What's the deal with wrobel?

monktoasty

Vermintide wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

- every change that force them to change their way of playing

Pretty much entirely that, really.

Nothing showed it better than the Morrowind sustain changes. The salt was legendary. Players came up with all kinds of impressively elaborate, plausible sounding reasons why it was bad for the game, but at the end of the day everybody knows that underneath, the real reason, the ACTUAL reason people disliked it, Is that it made their game a bit more difficult.

Also, this is an MMORPG, there's a high level of background autism to account for.

That's not true. It's thst people spend a lot of time and effort to find their style and that style is periodically ripped from beneath them. It's nothing to do with making things harder as it is they now have to spend more time adjusting..only to happen again and again and again.

We can't simply brush off their concerns..it's valid. Sometimes..major changes of a system can even cause a game to die and shUT down..star wars galaxies combat "upgrade" comes to mind.

It's a fine line for sure but you don't need to belittle the players that are upset over changes

Vermintide

monktoasty wrote: »

That's not true. It's thst people spend a lot of time and effort to find their style and that style is periodically ripped from beneath them. It's nothing to do with making things harder as it is they now have to spend more time adjusting..only to happen again and again and again.

We can't simply brush off their concerns..it's valid. Sometimes..major changes of a system can even cause a game to die and shUT down..star wars galaxies combat "upgrade" comes to mind.

It's a fine line for sure but you don't need to belittle the players that are upset over changes

There haven't been any real "major" changes in ESO, though. This game was hot steaming garbage at release, and it has only improved with time. People often refuse to look at the bigger picture.

I can sympathise with people feeling upset if their favourite character is suddenly nerfed into oblivion, but I mean... They haven't ever really rendered a playstyle totally and utterly non-viable. If they have, it was probably a cheese-build to begin with.

Buffler wrote: »

Thing with those changes, people didnt like them but they understood why they were done. A lot of changes the reasoning is unclear. I'll use the gap closer change as an example. Why have they been nerfed? Nobody has ever mentioned them whereas the stun or snare issue (pvp related) is a major issue that gets ignored.

Nobody has complained, but it's a change that makes perfectly good sense. Why should a utility skill also do such generous damage? It should be utility or damage. That's the point I was getting at though, what the players want and what the game needs are often diametrically opposed.

Would you hire a fox to evaluate the security of your chicken coop? Speaking as a fox, I would of course argue there's nobody better to consult than the very predator you intend to keep out!

Buffler

Vermintide wrote: »

monktoasty wrote: »

That's not true. It's thst people spend a lot of time and effort to find their style and that style is periodically ripped from beneath them. It's nothing to do with making things harder as it is they now have to spend more time adjusting..only to happen again and again and again.

We can't simply brush off their concerns..it's valid. Sometimes..major changes of a system can even cause a game to die and shUT down..star wars galaxies combat "upgrade" comes to mind.

It's a fine line for sure but you don't need to belittle the players that are upset over changes

There haven't been any real "major" changes in ESO, though. This game was hot steaming garbage at release, and it has only improved with time. People often refuse to look at the bigger picture.

I can sympathise with people feeling upset if their favourite character is suddenly nerfed into oblivion, but I mean... They haven't ever really rendered a playstyle totally and utterly non-viable. If they have, it was probably a cheese-build to begin with.

Buffler wrote: »

Thing with those changes, people didnt like them but they understood why they were done. A lot of changes the reasoning is unclear. I'll use the gap closer change as an example. Why have they been nerfed? Nobody has ever mentioned them whereas the stun or snare issue (pvp related) is a major issue that gets ignored.

Nobody has complained, but it's a change that makes perfectly good sense. Why should a utility skill also do such generous damage? It should be utility or damage. That's the point I was getting at though, what the players want and what the game needs are often diametrically opposed.

Would you hire a fox to evaluate the security of your chicken coop? Speaking as a fox, I would of course argue there's nobody better to consult than the very predator you intend to keep out!

Why is the gap closer nerf needed?

Thealteregoroman

Flaminir wrote: »

Thealteregoroman wrote: »

Flaminir wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

I tend to think that, no matter their opinion, some players should be more respectful of Eric Wrobel as a person.

Agree.

He's actually a really nice guy when you meet him

@Flaminir

You met Wrobel?

@Thealteregoroman Yep, I have indeed. As I say, really nice guy... and he IS very interested in player feedback. Whats then done with that and the rationale and design briefs that he's working to behind the scenes I have no more idea than anybody else & obviously I don't agree with quite a few of those (Though I do often feel that there is a lot of forum over exageration goes on with anything he touches).
But the personal attacks on him are way off the mark... My impression when I met him was that he does care.

@Flamir I am SOOOO freaken jealous.






I wonder if peoples perceptions will change after the chapter comes out. Hopefully, he doesn't care. I do HOPE the bashing stops.

Ragnarock41

RavenSworn wrote: »

I think simply put, wrobel is the new ghost crawler.

