**The Reason Why The PTS is Pretty Much Pointless I Can Tell You Why.**

Mettaricana

All pts is for is snowflakes thinking they make a difference complaining when zos reads it they do the opposite of the snowflakes

maboleth

All of your Twitch players you invited at ZOS HQ to "promote the game" have left. Actually, of ALL dedicated players, only Kodi remains and some of his friends. Does that tell you anything?

We really don't know the current state this game is at the moment. I guess, the company as big as ZOS has covered all plans and stages in the shelf life of a game, ESO in this case.

Are you squeezing the last and every penny from players, knowing and expecting the game to gradually decline, drop and die? Are you working on a new game so this is getting lower and lower priorities? Or are you still being in the prime time, feeling excited, innovative and hopeful on the ESO's future? If the later is the case, something is off with your marketing and communications. You are turning many players away and thriving on OCD syndrome farmers, completionists and whales. And casuals. That's not healthy.

itscompton

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Ok, want to address a few things here.

First, we've thought about ways to incentivize participation on the PTS, but have always run into issues. For example:

• The more bugs you report, the more rewards you get! This won't work because players might simply report random things as bugs just so they can reach the threshold.
• Log in/complete a thing/get to this point and you get a reward! This isn't quite fair to our console players who don't have access to the PTS. We could just do rewards that already exist, but where's the incentive with that?

As for us "not caring" about PTS feedback, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Many of our devs stay late just to read your feedback, whether it be on new systems, areas, or yes, even combat balance and changes. We've mentioned this before, but just because we don't change something doesn't mean we aren't reading and taking it to heart. PTS is extremely valuable not just for feedback, but also bug reports. Look at each week's patch notes - you are a big part of why things get found!

Everyone, let's please stop bashing the team or making assumptions. This is your first and last warning.

Threatening your customers for having an opinion you don't agree with, great community outreach.

FloppyTouch

Be nice to have a pts on xb and PS4

FloppyTouch

Edit: double post

Chilly-McFreeze

itscompton wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Ok, want to address a few things here.

First, we've thought about ways to incentivize participation on the PTS, but have always run into issues. For example:

• The more bugs you report, the more rewards you get! This won't work because players might simply report random things as bugs just so they can reach the threshold.
• Log in/complete a thing/get to this point and you get a reward! This isn't quite fair to our console players who don't have access to the PTS. We could just do rewards that already exist, but where's the incentive with that?

As for us "not caring" about PTS feedback, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Many of our devs stay late just to read your feedback, whether it be on new systems, areas, or yes, even combat balance and changes. We've mentioned this before, but just because we don't change something doesn't mean we aren't reading and taking it to heart. PTS is extremely valuable not just for feedback, but also bug reports. Look at each week's patch notes - you are a big part of why things get found!

Everyone, let's please stop bashing the team or making assumptions. This is your first and last warning.

Threatening your customers for having an opinion you don't agree with, great community outreach.

Was about to comment something like that too. I can imagine where this is going. But whatever, fits perfectly with "you don't have to be here". Will this comment get removed too if I say I'm going to cancel my sub after I finished CWC?

On topic: if you don't appear to take in suggestions, critic, feedback etc. you shouldn't be surprised by the backlash of the community. This and changes that are hard to make sense of (because they don't get explained) in addition to the sheer silence and long lasting bugs and imbalance paint a rather unfortunate picture.

My suggestion (I haven't read most of this thread so skip it if it already came up):

- some indicator that comments are looked at - maybe a "status" in the like of "answered" etc.

- explaining why changes are made and an outlook on the bigger picture if it's something that the community has problems to understand (e.g. why wrath get's removed instead of fury, resulting in an overall nerf, why curse got a second proc, how they think to change BG for it's scoring and balance issues etc.)

- a summary after each weak with a few words on controversial topics. Doesn't even have to be a "final word", just interim status.

- some words when and why feedback doesn't get considered (deadlines, vision of more changes in the future)

ak_pvp

PvE and bug fixes etc are very well done. In fact this DLC might have been one of the best.

