WTF is going on?

birch44

Let me start by saying i am a subscriber and have played since launch with no breaks. I really enjoy this game most of the time. That being said, there are a couple of things that have began to irk me something fierce.

PTS means public TEST server. The last iteration of the PTS should be what goes live with minor bug fixes included. The reason being it's been TESTED. When you make sweeping changes and push it live you get what we get every major patch, unexpected downtime, major bugs, and issues galore (OH MY!). If ZoS wants to make changes, by all means, have at it. It's your game but why even do a PTS when a lot of the changes that go live were never tested AT ALL.

Next we have hard release dates for content. How can you expect to handle any potential issues/bugs if you are making changes up to and including the live release. Make these dates a little more fluid and make sure you are releasing a product that is functional. Minor issues are one thing but having entire instances and mechanics broken beyond belief is insane.

Also I would like to touch on the atrocious PTS participation. If you would simply listen and actually read the bug reports maybe people would be willing to spend the time testing your product. As it stands now, it's a HUGE waste of time where feedback and bug reports are largely ignored. By all means though, let's adjust the lighting level on this candle. The Falkreath dungeon no death cheeves was busted and reported week one PTS and guess what? Still broken....

And finally, the end game population and the effects of your "balance" changes. While I appreciate how you are trying to manage this game, I have to say it's very disconcerting. The results of the patches over the last 6 months has seen a DRASTIC decline in the end game/competitive population. I'm sure of you reading this are saying, "oh thank rngesus. A few less elitists [snip] to deal with." Im not sure you all realize the impact we have on the game. Just from an economic standpoint, you don't really think that rper in Mournhold is really the one buying your pots, gold tempers, and glyphs do you. That is the endgamers (both PvP and pve).

The changes effecting this aspect of the game are many. Every 2 months we are expected to refarm gear to achieve the very best results in our role. There have been changes made to vHoF dang near every week since release (including this patch). I'm not sure you realize how difficult it is to rearrange a strat involving 12 people every week. The continuous changes to "balance" essential require us to relearn how to play our class/spec every patch. There are many more I'm not going into detail about but you get my point.

I like the play how you want attitude we've got going here. My friends, a shrinking number of others, and I choose to try to be competitive. At every turn we are shot down by ZoS and their balance changes. If the changes that were on the last pts patch went live it would have been good for everyone. They finally succeeded in closing the gap on sets/munduses/traits. But instead of going along with it they change everything with ZERO explanation.

TLDR; don't be lazy [snip]

[edited for flaming]

stumpy999

wall of text

I just reply as game is down

too much wall of text

look I'm over 50 and I can't be A to read through that

think twitter, 140 characters or less

ZiRM

I didn't read it, thx for tweets!

idk

Only got into the first few sentences.

While Zos fails to use the PTS to even a moderate level, there is Zero reason to expect the last version of the PTS to be what goes live.

OP wants it so if Zos finds a bug, even a game breaking bug, during the final week of the PTS it needs to go live.

Maybe that will shed some light on his rant.

Pretty sure NEVER has Zos sent a PTS patch to live without making some changes.

Dr_Rektar

I am certain I read post like that during homestead afterpatch issues

FoolishHuman

jrgray93 wrote: »

ZOS has next to zero understanding of what they're doing half the time. This isn't news.

But you are all experts in game design I gather? There is a reason why these "theorycrafters" are playing the games and not working for the game companies.

SirAndy

birch44 wrote: »

... PTS means public TEST server. The last iteration of the PTS should be what goes live with minor bug fixes included ...

Now you know how we (The super secret Psijic Order beta testers back when PTS still stood for Private Test Server) felt right before launch.


After 6 months of 24/7 beta testing ZOS decided to go LIVE for the PC launch with a last minute version we had never seen on the PTS. Anyone here remember that mess?

jrgray93

FoolishHuman wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

ZOS has next to zero understanding of what they're doing half the time. This isn't news.

But you are all experts in game design I gather? There is a reason why these "theorycrafters" are playing the games and not working for the game companies.

Lack of ability clearly isn't the reason. There are a billion different factors in the life of an individual that determine their profession in life. That's such a silly argument.

The fact remains that DPS parses were similar enough to encourage build diversity on the PTS and then last-minute changes ruined that for live. There is no arguing that bugs don't still exist from 2014, too.

SirAndy

FoolishHuman wrote: »

But you are all experts in game design I gather?

