experienced.

It has taken the developers 2 years to win back players with new content, and many of the drastic changes that originally led to that huge loss of players were eventually reversed, meaning those changes were entirely pointless. However, many players, including our group, never returned and the community is still not what it once was.

Some important lessons can be made from that disastrous turn for DCUO. While any game is a business to the developers, with a real need for income and profit, there is a fine line between profit and greed. If a developer begins to make decisions based on greed (instead of profit), and does not listen to the community, at some point that greed will lead to loss.

Customer Base

When I say customer base, it is exactly that. Each of us here is a customer as we purchase goods from you the developer.

As an example: I personally have 12 character slots, almost every character with fully upgraded inventory space, with the last 3 slots on each being purchased from the Crown Store (CS). Almost all my characters have fully upgraded mounts, with many upgrades purchased from the CS. My bank is fully upgraded, again with purchases from the CS. I am an ESO+ subscriber and have been for almost 2 years in the game. I have frequently bought mounts and cosmetic changes from the CS, and have bought both the banker and the merchant. I recently spent 51k in crowns purchasing the Earthtear Cavern from the CS to use as our guild-hall, and making further purchases from the home editor to design the base. I recently spent another £150 on the crown sale.

I am just one player representing a percentage of players, who like me, have spent countless £’s on this game and have absolutely no problem spending money on a game or hobby we enjoy. We are your consumers who buy your product because we enjoy your product and FEEL good about your product. Emotion and how a player feels about your product is a key component here.

I’m sure many developers of games must have business consultants/advisors, or perhaps some just make these business decisions internally. Whatever the case maybe, in business your best bet for profit and success is to develop strategic foresight, and develop a good understanding of the nature (psychology) of your customer base; in this case ‘Gamers’.

Understanding Your Customers

Many Gamers are always looking at the newest games, and many gamers will continually leave one game to explore new worlds within other games. However, there are also many other gamers that will find a game they just love so much, they will invest much time and money in that game as a hobby. If a company satisfies these type of gamers, they will invest hundreds and even thousands of £’s into the game, spending a fortune on a hobby they enjoy. These type of loyal gamers will remain with the game through all the ups and downs as long as what they have invested in is not destroyed. If what they have invested in is destroyed, they will simply move on to another game.

In DCUO’s case, the bad business decisions messed up the game so much, they even lost the most loyal fans who had stuck with them for years. They did this by destroying the classes players had invested all their time and energy into, as well as limiting content. This all came at a time when much newer and innovative games such as ESO were being released on PS4.

This demonstrated the developer had neither strategic foresight, nor an adequate understanding of their player base. Had the new owners of that game had more foresight, and a deeper understanding of their customers, listening to their community, they could have easily avoided the mass loss of players. Instead, they alienated their most loyal fans, dismissed them on the forums, and basically carried on with a ‘we know best’ attitude. So they lost a huge amount of loyal players to other games, such as ESO. Something is terribly wrong when a company loses its most long term and most loyal client base.

In any business it’s imperative to understand your customer’s needs. The most successful companies spend a lot on research as to what their customers actually want, and then provide the customers with that need in order to make more sales and more profit. It’s a risky business when you continue to do something when your clients directly tell you they do NOT want that. If a company continues to alienate their customers and not listen to any advice or feedback, it is inevitable they will lose even their most loyal customers. It’s bad business.


Edited: Typos and more appropriate title

MacCait

The (seemingly contradictory) Declaration of War on Sustain

After reading the recent PTS patch notes, I couldn’t understand the logic to these changes, because there seems to be a large contradiction…

ZOS, as a team you are telling us that you want to rebalance the game, and that these changes you have proposed will give us a better balance. I think we all agree that some changes are needed in that area, however, with all respect, iin places t is appearing as though you are feeding us with some very transparent BS.

On the one hand you have declared war on sustain, not just by removing cost reduction from CP, then reducing recovery by 10%, but also now proposing drastic changes to 3 of the 4 classes ability to sustain (and be of use to the group). At the same time you are also introducing a new class, which basically has it’s own Engine Guardian in the form of a skill line, the baby Netch. On top of this you appear to be taking away unique proponents from 3 classes, while giving your new class these abilities. This is all very contradictory and does nothing at all for balance.