There are definitely worse and better developers than both wrobel and GC.

Wrobel might be the scapegoat here, but he isn't entirely innocent either.

Yes, nerfs and adjustments are a must in any evolving multiplayer game, but wrobel simply doesn't know where to stop.

Now I'm not saying he is the one who makes all these decisions, but we don't know any other names.

When I ask to myself, why is my sDK garbage now?

The only answer that comes to my mind is : because wrobel said so.

I do not hate wrobel, I do not hate eso.. but I really hate what wrobel is doing to the game I once enjoyed so much. I mean he might be a great guy with a great beard, but I don't want his friendship, I want my main back.

thedude33

Interesting the paradox of nerfs. Apparently everyone hates them, yet the boards are filled with 'you gotta nerf X' posts.

Like putting someone in a round room and telling them to go stand in the corner.

Tough job and apparently a thankless job.

Buffler

thedude33 wrote: »

Interesting the paradox of nerfs. Apparently everyone hates them, yet the boards are filled with 'you gotta nerf X' posts.

Like putting someone in a round room and telling them to go stand in the corner.

Tough job and apparently a thankless job.

Its because they nerf random things! Ppl ask for a nerf on X or Y then wrobel Nerfs H for no reason.

People need to understand context to. As none of us know Wrobel personally, when people on here call him an idiot etc its in regards ESO and not personal attacks.

baratron

First of all, thank you to players for being civil enough that the mods haven't needed to close this thread. I really appreciate that.

I can't help feeling that Wrobel has a secret job title of "Official Figure of Fun". Remember the January 4th ESO Live? The one streamed via webcam? Skip to 53:42, just before the end. You have Dungeon Lead, Mike Finnigan, and Creative Director, Rich Lambert, along with our Community Managers, Gina Bruno and Jessica Folsom.

Jessica: We're going to see if these guys can get through a Vet Hard Mode.
Rich & Finn: Oooh.
Rich: A dev dungeon play? Wow. We're going to have Wrobel heal again.
Finn: *pained face* Eww. I'll bring soul gems.
Everyone: *laughs*
Rich: He's not even here!
Gina: We can trash talk him!
Jessica: He can't even defend himself.

tl;dr Even the devs mock Wrobel. In public.

I figure that he either has the best sense of humour in the world, or he's been given an extra-big package of bonuses to compensate for all the trash talking. Or maybe both! He does play hockey, so maybe he sees it as part of the job? Rather him than someone who would get upset, though.

efster

He hates NB tanks, so I hate him back. But other than that he's probably a good guy.

monktoasty

I think we should not attack or be upset with devs..they work within the confines of a corporate environment hell bent on squeezing money from everyone, the actual game is but a vehicle that is tuned toward such monetary goals.

Doctordarkspawn

thedude33 wrote: »

Doctordarkspawn wrote: »

WakeYourGhost wrote: »

People hate Wrobel (And all of the Dev Team in general) any time they change anything, no matter the change or it's effect.
It's simply the Meta for Forums.
On a secondary note - The BiS for the Forums seems to be insults, claiming ZOS "Doesn't Care", and screaming out lists of forceful demands without giving any meaningful feedback or data to support those demands or give suggestions for realistic improvements.

The hate will die down when changes go Live and a Youtuber makes a new BiS/Meta video to show people how to "Overcome the New Nerfs in 5 easy steps (without actually having to use your own brain)" - At least until the next set of patch notes goes up for the PTS... Then the stream of rage starts fresh (And dredges back up for people who miss their old BiS/Meta Cookie Cutter Build)

Or, in simple terms -
Wrobel changes things, Elite players flip out, Wrobel changes things, Elite players flip out, Wrobel changes things, Elite players flip out - ad infinitum

-Note, this cycle is the same regardless of Nerfs or Buffs. It's like a constant hate-fest-contest to be the squeakiest wheel so one group's vision of "Balance" can see the light of day for a while.
If anything is buffed, everyone is pissed that someone else might be stronger than they are now - especially if it buffs a class that isn't their "Main" or a playstyle they don't use.
If anything is nerfed, they're double-pissed that a playstyle or class they may or may not use is now weaker than one other people use.
...None of these opinions need facts or research to confirm.

It's simply the natural order of things.

I despute this.

No, you're not gonna please everyone, but there are certain things that we -all- agree on. Or most do. These are win senario's they could take if they just didn't refuse to.

And it isn't like there are not shining examples (Again, FH) of Dev teams that are loved by their playerbases. The FH team gained the respect of the players and while it took a while, after what the game shipped as, they kept working. They lisened. And eventually, mutual respect was established.

ESO does not have the same thing because ESO does not -want- the same thing. Wrobel wants to dictate to us what is going to happen and if you dont go along with that, you either get no response, or a hostile one. The difference, is the FH team understands one simple rule. "The customer is allways right". And they've worked with us to the point where both sides can become reasonibly happy. ESO's never liked that rule and has chosen to ignore it at every opportunity. And the result is what we have now.