I was for many years. Now i work in scientific research.


What exactly do you do for a living that makes you an expert on how us experts should or should not point out obvious (to us) issues with ESO?

FoolishHuman

jrgray93 wrote: »

FoolishHuman wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

ZOS has next to zero understanding of what they're doing half the time. This isn't news.

But you are all experts in game design I gather? There is a reason why these "theorycrafters" are playing the games and not working for the game companies.

Lack of ability clearly isn't the reason. There are a billion different factors in the life of an individual that determine their profession in life. That's such a silly argument.

The fact remains that DPS parses were similar enough to encourage build diversity on the PTS and then last-minute changes ruined that for live. There is no arguing that bugs don't still exist from 2014, too.

You know what is a silly argument? That players should decide on the game rules or that random forum users and youtubers know better about game design than actual game designers.
What I saw was people scrambling desperatly to get exactly 2 gear sets that were said to be the be-all end-all and nothing about any diversity at all. Now these people are angry that they don't get to have BiS the day the patch came out and making up arguments about diversity and how the devs are "incompetent" because they didn't do what some streamers or forum guys said they should do. Ah yes, and some dps numbers went down that are obviously the source of many peoples self-confidence that is now shattered beyond repair.

Maybe we as players should just let the game masters organize the game rules while we play the game. Sure we can make suggestions, but that doesn't mean they should listen to it all. Especially if the players grow hostile over everything and try to raise angry mobs to get their way with the games rules. These types of players have no place in deciding what the rules should be.

Mineria

FoolishHuman wrote: »

Maybe we as players should just let the game masters organize the game rules while we play the game. Sure we can make suggestions, but that doesn't mean they should listen to it all. Especially if the players grow hostile over everything and try to raise angry mobs to get their way with the games rules. These types of players have no place in deciding what the rules should be.

They should take every suggestion into consideration and put it to trial.
Also, doing last second changes from PTS to live should never happen,of course there might some bugs that are overseen but major changes should be tested trough on PTS beforehand, but not with player posted DPS parses, such should be collected server side.

Demolitionary

Said time and time again, PTS is for testing bugs, issues and the like, not to get you prepared so you have a head start next patch. Bugs always end up in live, if you knew what development cycles are like then you would understand at least some of it.

MOSCOW from the DSDM Consortium is a prime example on managed time in a development cycle. You need to remember time and targets, each patch development cycle has a time limit, some things can't make it into that time limit so they try to push it into the next cycle, many times they don't even make it into the next. This happens all around the world in FTSE 500 companies that ARE bigger and earning more money than ZOS.
So in terms of bugs that are still in the game from PTS, they didn't make it into that time frame by the looks of it, but they will be addressed when there is time to do so.

In terms of last minute changes.
Seems like no one reads the T&C's they click Accept on.
ZOS has every right to make last minute changes whether you like them or not, nor do they need to give an explanation.

They cannot please EVERYONE, they would rather please the bigger crowd than please toxic elitist kids who do make experiences for many people unpleasant in multiplayer games, toxic elitist help cause the loss of players.

My 2 cents.

Regards and have fun ,

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Demolitionary wrote: »

In terms of last minute changes.
Seems like no one reads the T&C's they click Accept on.
ZOS has every right to make last minute changes whether you like them or not, nor do they need to give an explanation.

No one is saying they don't have to right to throw out months of user tested development cycle. The real question is why?

What is the PTS really for? With their last minute fast one they just wasted EVERYONE's time after coming out with what some testers considered to be a very decent patch?

Decent patch you say? Well we can't have that!!!! RELEASE THE NERFEN!!

Betsararie

Good post and valid complaints.

I agree with everything said.

Appealing to new players and throwing a bone to the endgame crowd every once in a while is not the proper way to run a game.

Instead you should be appealing more to the end game crowd, while throwing a bone every once in a while to the newbies. It's not like they'll notice anyway.

The difference is- They wont be sticking around in many instances, but we will, or at least would.

Once/if word gets around enough that the game is no good anymore, that's it. People will stop playing.

Yolokin_Swagonborn

Blanco wrote: »

Good post and valid complaints.

Once/if word gets around enough that the game is no good anymore, that's it. People will stop playing.

Word has gotten around. People still play. I think you are underestimating addiction or people love of the Elder Scroll Franchise.

Betsararie

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Blanco wrote: »

Good post and valid complaints.