This is a very similar thing that DCUO did with Quantum, and it had disastrous consequences for that game in the mass loss of players.

The class nerfs you have added to the PTS in effect cripple 3 of the 4 classes. The most powerful of the 4 classes, the Magic Sorc, remains unchanged, while some of the weaker classes are being heavily nerfed. This is dangerous ground as you are possibly destroying something that many of us loyal players have invested a lot of time and energy into. Historically, when a game does that, it loses even its most loyal players.

There appears to be no real logic to these decisions. Why would you declare war on sustain, at the same time as releasing a class that has amazing buffs, and its very own superior ability to sustain (like an Engine Guardian)? The only conclusion many of us can make is that this has absolutely nothing to do with game balance, but in reality is a business strategy to make people buy the Warden. If this is not true, I hope you can at least see this is how it is coming across to the community due to your contradictive statements and actions.

Contradictory Patch Notes

With respect, your patch notes seem to be a slap in the face to everyone except Magic Sorcs. It also comes across as though you are presenting a pretext for change, but your reasoning is flawed with certain statements seeming contradictory.

As an example Redguard:

“This will be a buff if your maximum resource is below 15,840 and a nerf if it is above.”.

The statement in itself is an Oxymoron. Why would any Redguard have less than 15,840 max Stamina? So, basically what you have said here is Redguard’s are ALL heavily nerfed. This is a huge nerf to Redguards as a single race. I think we are all puzzled why you would do this. It is pretty inconsiderate to anyone who has invested time in developing a Redguard character.

Another example:

Siphoning: “This is a significant reduction to the Magicka and Stamina restored by these abilities, but the addition of Health restore should give Nightblades more healing to improve their survivability.”

Should? Are you unsure? Seems like a risk if you are unsure!

At first look it seems as though you have totally destroyed my main character, my Mag-Nightblade tank. Now I have to not only choose if I want to receive stamina back or magikca back, I also have a “significant reduction” to the amount restored. As a magicka tank I will of course have to choose magicka, but as a magicka tank my regen on stamina is incredibly low, so restoring stamina is going to be a MASSIVE problem. Together with a deletion of cost reduction and a heavy reduction to magicka recovery in CP, I’m sorry but it looks like my main character is dead.

As a Mag-Nightblade PvE Tank, my healing is already very good, but is solely dependant on siphoning working as it currently does, giving me an ability to restore both magicka and stamina when I run out. What keeps me alive is my ability to occasionally sustain magikca and stamina within my rotation. By significantly reducing Magica and Stamina, and by separating them into two separate morphs, you are very likely going to destroy Nightblank PvE tanks altogether. This is an incredibly unjust and inconsiderate move on your behalf. Have you even considered how this will affect Nightblade Tanks? Or was this decision purely based on DPS Nightblades in PvP?

Another example:

“In order to lower the gap between players with high and low CP…”

“This also means players with lower CP will see better initial returns and will not be quite as far behind a player with much higher CP”.

These statements seem to bring into questions such things as: What is the point of levelling? What is the point of Champion Points?

ESO is an MMORPG. In the game you start off with a low character with just a few skill points, and progress both in level and power until you hit level 50. You then further progress by earning more Champion Points so that you eventually grow in power. In a PvE setting this can feel good and feel rewarding. It seems like a natural thing as we experience this in all games.

Since One Tamriel, you have buffed new characters so they can go anywhere and fight anything in PvE, and that feels good to new players, or to long-term players who wish to be able to quickly level a new character. At level 50 the buff disappears and the character seems suddenly weaker. The player now needs to start considering set gear as well as the earning and placement of CP, and that adds a natural progression to the PvE game.

But with these new changes you are now suggesting lower CP players should be on par with higher-level players… Why? Why should a new player with less CP be able to be on the same par as a long-term player with 600CP?

In any other game a player would not even expect to be able to do that. A player would just see that as a way to progress; earn the CP, continue to level and grow in power until you are at an even keel with other end-game players. This once again seems to be a problem purely caused by PvP, yet with your suggested changes, drastically affects PvE players.

If you are going to make it so that low-level players with low CP can compete against high-end players for damage in PvE, or compete against players in PvP, then you are in effect now just making CP obsolete after already taking away Veteran Ranks. So why don’t we just altogether abandon CP and just have everyone the same at level 50 in both PvE and PvP? It’s practically the same thing.