PvP and combat balance may be the worst out of any game I have ever played. The devs for this almost deserve bashing. Bugs, bugs bugs. Lag. Cyros limited content. Awful changes. Killing counters. Ignoring feedback. Taking forever to fix things, or not even acknowledging issues. (1yr to fix procs seriously.)

paulsgruff

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom

I think one of the big reasons people often feel like their voice goes unheard, is due to there being no real way for them to know that the issue or concern they have raised has been seen by anyone that is in a position to do something about it.

Something as simple as a way that a developer can mark a thread/post on the forum as 'Seen by developer' would at least let people know that their efforts of posting issues aren't going unnoticed. It would also allow developers to easily search for threads 'not yet seen' in the PTS bug forums or feedback threads etc.

Urza1234

Is it just me, or was there literally 0 bashing in this thread prior to Gina's threat post?

Turelus

Elsterchen wrote: »

@Turelus

Player feedback is insanely bias and doesn't always mean the best for the game though.

It's rare for a player on these forums go to "Okay yeah my class was a bit OP and that was needed" it's tears and rage every time because their favourite win moves get changed.

That's not to say every outcry is unwarranted or bias, but most of the kneejerk tears we see disappear a month later because people found out it wasn't actually so bad and adapted.
The number of thread saying ESO was dead with the sustain changes, that it would be impossible to do vMSA, ect. however argue about if the changes were fun or not, but everyone adapted pretty fast and rarely do people complain about how hard sustain is now.

I agree that player feedback isn't always constructive (some of mine included). The question is: How can we improve our communication?

I am pretty sure that i am not the only one who will think twice about restating / rephrasing/ re-explaining any issue I feel noteworthy to discuss, if there was some hint, that the issue has been noted and is worked on. I would use the time I win to read up something different... or play the game.
Remember, communication is a two-way-process.

The issue with "Adept or die" is loosely linked to comunication as well, if it doesn't matter what i say, because I anyway have no influence on the outcome and have to just live with what I get served, there is no incentive to communicate my thoughts at all. In this scenario PTS, writing on the forum... even this little comment is a waste of my, yours and zenis time. We should just scrap it. Plain, honest and without hard feelings.

@Elsterchen for me the adapt or die isn't a "never give feedback and be happy with everything they do" but at the same time there are going to be changes made for the better of the game which we personally don't like.
Now we cane explain why we don't like them, why we find them less fun etc. and maybe ZOS can make some tweaks based on this, but if something in the long term needs to be changed for the better of the game even if it's not as fun for us this is where we need to adapt.

The issue with feedback given is most of the time it's just people crying and repeating what others have said an many not actually testing it or knowing what's happening.

Take Morrowind for example, after one big name in the community declared the death of Templars I heard and saw nothing but "Templar is dead" "Templar is unplayable" "won't play my Templar any more" "why even have a Templar" and funny thing is now everyone still has and plays those Templars.

Now if the feedback from the community was more "I see what you're trying to do, and we need this balance but the game plays less fun now because of X maybe if it was Y?" it would help ZOS with how they do things.
Now we have those threads and yes quite often they all the changes players ask for are not taken into account, but just because we think we know what we want and what's best doesn't mean it is.

Maybe I am just too old to get fired up about stuff any more, I did all that for years and it never made me happy. Now I look go "Well that's a dumb change, I'll add my thoughts" do so, then if nothing changes I change my style a bit and keep enjoying ESO for what it is.

FloppyTouch

Urza1234 wrote: »

Is it just me, or was there literally 0 bashing in this thread prior to Gina's threat post?

*bashes thread hard*

teladoy

It has always been a common issue that people rage indefinitly in the forums about Devs, ZOS and etc, because balance, bugs and etc. As developer i know how hard and complex is try to fix bugs where there are involve 100000000 extra factors. The people don't understand and they attack without compasion. I think ZOS goes in the right direction and that they are a very active team, introducing, many new stuffs and fixing bugs. Sometimes more than other ones. Not in every Patch is possible to do everything. The only thing i would say ZOS is failing is in do some fixes in things that have been adressed for the most part of the comunity since years and is taking them long. That can maybe be till certain point recriminated.

The last thing is that in every situation, it doesn't matter if is in the private life, work or whatever is very important to keep always the manners, don't give the fault to anyone and try to be the more constructive as possible. Always acting with respect, it doesn't matter how many times. The feedbacks and constructive critics, with solid arguments and evidences is the best way to one day reach the objectives.