Once/if word gets around enough that the game is no good anymore, that's it. People will stop playing.

Word has gotten around. People still play. I think you are underestimating addiction or people love of the Elder Scroll Franchise.

Has it?

Plenty of people still show interest in playing the game, or moving to it. Morrowind surely helped with marketing.

What I'm referring to is once they actually ruin the game, which hasn't happened yet. The game still plays fine enough.

JinMori

UUh, reading is boring, reading is uncool uugh, come on guys... are you serious, if you can't read less then a page of text without getting bored annoyed etc, then you should not even be on the forums, how can you make a point if you don't even read, you just come off as uneducated.

And many of the points he made, are true, for example it's true that the end game population is dwindling, it's true that it's not acceptable to completely swing the *** meta every single patch.

JinMori

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

Blanco wrote: »

Good post and valid complaints.

Once/if word gets around enough that the game is no good anymore, that's it. People will stop playing.

Word has gotten around. People still play. I think you are underestimating addiction or people love of the Elder Scroll Franchise.

I love the elder scrolls, yet i stopped playing, i think you are overestimating how much people can take *** patches, at some point, many will leave, the morrowind changes have been a colossal failure, if it wasn't for the nostalgia, it would have been a complete failure.

Just to clarify, i'm specifically talking about the balance changes, it's no secret that most didn't like all those resource nerfs, and the homogenization of skills, like for example shards and orbs.

ZOS_MattL

Hey there,
We had to remove several posts from this thread as they were off topic and baiting. In the future before making posts make sure they are civil, constructive, and contribute to the discussion.
Thanks,
Matt

ofSunhold

JinMori wrote: »

UUh, reading is boring, reading is uncool uugh, come on guys... are you serious, if you can't read less then a page of text without getting bored annoyed etc, then you should not even be on the forums, how can you make a point if you don't even read, you just come off as uneducated.

And many of the points he made, are true, for example it's true that the end game population is dwindling, it's true that it's not acceptable to completely swing the *** meta every single patch.

Reading more than 140 chars is a waste of their time, but posting a reply to let us all know they're too lazy to read: worth every second.

I don't have enough information about what goes on behind the scenes to argue with ZOS making whatever changes they decide to make to the game, but yeah. Not sure why anybody would even bother with the PTS at this point. Sometimes enough outcry can get a particularly stupid nerf undone or changed, but in general they don't even seem interested in fixing reported bugs. And maybe they have some great reason for this last-minute psych, but we'll never know, because they never bother to explain anything.

It's frustrating.

Osteos

FoolishHuman wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

FoolishHuman wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

ZOS has next to zero understanding of what they're doing half the time. This isn't news.

But you are all experts in game design I gather? There is a reason why these "theorycrafters" are playing the games and not working for the game companies.

Lack of ability clearly isn't the reason. There are a billion different factors in the life of an individual that determine their profession in life. That's such a silly argument.

The fact remains that DPS parses were similar enough to encourage build diversity on the PTS and then last-minute changes ruined that for live. There is no arguing that bugs don't still exist from 2014, too.

You know what is a silly argument? That players should decide on the game rules or that random forum users and youtubers know better about game design than actual game designers.
What I saw was people scrambling desperatly to get exactly 2 gear sets that were said to be the be-all end-all and nothing about any diversity at all. Now these people are angry that they don't get to have BiS the day the patch came out and making up arguments about diversity and how the devs are "incompetent" because they didn't do what some streamers or forum guys said they should do. Ah yes, and some dps numbers went down that are obviously the source of many peoples self-confidence that is now shattered beyond repair.

Maybe we as players should just let the game masters organize the game rules while we play the game. Sure we can make suggestions, but that doesn't mean they should listen to it all. Especially if the players grow hostile over everything and try to raise angry mobs to get their way with the games rules. These types of players have no place in deciding what the rules should be.

I wish i could give you an agree and an awesome.

birch44

Osteos wrote: »

FoolishHuman wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

FoolishHuman wrote: »

jrgray93 wrote: »

ZOS has next to zero understanding of what they're doing half the time. This isn't news.

But you are all experts in game design I gather? There is a reason why these "theorycrafters" are playing the games and not working for the game companies.

Lack of ability clearly isn't the reason. There are a billion different factors in the life of an individual that determine their profession in life. That's such a silly argument.

The fact remains that DPS parses were similar enough to encourage build diversity on the PTS and then last-minute changes ruined that for live. There is no arguing that bugs don't still exist from 2014, too.