It comes across you are not even really sure what it is that you want this game to be. It just seems as though it has become a big mess. Now you are declaring war on sustain and directly nerfing both classes and races. This isn’t fixing problems, just creating a lot of new ones.

A lot of your statements and reasoning for changes seem bizarre and this does make players wonder if any of the developers actually play the game, and I do not mean with ‘god mode’ on or just create something and have a little play for 20 mins to see how it performs, but players wonder if developers really play the game. We know it’s a job for you guys. You all work there and get a salary and this is your livelihood, but do you actually play the product you create? It’s just that from the spoiler notes giving your reasons and justifications, it really comes across that its been written by someone who doesn’t actually play the game and understand it.

If your reasoning for a change is flawed, then in reality you have provided no actual reason for the change. If you are unable to provide a fair and reasonably logic reason for the changes, then it can appear to players as though there is a hidden reason for the change, and your spoiler statements are in effect just false pretext for these changes. In this case it can and does appear the real reason for these changes are that you want to force people to buy Morrowind and play the Warden. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s how this is all coming across from your contradictory explanations.

The Pay-to-Win argument

I have heard this argument so many times and have never given it any time. IMO ESO has never been ‘pay-to-win’ (P2W) and I have never agreed with that argument at all. However, it is now looking like this may in fact become the case for the future.

By drastically crippling the other classes while simultaneously releasing a new class with all these abilities and great sustain, you appear to be engaging in the same type of bad business strategy DCUO did with Quantum. While we do not have class change tokens here, you are still releasing new content, which you are terming as an ‘expansion’, which has to be purchased separately.

So in effect what appears to be occurring is players are being forced to buy the new Warden class if they wish to stay relevant to group play, or remain competitive. For those players who choose not to do that, it appears all classes except for the powerful Magic Sorc, are being made ineffective, to the point of actually destroying the way those classes play. This is incredibly unfair to a great many of your players who have spent years developing their characters class and enjoy the way those classes play. It also seems that those P2W conspiracy theorists may be proven correct, because this does actually come across as P2W. EDIT: To be clear I'm not saying it is or isn't P2W, but that it's starting to appear as if it may in fact be that way with this update, and this is something you (ZOS) should be concerned about.

Many of us were excited to play Morrowind and the new Warden class.
Then you hit the community with these changes that drastically affect our characters, possibly completely breaking them. You declare war on sustain, and yet simultaneously introduce a new class that has great sustain and its very own engine guardian-like pet. It is therefore coming across as though the real reason you are doing this is to force everyone to buy Morrowind and play the new Warden; which is basically travelling down a road DCUO travelled years ago almost completely ending that game and seeing the loss of almost the entire community of long-term players.

As consumers, why should we continue to invest in your product?

Using myself as an example… I have 12 slots, all filled. Most of these slots are Nightblades, just different builds on different races, all being affected by this patch. My main character I have already described… so as a player, right now it appears that my main character and play style are possibly gone. Apart from my little army of Nightblades I have one Redguard Stam Sorc who I took a lot of time to design and love the way he looks and plays… this patch destroys him too. I have a Dragonknight, and lastly I have two Templars, a magic Tank and a Healer, all heavily affected by this patch. Ironically, the one class I don’t have is the only class not being affected by drastic nerfs, the super easy to use Magic Sorc.

So basically every single one of my 12 characters and everything I enjoy about them are possibly being crushed by these changes. So please tell me, as a consumer, why should I or anyone in my position, continue playing after June when these patches hit live? If a retailer or trader kills everything I love about a product, why should I as a consumer continue to invest in that product?

Obviously I’m not realistically expecting an answer on this, but it seems your answer might be ‘because we have this new shiny product that is just so great and does everything and more that your old product did’. In other words we are all being forced to buy something new. If this is the case and the changes going live do in fact destroy all current characters, I’m sorry, but this is will be completely unacceptable and I think many of us would just leave, if not altogether, at least until things return to normal.

Edited for clarification

MacCait

Timing of these Changes – Unsettled Community = Loss of Sales

With all and complete respect, the timing of some of these changes, and the announcement of these changes could not be worse. It appears to me this is an incredibly bad business decision and shows a complete lack of foresight on your (ZOS) behalf.