Urza1234

FloppyTouch wrote: »

Urza1234 wrote: »

Is it just me, or was there literally 0 bashing in this thread prior to Gina's threat post?

*bashes thread hard*

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bashing_(pejorative)

I just dont see anything that reaches that threshold, maybe some comments were removed? Im confused. I see a lot of upset people but overall the tone seems more hurt and dejected rather than vitriolic.

A lot of people just trying to be constructive, planning their next kumbaya session and talking about their communications and feelings.

MasterSpatula

Urza1234 wrote: »

Is it just me, or was there literally 0 bashing in this thread prior to Gina's threat post?

It's not just you.

Zer0oo

Turelus wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

@Turelus

Player feedback is insanely bias and doesn't always mean the best for the game though.

It's rare for a player on these forums go to "Okay yeah my class was a bit OP and that was needed" it's tears and rage every time because their favourite win moves get changed.

That's not to say every outcry is unwarranted or bias, but most of the kneejerk tears we see disappear a month later because people found out it wasn't actually so bad and adapted.
The number of thread saying ESO was dead with the sustain changes, that it would be impossible to do vMSA, ect. however argue about if the changes were fun or not, but everyone adapted pretty fast and rarely do people complain about how hard sustain is now.

I agree that player feedback isn't always constructive (some of mine included). The question is: How can we improve our communication?

I am pretty sure that i am not the only one who will think twice about restating / rephrasing/ re-explaining any issue I feel noteworthy to discuss, if there was some hint, that the issue has been noted and is worked on. I would use the time I win to read up something different... or play the game.
Remember, communication is a two-way-process.

The issue with "Adept or die" is loosely linked to comunication as well, if it doesn't matter what i say, because I anyway have no influence on the outcome and have to just live with what I get served, there is no incentive to communicate my thoughts at all. In this scenario PTS, writing on the forum... even this little comment is a waste of my, yours and zenis time. We should just scrap it. Plain, honest and without hard feelings.

@Elsterchen for me the adapt or die isn't a "never give feedback and be happy with everything they do" but at the same time there are going to be changes made for the better of the game which we personally don't like.
Now we cane explain why we don't like them, why we find them less fun etc. and maybe ZOS can make some tweaks based on this, but if something in the long term needs to be changed for the better of the game even if it's not as fun for us this is where we need to adapt.

The issue with feedback given is most of the time it's just people crying and repeating what others have said an many not actually testing it or knowing what's happening.

Take Morrowind for example, after one big name in the community declared the death of Templars I heard and saw nothing but "Templar is dead" "Templar is unplayable" "won't play my Templar any more" "why even have a Templar" and funny thing is now everyone still has and plays those Templars.

Now if the feedback from the community was more "I see what you're trying to do, and we need this balance but the game plays less fun now because of X maybe if it was Y?" it would help ZOS with how they do things.
Now we have those threads and yes quite often they all the changes players ask for are not taken into account, but just because we think we know what we want and what's best doesn't mean it is.

Maybe I am just too old to get fired up about stuff any more, I did all that for years and it never made me happy. Now I look go "Well that's a dumb change, I'll add my thoughts" do so, then if nothing changes I change my style a bit and keep enjoying ESO for what it is.

Mag templer dd in endgame pve is dead since morrowind. A lot of ability changes to the templer toolkit were just stupid to push wardens as healers without giving wardens a unique group utility skill(spears stam return, repentance only helps the caster and only benefits ONE templer in a group).

ak_pvp

Zer0oo wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

@Turelus

Player feedback is insanely bias and doesn't always mean the best for the game though.

It's rare for a player on these forums go to "Okay yeah my class was a bit OP and that was needed" it's tears and rage every time because their favourite win moves get changed.

That's not to say every outcry is unwarranted or bias, but most of the kneejerk tears we see disappear a month later because people found out it wasn't actually so bad and adapted.
The number of thread saying ESO was dead with the sustain changes, that it would be impossible to do vMSA, ect. however argue about if the changes were fun or not, but everyone adapted pretty fast and rarely do people complain about how hard sustain is now.