You know what is a silly argument? That players should decide on the game rules or that random forum users and youtubers know better about game design than actual game designers.
What I saw was people scrambling desperatly to get exactly 2 gear sets that were said to be the be-all end-all and nothing about any diversity at all. Now these people are angry that they don't get to have BiS the day the patch came out and making up arguments about diversity and how the devs are "incompetent" because they didn't do what some streamers or forum guys said they should do. Ah yes, and some dps numbers went down that are obviously the source of many peoples self-confidence that is now shattered beyond repair.

Maybe we as players should just let the game masters organize the game rules while we play the game. Sure we can make suggestions, but that doesn't mean they should listen to it all. Especially if the players grow hostile over everything and try to raise angry mobs to get their way with the games rules. These types of players have no place in deciding what the rules should be.

I wish i could give you an agree and an awesome.

No one is trying to DECIDE what the rules should be. ZoS is and always will be in charge and responsible for their decisions. If you think completely changing a vast number of things from PTS to live is a good thing you are delusional.

We simply are getting tired of being jerked around and getting the good ol switcheroo.

ForsakenSin

...im just tired of over 5 "F#$%^&*@ months of doing pledges getting keys opening the same damm chest and only getting troll king ice heart and other crap i don't need and i got like 2 or 3 of drop of illambras in crap trait and 2 or so of Infernal Guardian in crap trait i mean COME ON HOW HARD IS IT TO GET IN DIVINES !!!

TOKENS TOKENS DAMM TOKENS i dont care if its 100 keys i will be happy with that as long as i know i will get the damm shoulder piece i need

Slick_007

so ZOS, with all the data that came from testing (thats more than you guys who just complained about necropotence and talked about sorrow) decided that the numbers on the final pts build did not stack up the way they wanted, made some changes. due to time constraints with their announced launch date, that new build was implemented.

now, because players hoarded sorrow or sold necropotence (insert other sets as appropriate) and now find out they made a mistake buying or selling that gear before the patch, they all cry foul. still not understanding the reason for a pts.

birch44

I'm not sure what the gear has to do with this topic....

Betsararie

ForsakenSin wrote: »

...im just tired of over 5 "F#$%^&*@ months of doing pledges getting keys opening the same damm chest and only getting troll king ice heart and other crap i don't need and i got like 2 or 3 of drop of illambras in crap trait and 2 or so of Infernal Guardian in crap trait i mean COME ON HOW HARD IS IT TO GET IN DIVINES !!!

TOKENS TOKENS DAMM TOKENS i dont care if its 100 keys i will be happy with that as long as i know i will get the damm shoulder piece i need

The problem with that is that all of the sets don't have equal drop rates within the chests.

Every set should have an equal chance to one another. I have spent hundreds and hundreds of keys on that very chest, and can say it is heavily weighted towards ice heart, troll king etc etc AKA the ones that weren't in as high demand last patch.

That isn't right all sets should have an equal chance, regardless of how much people want them.

Slick_007

birch44 wrote: »

I'm not sure what the gear has to do with this topic....

isnt this the real reason you're raging? the gear you bought cheap before the patch is no longer BiS? or the gear you sold high thinking it was going to be useless but isnt

Malic

To help you pass the time, Mr Methane is always a good choice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCpPEnwQe3Q

birch44

Slick_007 wrote: »

birch44 wrote: »

I'm not sure what the gear has to do with this topic....

isnt this the real reason you're raging? the gear you bought cheap before the patch is no longer BiS? or the gear you sold high thinking it was going to be useless but isnt

Uh no... I've been playing since launch. I learned long ago that planning anything before live launch is an expensive mistake.

Maybe take a minute and reread my post.

nimander99

Part of the "atrocious" participation on the PTS is because you have to install ESO twice... That's a lot of memory for me, my laptop has high end graphics at the expense of available hard drive space. That and the atrocious download speed and bandwidth it costs to download, test, uninstall, rinse and repeat for every DLC...

birch44

nimander99 wrote: »

Part of the "atrocious" participation on the PTS is because you have to install ESO twice... That's a lot of memory for me, my laptop has high end graphics at the expense of available hard drive space. That and the atrocious download speed and bandwidth it costs to download, test, uninstall, rinse and repeat for every DLC...

Agreed... it is a pain for those with slower internet speeds and smaller drives