As a company you are launching a new product. As a business you obviously want people to not only purchase this product, but to pre-order it to ensure sales. Yet you have announced these drastic and seemingly tyrannical changes, which have directly unsettled the entire community of players, and created an environment of uncertainty within the game, which will last for the next 2 months until release. In all honesty, I don’t think any of us have ever seen such a bad business decision from a company wishing for its consumers to purchase the new product; it’s very bad merchandising.

You have created so many changes in this coming patch that right now players are left unsure what to work on. Any build a player currently has, or tries to work on right now is highly likely to be rendered useless in June. That’s 2 months of uncertainty in this game. A lot of players are so perturbed they are finding it hard to even log on and continue playing right now.

By making these huge changes all at once and actually destroying the way certain classes play, in turn stripping players of their enjoyment, destroying players interest, investment and time spent on developing their own characters, you have in effect completely unsettled the community. In terms of business, that’s an incredibly bad business direction. You never ever want to unsettle your customers, especially your long-term loyal customer base, because those customers have already proven to you they will stick with you if you are reasonable. New players may or may not stay in the game, but long-term players have already proven that.

What you could have and should have done is present the new Warden class, balanced with the others, and let everyone play the game in happiness with 5 classes. Not destroy 3 classes so that you risk losing a mass of players leaving, while in the game the majority of remaining players are either playing just Sorcs or Wardens. None of that will help the state of the game. It’s bad business and ultimately the only thing that suffers is the game itself, your own customer base and sales.

As a consumer I was very excited to pre-order and play the Morrowind content and discover the new class. However, these drastic changes to the core game directly affecting PvE have completely unsettled me and created such uncertainty that it has now had the complete opposite affect on me. As a direct result of these proposed changes and the level of uncertainty it has caused, I will no longer pre-order the product and will not purchase it until I know for certain that my current characters are going to be able to survive these severe changes. As any one person reflects the mindset of a larger population, I imagine many others will now also hold off on the purchase until all this pans out and we can see where this is going. So in creating such a level of unsettling uncertainty in your game, what you have actually done is directly reduce the amount of sales you would have received had you initiated these type of changes at a later date after the introduction of Morrowind and the Warden.

What you have done here is alienate your customers, and even your most loyal and long term fans. This is made decisively clear when you look at Deltia. I am not a fanboy of anyone. It is not a word anyone who knows me would use to describe me. I am however of course aware of certain well known players like Deltia, Fengrush and Sypher, and have respect for them for their contribution to the game and how they have helped others players. Of these guys I think Deltia has consistently been one of your most vocally loyal fans and has even described himself as a “fanboi”. A trait I have noticed in this guy is his ability to put a ‘positive spin’ on things and always look for the silver lining, still finding a way to support you. So, when a company can completely turn a most loyal fan, who was originally really excited about the new expansion, into someone who has now withdrawn his support of the product and the company itself, and openly speaking out against the game and the company, you as a company have clearly failed and done something very wrong.

As a consumer, the effect these proposed changes have had on me is completely the opposite affect you may have been hoping for. I am now so unsettled by the bomb you have dropped into the community, and the ripples that has created, that I am all of a sudden very concerned about the future state and fate of the game, and I would first need to see how all of these changes pan out before I invest more money into purchasing Morrowind.

As it stands, I currently feel unwilling to continue supporting this game with my time, energy and my money, if you are just going to cripple the classes I have invested so much time into. If you make these changes you also set precedence for the future… So, if I invest all my time and energy into the Warden, what is to stop you doing the same thing and crippling the Warden once you release another class in a future expansion?

In big business and politics, when someone makes such a large error as this (in terms of timing with a product launch), often someone at the top is asked to resign. I’m sure this won’t be the case at ZOS, but currently you are really not encouraging your customers to have faith in your management as a company, or your products, and you really need to jump on this and take action to turn around the ball you’ve started rolling downhill.

Bombshell - creates - Uncertainty - creates - Negative Emotion - creates Doomsaying = Loss of Players = Loss of Sales

Emotion is an important thing in sales. You want customers to FEEL good about your product. It’s simple… when people FEEL good about a product they buy more.