I agree that player feedback isn't always constructive (some of mine included). The question is: How can we improve our communication?

I am pretty sure that i am not the only one who will think twice about restating / rephrasing/ re-explaining any issue I feel noteworthy to discuss, if there was some hint, that the issue has been noted and is worked on. I would use the time I win to read up something different... or play the game.
Remember, communication is a two-way-process.

The issue with "Adept or die" is loosely linked to comunication as well, if it doesn't matter what i say, because I anyway have no influence on the outcome and have to just live with what I get served, there is no incentive to communicate my thoughts at all. In this scenario PTS, writing on the forum... even this little comment is a waste of my, yours and zenis time. We should just scrap it. Plain, honest and without hard feelings.

@Elsterchen for me the adapt or die isn't a "never give feedback and be happy with everything they do" but at the same time there are going to be changes made for the better of the game which we personally don't like.
Now we cane explain why we don't like them, why we find them less fun etc. and maybe ZOS can make some tweaks based on this, but if something in the long term needs to be changed for the better of the game even if it's not as fun for us this is where we need to adapt.

The issue with feedback given is most of the time it's just people crying and repeating what others have said an many not actually testing it or knowing what's happening.

Take Morrowind for example, after one big name in the community declared the death of Templars I heard and saw nothing but "Templar is dead" "Templar is unplayable" "won't play my Templar any more" "why even have a Templar" and funny thing is now everyone still has and plays those Templars.

Now if the feedback from the community was more "I see what you're trying to do, and we need this balance but the game plays less fun now because of X maybe if it was Y?" it would help ZOS with how they do things.
Now we have those threads and yes quite often they all the changes players ask for are not taken into account, but just because we think we know what we want and what's best doesn't mean it is.

Maybe I am just too old to get fired up about stuff any more, I did all that for years and it never made me happy. Now I look go "Well that's a dumb change, I'll add my thoughts" do so, then if nothing changes I change my style a bit and keep enjoying ESO for what it is.

Mag templer in endgame pve is dead since morrowind. A lot of ability changes to the templer toolkit were just stupid to push wardens as healers without giving wardens a unique group utility skill(spears stam return, repentance only helps the caster and only benefits ONE templer in a group).

Magtemp heals are still best heals. The repentance nerf sucked. But shards was then buffed. They also have decent DPS however it is still on the lower end due to unfixed bugs with scaling. (I think with CP)

Zer0oo

ak_pvp wrote: »

Zer0oo wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Elsterchen wrote: »

@Turelus

Player feedback is insanely bias and doesn't always mean the best for the game though.

It's rare for a player on these forums go to "Okay yeah my class was a bit OP and that was needed" it's tears and rage every time because their favourite win moves get changed.

That's not to say every outcry is unwarranted or bias, but most of the kneejerk tears we see disappear a month later because people found out it wasn't actually so bad and adapted.
The number of thread saying ESO was dead with the sustain changes, that it would be impossible to do vMSA, ect. however argue about if the changes were fun or not, but everyone adapted pretty fast and rarely do people complain about how hard sustain is now.

I agree that player feedback isn't always constructive (some of mine included). The question is: How can we improve our communication?

I am pretty sure that i am not the only one who will think twice about restating / rephrasing/ re-explaining any issue I feel noteworthy to discuss, if there was some hint, that the issue has been noted and is worked on. I would use the time I win to read up something different... or play the game.
Remember, communication is a two-way-process.

The issue with "Adept or die" is loosely linked to comunication as well, if it doesn't matter what i say, because I anyway have no influence on the outcome and have to just live with what I get served, there is no incentive to communicate my thoughts at all. In this scenario PTS, writing on the forum... even this little comment is a waste of my, yours and zenis time. We should just scrap it. Plain, honest and without hard feelings.

@Elsterchen for me the adapt or die isn't a "never give feedback and be happy with everything they do" but at the same time there are going to be changes made for the better of the game which we personally don't like.
Now we cane explain why we don't like them, why we find them less fun etc. and maybe ZOS can make some tweaks based on this, but if something in the long term needs to be changed for the better of the game even if it's not as fun for us this is where we need to adapt.