Currently in game, the environment is becoming exactly like it was in DCUO at the end. In game all anyone can talk about are the drastic changes. The conversation has very suddenly turned from one of excitement about Morrowind, to one of sadness, depression, and dread.

The entire environment is turning negative and causing a negative emotional state, which in turn is causing some players to not feel like even logging on, with some players saying they’re ‘off to play another game for a while’. This is not the kind of game environment you want to create at the very launch of what could have been an exciting product. It feels exactly the same as the environment was in DCUO just before everyone left (see beginning of post). In that experience, the negative environment lasted for months. It became such a depressing place that players just stopped logging on, and soon the mass majority of long-term loyal players left the game. Is this really what you want for ESO?

These changes come at a dangerous time. Not only is it ludicrous to announce these bizarre changes at the same time as your build up to product launch, but they will go live at the beginning of summer and in a year when many other big games are coming out. This is what happened to DCUO. It did this kind of thing for a few months, ESO launched, and we all migrated to Tamriel and never went back. So will history repeat itself here? Will ESO mess up so bad that many of us leave in droves only to find some other game?

MacCait

Cause of Drastic Changes - PvP directly affecting PvE

You speak about ‘infinite sustain’… Who exactly uses infinite sustain? What exact percentage of your players use infinite sustain?

I regard myself as an average player. I love both PvE and PvP. I mostly PvE with friends, but occasionally like to jump into Cyrodiil or Imperial City and have a bit of fun. I have 12 character slots, yet not one of my characters is able to create an ‘infinite sustain’. I believe that the mass majority of your community of players are like me, average players not running the absolute most ‘optimal builds’, and not using what you term as infinite sustain.

So it appears the whole reason for these drastic changes seems to stem from a small percentage of players who are able to create builds with what you term ‘infinite sustain’. I’ve tried to establish an exact figure on what percentage of players actually do this, but can only see references to an elite 1% of PvP specific players.

So, it seems you’re proposing to make these drastic class changes to nerf the top 1% of PvP players. With all respect this seems completely insane. What about the other 99% of your customer base who are now being nerfed into the ground? Why would any company ever hurt 99% of its customers to target 1%? This honestly makes no sense at all.

Actually those figures might not even be correct. If the changes are targeting the elite 1% of PvP specific players, that means you are hurting the other 99% of average PvP players, AND 100% of PvE players. I don’t even know how this all calculates and what the exact figures are but it is appearing you want to penalise 199% of your customer base just to target an elite 1%?

Do you honestly think this strategy will work? If they are elite players, they will always just find a new way of doing things. Meanwhile you are stripping the very joy out of the hearts of the mass majority of your customer base.

Over the last couple of years I’ve listened and watched as debate has raged about PvP affecting PvE, and how continual fixes and patches to the Champion System are caused by PvP, yet everyone in PvE are continually penalised by these changes. To be honest, it has never really bothered me, I have just changed things around and adapted. However, this time things are very different. The changes being made are so drastic that they not only directly affect every player in the game, whether PvE or PvP, but even affect classes and a race so badly that they will actually cripple them.

Honestly, it makes no logical sense (as a business) why you would continually do this. You are directly hurting a huge aspect of your customer base by continually penalising PvE because of things occurring in PvP.

The solution to this cause and effect seems quite simple and has been suggested a great many times by many players in many threads over the last 3 years: treat PvE and PvP differently!

It’s the most simplest solution you could possibly make, its been advised by a majority of your player base, yet you consistently close your ears while you strive to develop a Champion Point system that will be great for both areas.; though you never actually achieve this, it’s just a perpetual failing cycle of changes upon changes, all the while negatively affecting PvE.

As a business the majority of your customers have told you what they want time and time again, yet you are not listening, just making the same mistakes over and over. According to some this could be termed as insanity from the misquoted saying “Doing something over and over and expecting different results is the very definition of insanity”. Of course whoever said that (not Einstein) was probably talking about scientific experimentation, and while it is of course not a correct definition of legal insanity, within a system of testing, it does at least amount to foolishness and a waste of time.

The reason it is a waste of time is because you are trying to achieve one system of CP for two entirely different styles of play, two entirely different scenarios that are not alike and are affected by very different multiple components and criteria. You are attempting to climb mount Everest when all you need to do as a team is to walk up a small hill.

Possible Solutions:

It appears the simplest and most sensible solution would be to either:

A.) Create two separate systems of CP, one for PvP and one for PvE (which would obviously require much more of your time and may not be achievable before Morrowind release)
B.) Temporarily remove CP from any form of PvP, allowing you the time to come up with a new CP system especially for PvP including Battlegrounds.
C.) Entirely remove CP from any form of PvP and have it as a reward system for PvE content only.

If you made the decision to explore these simple solutions, you would altogether have less problems and a much happier customer base. You have already made the decision to have non-CP campaigns, and to release battlegrounds without CP so these suggestions are not a stretch. All of these ideas would be far better than destroying the current system for PvE and creating such disharmony and uncertainty within the game for the next few months.

ZOS Please Reconsider these Changes

ZOS I think it’s now clear after just a few days and the melt down both on the forums and in game that the majority of players here are STRONGLY against most of these changes and do not see them as a suitable fix to the problems that already exist (PvP problems).

Whatever happened to “play as you want”. We can’t play as we want if you have crippled our classes and dictate the way they are to now be used. That is ‘play as we dictate’ NOT ‘play as you want’.

There is indeed a lesson to be learned from the past experience of DCUO. Please do not follow in that path. ESO had already lost players, including myself for a few months. It’s been great to be back, and it was great to feel everyone’s excitement over Morrowind. It would be wonderful to return the community to that state of excitement instead of the negative emotional state of uncertainty that has been created by these drastic and ill-timed changes.

The reason players are less likely to ‘adapt’ to drastic changes is that you just stripped them of all they enjoyed about their characters and the game. It’s basic psychology… when you take away peoples enjoyment, stripping them of what they love, feeding them disapointment and sadness, they’ll leave. All relationships work that way, including the relationship between a consumer and a product, or a customer and a company.

Please reconsider some of these drastic changes before they hit live and we lose more players that actually add something to the community. Please reconsider and take immediate action now, reversing some of these drastic proposals before we lose more players within this storm of uncertainty.

Darkestnght

Thanks for taking the time to put this post together. Your comments hit home with me on all points. I am in a similar situation as you are but with only 9 slots and mostly magDK's and stamDk,s.

I was excited for Morrowind when it was first announced but not any more. I am going to pass on the expansion for now and wait to see how it pans out in real life for others before I purchase it.

Also, I believe ESO would probably rather eat barbwire before making any changes to Morrowind.

Soleya

Really well said.

I found myself the past few days logging in, doing writs and horse training and then logging out and playing something else. Normally I would play a few hours a night, but I just feel what's the point trying to get any gear, it's most likely going to be worthless in a few weeks.

I have more hours in this game than any other I've played...in the 1000's. And lately every patch is just nerfing my character(s) into the ground. Last patch my Stam Sorc was hit so hard I don't even want to play her anymore. Doesn't feel like progression.

I consider myself average or above average, and I can't sustain indefinitely on most of my characters and get decent dps numbers.

Pallio

Very well said, I think a lot of these discussions get ugly because we don't articulate our feels effectively and just get mad.

Trying to move past this soul crushing patch and really just decide if there is any reason to keep playing or move on, this is an individual consideration and opinions of others most likely won't change my mind either way.

jlboozer

Very well thought out, I totally agree with you. ZoS needs to read this...I hope they don't destroy this game because Destiny 2 isn't that far away and I will go back to Destiny if my character plays like crap after morrowind patch. I quit Destiny for ESO for similar issues after playing Destiny since launch....

HoolDog

Great post! So many issues absolutely nailed.

Although I disagree with the fixes for pvp and I don't personally agree the pvp is to blame for the majority of changes.

Cêltic421

Wow nice thought out post. Agree with many of your points. I to was excited with Morrowind when it was first announced. Not anymore. I have cancelled my 2 collectors edition. Not sure how I will like the update and don't want to support something I'm questioning about.

Thanks for your time putting all that together. Can imagine it took awhile.

Glamdring

Very nice put, i been subbing since 2015 and canceled it yesterday, lost all motivation to play after reading the patch notes.

zaria

Good point, however I don't get the nerfing other classes to make warden look good.
First this promote warden as healing and support who is an unpopular role, if they wanted sales they should make him an killer dps something warden is not, casuals don't know about sustain issues and how warden will be good at it.