The issue with feedback given is most of the time it's just people crying and repeating what others have said an many not actually testing it or knowing what's happening.

Take Morrowind for example, after one big name in the community declared the death of Templars I heard and saw nothing but "Templar is dead" "Templar is unplayable" "won't play my Templar any more" "why even have a Templar" and funny thing is now everyone still has and plays those Templars.

Now if the feedback from the community was more "I see what you're trying to do, and we need this balance but the game plays less fun now because of X maybe if it was Y?" it would help ZOS with how they do things.
Now we have those threads and yes quite often they all the changes players ask for are not taken into account, but just because we think we know what we want and what's best doesn't mean it is.

Maybe I am just too old to get fired up about stuff any more, I did all that for years and it never made me happy. Now I look go "Well that's a dumb change, I'll add my thoughts" do so, then if nothing changes I change my style a bit and keep enjoying ESO for what it is.

Mag templer in endgame pve is dead since morrowind. A lot of ability changes to the templer toolkit were just stupid to push wardens as healers without giving wardens a unique group utility skill(spears stam return, repentance only helps the caster and only benefits ONE templer in a group).

Magtemp heals are still best heals. The repentance nerf sucked. But shards was then buffed. They also have decent DPS however it is still on the lower end due to unfixed bugs with scaling. (I think with CP)

I meant templer dd since the scaling of the % increase was changed to additive with was a really big lose of dps for templers with their many deals % more damage skills and the sustain/light attack changes also forced them to give up dw.

Shards lost what made them unique and now share the same function as orbs so in my opinion a nerf since they are no longer unique skill. They could have given other classes also a unique skill for healers so you may want to think about replacing a temper with another class to get this skills, but nerfing one skill instead is just easier. And this is what is pissing me of the most that most things all they do is to kill class uniqueness by nerfing some skills instead of giving some other classes or class independent skills something similar. Or "buffing" something by nerfing something else...

maboleth

ak_pvp wrote: »

PvE and bug fixes etc are very well done. In fact this DLC might have been one of the best.

PvP and combat balance may be the worst out of any game I have ever played. The devs for this almost deserve bashing. Bugs, bugs bugs. Lag. Cyros limited content. Awful changes. Killing counters. Ignoring feedback. Taking forever to fix things, or not even acknowledging issues. (1yr to fix procs seriously.)

Correct. They happen to completely ignore Cyrodiil and Imperial City.
It's a shame that instead of trying to find the reason why people are angry during PTS, you get out frustrated and threaten your customers having a bad behaviour.

Only seeing that "some devs stay up late reading it", completely ignoring that many people write essays and statistics about all stuff testing on PTS. You then go and tweak something nobody was asking AND do exact the opposite of what people suggested AND never show that you actually read what people said.

Why? Because of the total lack of honest communications and your real intentions. While it's totally understandable that you can't please everyone, the vast majority of your PTS testers and PVPers think that you are not doing your job right.
It's a fact, not any assumption or anyone's bad behaviour.

anitajoneb17_ESO

maboleth wrote: »

Why? Because of the total lack of honest communications and your real intentions. While it's totally understandable that you can't please everyone, the vast majority of your PTS testers and PVPers think that you are not doing your job right.
It's a fact, not any assumption or anyone's bad behaviour.

That's no fact at all.
The only people who can possibly know what "the majority" thinks and if said majority is happy or not is ZOS. They are the only ones who know for sure if we, as a MAJORITY, play or quit, buy or don't buy, and what we do in the game.
You simply have no figures, no data to back up what is obviously a plain assumption from your side.

Mix

KingMagaw wrote: »

Pointless as ZOS doesn't listen to feedback nor is there any incentive to report bugs or exploits to them.

Recent example is the looting of Fabricants and furnishing plans. There was no point in reporting this bug as already furnishing plans are very restricted in game, ZOS hasn't even updated the Master writ envelopes yet added MW and CWC into the loot table.

Simply there is no incentive to report such things, when people take advantage when it goes live, profit and then ZoS gets around to fixing (Which is nerfing the drop rate to hell letting the exploiters profit more)

EDIT: Buying the game, buying the DLC's and expecting players to do ZoS work for them, is shabby in my eyes.