Second morrowind don't need an op warden or even warden itself to sell. People will buy it for the new area, battleground and raid, could have added two dungeons instead of the warden.
Numbers of players who buy Morrowind primarily because of an OP warden will be less than the number who quit because of nerfs.

No not saying this was not done to increase sale, however if that is the reason they are idiots.
Yes it could be true, we had Windows 8 after all, that is real mind boggling.

HoolDog

Glamdring wrote: »

Very nice put, i been subbing since 2015 and canceled it yesterday, lost all motivation to play after reading the patch notes.

I also cancelled my sub yesterday... at least that will be two of us... he more that do the better, as money will be the only thing that the company will notice.

Sigtric

I don't necessarily agree with all of it, but dang. Well said.

Lord_Eomer

Well done! B/W whats happening why every1 is writing natch potes?

Soo many long posts from past few days!

bunnytrix

Great post. Very well written and also a good read. Absolutely nailed it. Everyone who loves the game should read this. Everyone at ZOS should also read it, but sadly we know they will just skim it and ignore it.

mateoz

I was excited for Morrowind when it was first announced but not any more. I am going to pass on the expansion for now and wait to see how it pans out in real life for others before I purchase it and I'm not alone.
I know 8 players 2+ years old timers already left after the patch note was released. If they nerf us every patch peoples will just leave, is it really what they want?
The hype for Morrowind has now shifted to will I still play the game after such changes attitude.

Koolio

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

You should really take a look at this. I was in the dcuo boat saw the issues he described and jumped ship. I'm getting that same feeling from ESO now which I hate because I love this game. But really have everyone in your office read this. I wouldn't hurt. Even if you push this stuff through the next update is 3 months away and should consider this post.

Dark_Aether

zaria wrote: »

Good point, however I don't get the nerfing other classes to make warden look good.
First this promote warden as healing and support who is an unpopular role, if they wanted sales they should make him an killer dps something warden is not, casuals don't know about sustain issues and how warden will be good at it.

Second morrowind don't need an op warden or even warden itself to sell. People will buy it for the new area, battleground and raid, could have added two dungeons instead of the warden.
Numbers of players who buy Morrowind primarily because of an OP warden will be less than the number who quit because of nerfs.

No not saying this was not done to increase sale, however if that is the reason they are idiots.
Yes it could be true, we had Windows 8 after all, that is real mind boggling.

You answer your own question. Those two roles are taken right from Templar's toolkit. At least, if they've done it in Homestead patch, it would not have looked so suspicious; I guess they realized the class was not that appealing at the last minute.

Cêltic421

zaria wrote: »

Good point, however I don't get the nerfing other classes to make warden look good.
First this promote warden as healing and support who is an unpopular role, if they wanted sales they should make him an killer dps something warden is not, casuals don't know about sustain issues and how warden will be good at it.

Second morrowind don't need an op warden or even warden itself to sell. People will buy it for the new area, battleground and raid, could have added two dungeons instead of the warden.
Numbers of players who buy Morrowind primarily because of an OP warden will be less than the number who quit because of nerfs.

No not saying this was not done to increase sale, however if that is the reason they are idiots.
Yes it could be true, we had Windows 8 after all, that is real mind boggling.

Yes we really don't need another class. What's the point of another class if ZoS is taking so many things that made up other classes? I put in 160 days, 12 hours, 37 minutes, and 43 seconds of play time since launch on consoles with my Templar. Now ZoS taking away so many things that made the other classes unique. I really don't see a point in templars anymore. In this case I much rather would have had 2 new dungeons instead of another class.

Blairy087

I hope they read this,
I really do, this is the best post ive read on the forums in a long time. Well done mate.
Morrowind has lost its x factor now. No more talk about how excited people are for launch or what are u gonna do when morrowind drops. Its all negative and down right depressing.

jlboozer wrote: »

Very well thought out, I totally agree with you. ZoS needs to read this...I hope they don't destroy this game because Destiny 2 isn't that far away and I will go back to Destiny if my character plays like crap after morrowind patch. I quit Destiny for ESO for similar issues after playing Destiny since launch....