I thought the Factotums dropping plans frequently was intended (it was about 90% old and only 10% new and only about 1 in 5 or so Factotums even dropped loot). So when CWC came Live I didn't farm the Factotums because I figured I could get plans later when the hype of CWC died down a bit and there wasn't a horde of players around...then hotfix because apparently it wasn't intended!

There isn't really another good source of plans in CWC - with the nerf it has become nearly impossible to get them. Since the hotfix I have been farming and got 1 new CWC green from a Factotum while testing their new drop rate which is abysmal. I also looted one blue CWC plan from a backpack as I was testing the stealing/looting of backpacks/trunks/wardrobes/etc in the Brass Fortress as a possible source. (you have to open hundreds to get 1 new plan or have excellent luck:p)

I don't think players need incentive to play PTS. I do think balance changes are hard to test regardless. Unless an ability is broken in some way (including way overpowered) it can be really hard to create situations to test balance. I am also one of the people that thinks ZoS needs to balance PvE and PvP separately rather than trying to make abilities/skills work in both situations.

Elsonso

Urza1234 wrote: »

I just dont see anything that reaches that threshold, maybe some comments were removed?

I am pretty sure they removed the comments that prompted Gina to respond.

maboleth

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

That's no fact at all.
The only people who can possibly know what "the majority" thinks and if said majority is happy or not is ZOS. They are the only ones who know for sure if we, as a MAJORITY, play or quit, buy or don't buy, and what we do in the game.
You simply have no figures, no data to back up what is obviously a plain assumption from your side.

^ You are absolutely correct and that's something I used to say a lot. BUT, if you are asking a PTS community on your official forums to help and assist you in a process, then that PTS community is 100% of people that are helping you on this task, however small of your player base. And however small, those guys are doing their best to offer you various stats and shortcomings for free.

And most of the time ZOS completely ignores the feedback, rarely responds, never states anything except few "dev. comments". You never know that anyone at HQ even read them seriously. How could you when most of the changes are the opposite of the ones reported? And Cyrodiil performance at prime time has been ignored for at least 2 years. People complained and complained and for what? For silence on ZOS' end. You can't point finger at your angry PTS/PVP player base now. That's not the way it works.

jrgray93

I myself have been overly negative towards the devs from time to time and I sincerely apologize for that attitude. I realize you're just people and a lot of you are as passionate about this as us players are, but it gets incredibly frustrating when things are done despite overwhelming opposition. I truly have never felt like a dev team has listened to players less than they do here. Of course it isn't our game but we keep the lights on, and frankly, players often have a better grasp of gameplay than devs because we don't have to worry about, well, developing.

It seems the vast majority of the time, the balance changes are set in stone before the notes are even available to the public, and no amount of empirical evidence that it is the wrong decision will change that before launch. I've even seen you guys backpedal on good decisions with no explanation given. This happened with the recent mundus stone and set changes. Players did some pretty hardcore math to show that the initial PTS changes were good, leaving most setups within 1-3% of each other, then you pulled a bait-and-switch and threw that good work out the window on patch day. That's to say nothing of the numerous game-breaking bugs making it live despite early PTS reporting.

The CP BG change was one of the worst decisions in recent memory and the templar cleanse nerf came out of nowhere. The opposition to these changes was enormous. Nothing was said or done about it, leaving a lot of players upset and reducing their enjoyment of the game. The CP change to BGs alone shows a complete lack of understanding of what has been happening in this game over the last year or more. It took two matches for me to find the unkillable DK / Warden teams that ruined the experience.

Loc2262

.

jrgray93 wrote: »

Players did some pretty hardcore math to show that the initial PTS changes were good, leaving most setups within 1-3% of each other, then you pulled a bait-and-switch and threw that good work out the window on patch day. That's to say nothing of the numerous game-breaking bugs making it live despite early PTS reporting.

Yeah I have to agree here. Right now I'm very unsure what to think about this whole matter. According to forum users, the following sequence happens repeatedly (albeit not always):

1. ZOS puts a new update on the PTS and asks for feedback.
2. Numerous players report and substantiate bad intended (balance) changes and make good alternative suggestions
3. Numerous players report nasty bugs
4. There's no feedback from ZOS about those reports in the forum
5. Said balance changes and several reported bugs make it to live unchanged
6. Players become understandably upset
7. Gina threatens the angry player base "first and last warning" style.

I mean, seriously, if this is really the case, why do you have a PTS and connected forum at all?

anitajoneb17_ESO

maboleth wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

That's no fact at all.
The only people who can possibly know what "the majority" thinks and if said majority is happy or not is ZOS. They are the only ones who know for sure if we, as a MAJORITY, play or quit, buy or don't buy, and what we do in the game.
You simply have no figures, no data to back up what is obviously a plain assumption from your side.

^ You are absolutely correct and that's something I used to say a lot. BUT, if you are asking a PTS community on your official forums to help and assist you in a process, then that PTS community is 100% of people that are helping you on this task, however small of your player base. And however small, those guys are doing their best to offer you various stats and shortcomings for free.

And most of the time ZOS completely ignores the feedback, rarely responds, never states anything except few "dev. comments". You never know that anyone at HQ even read them seriously. How could you when most of the changes are the opposite of the ones reported? And Cyrodiil performance at prime time has been ignored for at least 2 years. People complained and complained and for what? For silence on ZOS' end. You can't point finger at your angry PTS/PVP player base now. That's not the way it works.

You said it : FOR FREE.
PTS players accept to do it FOR FREE. That does not only mean that they do not get paid, it also means that they are not entitled to get their feedback taken into consideration. ZOS does not have to justify why they do - or don't do - things. If they did, they would probably have to pay 20 people to argue on this forum full time.

I know you're going to say "but all we need is some sort of explanation" : well, look at the few times they did (be it Rich or Eric or Gina) start a somewhat in-depth explanation of some of their decisions, and see how that went. People will only listen to what they already believe to be true, and call BS on everything else.

There are multiple issues here...
- (Some) People don't know how to be polite
- (Many) people cannot differentiate between the actual state of the game and their personal perception of it
- (Many) people cannot differentiate between what is actually good for the game and their personal preferences
- etc etc...

Also, I tend to laugh when people ask for "honest communication". Corporate communication CANNOT be fully honest.

And finally, far too many people believe that PTS is for global design testing. PTS is for large-scale performance testing and bug finding. Global design has been set a long time ago and will not be changed anymore. And if at all, ZOS will iterate based on what we DO, more than on what we SAY.

Elsonso

Loc2262 wrote: »

.

jrgray93 wrote: »

Players did some pretty hardcore math to show that the initial PTS changes were good, leaving most setups within 1-3% of each other, then you pulled a bait-and-switch and threw that good work out the window on patch day. That's to say nothing of the numerous game-breaking bugs making it live despite early PTS reporting.

Yeah I have to agree here. Right now I'm very unsure what to think about this whole matter. According to forum users, the following sequence happens repeatedly (albeit not always):

1. ZOS puts a new update on the PTS and asks for feedback.
2. Numerous players report and substantiate bad intended (balance) changes and make good alternative suggestions
3. Numerous players report nasty bugs
4. There's no feedback from ZOS about those reports in the forum
5. Said balance changes and several reported bugs make it to live unchanged
6. Players become understandably upset
7. Gina threatens the angry player base "first and last warning" style.

I mean, seriously, if this is really the case, why do you have a PTS and connected forum at all?

There are certain things where they take feedback, listen, and make changes. This is best described as "tuning", or final touches. Overall, they can be described as "stubborn" in this respect, but not completely. The Combat Team is the most resistant to changes, particularly past the "tuning" phase. They pretty much know what they are going to be doing and seem to stick to it. I don't know if this is an issue of time required to run math, testing, or whether it is because whatever criteria they use to make these changes does not match what the players think.

Turelus

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

maboleth wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

That's no fact at all.
The only people who can possibly know what "the majority" thinks and if said majority is happy or not is ZOS. They are the only ones who know for sure if we, as a MAJORITY, play or quit, buy or don't buy, and what we do in the game.
You simply have no figures, no data to back up what is obviously a plain assumption from your side.

^ You are absolutely correct and that's something I used to say a lot. BUT, if you are asking a PTS community on your official forums to help and assist you in a process, then that PTS community is 100% of people that are helping you on this task, however small of your player base. And however small, those guys are doing their best to offer you various stats and shortcomings for free.