Already there lol rejoined my old destiny clan on discord last night. Destiny here I Come. Might even see if they will let me flip my morrowind pre order over to destiny 2.

Mastery404

I for one am more excited about the tweaks to power creep and the ease of the power gap, which right now are a HUGE problem in both PVP and in PVE.

I can't stand those dungeons where the hardest part is to try to follow that guy making everything explode in his way, burning through the mechanics of the bosses and doesn't even caring about ressurrecting his mates because he doesn't need them anyway... or being hit by a truck in PVP who can tank all the damage from my group while he runs to safe.

Moncho11

Great post!!
I'm in the same boat. I decided to test the changes on console by changing CPs to simulate the changes and removing a skill point from medium armor while removing siphoning attacks from bar. I can achieve a similar rotation by removing 800 weapon damage and adding 1000 Stam recovery. I lose 4K armor pen as well. So in essence the combat remains fast pace but TTK increased drastically and surviability went down due to lower Vigor(will also be more expensive). Finally I can't test the increase in cost for stam but I can foresee having to fill in more heavy attacks that for nightblade is not good since class is based on fast light attacks( relentless focus and siphoning attacks). Personally cancelled eso + and will wait and see what happens.

zaria

Cêltic421 wrote: »

zaria wrote: »

Good point, however I don't get the nerfing other classes to make warden look good.
First this promote warden as healing and support who is an unpopular role, if they wanted sales they should make him an killer dps something warden is not, casuals don't know about sustain issues and how warden will be good at it.

Second morrowind don't need an op warden or even warden itself to sell. People will buy it for the new area, battleground and raid, could have added two dungeons instead of the warden.
Numbers of players who buy Morrowind primarily because of an OP warden will be less than the number who quit because of nerfs.

No not saying this was not done to increase sale, however if that is the reason they are idiots.
Yes it could be true, we had Windows 8 after all, that is real mind boggling.

Yes we really don't need another class. What's the point of another class if ZoS is taking so many things that made up other classes? I put in 160 days, 12 hours, 37 minutes, and 43 seconds of play time since launch on consoles with my Templar. Now ZoS taking away so many things that made the other classes unique. I really don't see a point in templars anymore. In this case I much rather would have had 2 new dungeons instead of another class.

I agree, warden look decent for an ranged stamina dps already tweak / add some more damage skills and buffs and you could easy make something similar or better sorcerer, and yes that would be insanely popular.

No need to nerf templar, an heal warden would give new bonuses and would work better than sorcerer for healing.
With current setup it looks like sorcerer will be better than all for healing in dungeons.

zaria

And why nerf the poor redguards, not many of them around anyway, yes i guess it's the melee restore stamina bonus they don't like. Then replace it with an damage bonus or something.
Same with the nightblades, give something back even if just an small bonus.

One obvious race who needs an nerf.
This one will not name it but its in the same alliance as Khajiit and Bosmer and is very popular because its so OP combined with an class who will become OP after the patch.

angelncelestine

Well said! By far the best thing I have read since the patch notes have been released! Myself and many others feel the same way about everything! I sure hope ZOS reads this!

Marabornwingrion

ZOS, listen to this guy please.
@ZOS_GinaBruno

bareheiny

Generally, I avoid massive walls o text. This one is an exception.


But really Mac, there's no room for thoughfulness and logic on these here forums! We need doom, gloom and rage.

crusnik91

@MacCait Just an advise. use spoilers ''

TEXT

'' for each topic. That would make it lot easier to keep on track what I am reading. Otherwise good job

Mojmir

nailed it, yet another person who gets it

Villious

OP, I think your series of post are some of the most well thought out, logical and common sense post I've ever read on a game forum. You hit the nail on the head 100% for me and all my friends.

I, along with all my friends that play this game, have canceled our subscriptions, and decided to not order Morrowwind. We've even started looking for alternate games to replace ESO should this PTS go live. We all had hoped to spend several more years in Tamriel, but if things go as this current patch suggests, we're done. It's just not worth it. We may even leave before Morrowwind, as there's just too much uncertainty, and insanity now.

I hope things turn around and go back to the positive side of sane before Morrowwind drops, but let's face it, that's not ZOS's track record. History is always doomed to repeat itself.

@ZOS_GinaBruno , this is one guy, you guys, should listen to.