And most of the time ZOS completely ignores the feedback, rarely responds, never states anything except few "dev. comments". You never know that anyone at HQ even read them seriously. How could you when most of the changes are the opposite of the ones reported? And Cyrodiil performance at prime time has been ignored for at least 2 years. People complained and complained and for what? For silence on ZOS' end. You can't point finger at your angry PTS/PVP player base now. That's not the way it works.

You said it : FOR FREE.
PTS players accept to do it FOR FREE. That does not only mean that they do not get paid, it also means that they are not entitled to get their feedback taken into consideration. ZOS does not have to justify why they do - or don't do - things. If they did, they would probably have to pay 20 people to argue on this forum full time.

I know you're going to say "but all we need is some sort of explanation" : well, look at the few times they did (be it Rich or Eric or Gina) start a somewhat in-depth explanation of some of their decisions, and see how that went. People will only listen to what they already believe to be true, and call BS on everything else.

There are multiple issues here...
- (Some) People don't know how to be polite
- (Many) people cannot differentiate between the actual state of the game and their personal perception of it
- (Many) people cannot differentiate between what is actually good for the game and their personal preferences
- etc etc...

Also, I tend to laugh when people ask for "honest communication". Corporate communication CANNOT be fully honest.

And finally, far too many people believe that PTS is for global design testing. PTS is for large-scale performance testing and bug finding. Global design has been set a long time ago and will not be changed anymore. And if at all, ZOS will iterate based on what we DO, more than on what we SAY.

Quote. For. Effing. Truth.

Loc2262

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

And finally, far too many people believe that PTS is for global design testing. PTS is for large-scale performance testing and bug finding.

That must be why for every major PTS phase, Gina creates numerous threads like "Nightblade class changes feedback here", "Dual Wield combat changes feedback here", etc. pp.

If they were only interested in "performance and bug reports", why create such threads explicitly?

Cherryblossom

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Ok, want to address a few things here.

First, we've thought about ways to incentivize participation on the PTS, but have always run into issues. For example:

• The more bugs you report, the more rewards you get! This won't work because players might simply report random things as bugs just so they can reach the threshold.
• Log in/complete a thing/get to this point and you get a reward! This isn't quite fair to our console players who don't have access to the PTS. We could just do rewards that already exist, but where's the incentive with that?

As for us "not caring" about PTS feedback, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Many of our devs stay late just to read your feedback, whether it be on new systems, areas, or yes, even combat balance and changes. We've mentioned this before, but just because we don't change something doesn't mean we aren't reading and taking it to heart. PTS is extremely valuable not just for feedback, but also bug reports. Look at each week's patch notes - you are a big part of why things get found!

Everyone, let's please stop bashing the team or making assumptions. This is your first and last warning.

@ZOS_GinaBruno
I've highlighted the end of the message as I would like to express my frustration with this simple comment.

People Bash and make assumption because the team doesn't communicate back with the community.

There have been times when you do try to address this but it only ever lasts for a week or two. An example is PVP threads were started with regards to performance and bugs, however the community as a whole is still talking about these issues, however your Team has stopped talking about them.
When your Team stops talking back, are you truly expecting the community to stop thinking about this and making assumptions? I would suggest the correct answer should be no, but your Team I can only "assume" thinks yes!

So the whole crux is, talk to the community if you don't want to be bashed and for assumptions to be made.

maboleth

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

There are multiple issues here...
- (Some) People don't know how to be polite
- (Many) people cannot differentiate between the actual state of the game and their personal perception of it
- (Many) people cannot differentiate between what is actually good for the game and their personal preferences
- etc etc...

^ Fair enough. So it's those pesky rude players ruining everything in PTS and elsewhere. Glad the game is doing great and PVP is thriving with many long term, cheerful players. Lag and loading screens are under control, bugs in Cyrodiil promptly fixed, Imperial City busy as ever, campaigns meaningful without horrendous queue lines, because everyone found variety somewhere in the thriving and vibrant campaign goals. Zergs are under control and most of the map is utilized, without everyone concentrating in a few spots and ignoring the rest.