So please, lets not blame the players for what happened here. Because it's the conduct of the company that has made it that way. It's like blaming a dog for geting mean after you've put it in isolation for a few years. It isn't like it wanted to be there.

Hyperbole with the hype of FH as 'proof' that ESO is doing it wrong. When in fact every games forums read the same way since EQ ..."they don't listen to the playerbase" = they don't listen to ME !

Edit: I just went on the FH forums. Post after post about unneeded nerfs and changes and how mad people are. As per norm

Check the reddit. it's a much more accurate representation of the community.

And yeah, people are allways gonna cal for nerfs. But that's why the FH team do so well. They play their own game, and have an accurate handle on what is overperforming from first hand experience.

And even if I dont particularly agree with every nerf or buff they make, they usually do the ones that make -sense-. Example. In FH, Highlander, a DLC hero, was pitifully underpowered. They gave him one ability that gave him more mixups, and buffed his damage to compensate for his weak points. That's it. It was simple, but it was very, very effective.

FH is willing to do fine tuning ajustments, minor alterations to some characters that fix the problems they had. ESO? ESO just nerfs crap across the board. There's no freakin' nuance there. And when they do, they usually give the weirdest justifications.

So you can call it all you like but it is what it is. I see more sense coming from that dev team, and in turn, much more love toward members of that dev team. I see forum posts just dedicated to memes and jokes, sometimes at their expense, sometimes their benefit. With Wrobel? I've -never- seen a joke made at his benefit. He's object of people seething rage here, and he's gonna be until he adopts a more workable philosphy and method of doing things.

And the thing is, I can point to many instances where Wrobel could have adopted a strategy from that team in reguard to balancing. It's not hyperbole. I can link specific reddit posts having a laugh -with- the devs, not at them. I can post links to that.

But I doubt that'd do anything for someone who's decided what the truth is.

Joy_Division

Someone who is not perfect whose bears the brunt of frustrations by people who are far more often even less perfect.

Chaos2088

He is a mighty fine bit of man.

...I do not watch ESO live in the hope to see that man beast. -cough-

Merlin13KAGL

Ch4mpTW wrote: »

People don’t like @ZOS_Wrobel because he tends to balance things as if throwing darts at a dartboard. It doesn’t matter if the skill in question has literally nothing wrong it, and doesn’t require neither a buff or nerf. Heck, it could be a skill that no one is complaining about either. From neither a PvE or PvP perspective. Wrobel will come out of seemingly nowhere, and buff or nerf it with some extremely obscure reason why. It’s been this way for a very long time as well.

Now in both experiencing and knowing this, you begin to wonder the credibility of this individual who is in charge of such things. You begin to realize that this particular person truly has no clue WTF they are doing, and is just grasping for strings aimlessly. Especially when there have been times when both the PvE and PvP communities collectively could be telling him and the other combat team devs that something needs to be looked at, and they’ll complete ignore said thing and go tweak something that didn’t even require adjustment to begin with. All the while completely ignoring said problem(s) for months on end.

@Ch4mpTW, you spelled "grenades" wrong.

Azurya

though I am not a fan around the "balancing" issues, I don´t think he is the one to blame

Much more I suspect that someone (more likely more than one!) hasn´t done his maths really well, because otherwise we wouldn´t have such heavely swanks due to this reason.
Everything we play here as gamers is based on maths, and there are just a few possibilities why we are experiencing what we do experience:
1. someone does the maths but has no point what he is doing
2. it is intended, and there is no more money in budget for that position or group
3. they are totally unaware that it is all about maths and are just doing, and then redoing(=balancing)
4. maths, what maths, it is designed by a loremaster and Wrobel has to follow

I really don´t wanna think about this, but I must say this is my first MMO were this is such a huge issue

Zorgon_The_Revenged

He turned me into a Newt......

QuebraRegra

Jjitsuboy98 wrote: »

I don't know but whoever is in charge of lag needs to be let go. Seriously.

Oddly, I kinda disagree.... Mostly because there's not a single person responsible for this, as there's not a single reason for the lag.

The biggest problem is that it's not the highest priority to be addressed... not that manager should be fired.

QuebraRegra

dwemer_paleologist wrote: »

we don't hate him, we hate the choices that are made and decisions to destroy builds and playstyles from people that rule over our characters that do not play daily LIKE WE DO ingame on a daily basis like we do for hours on end.

good example was removing the sneak speeds we once had.
i HATE that decision and i hate even more the answer we were given as to why the sneak speeds were removed.
[but not the person]

TRUTH... we don't even know the guy to hate him... this is a professional inquiry.

Drdeath20

The real question is after all these years can we definitively say the game has gotten better?

The only thing that has changed about animation cancellation is that wrobbel went from calling it an exploit to calling it a feature.

Did the stamina/magicka split actually create more build diversity or just water down every class, some to the point where they dont have an identity.

Broken/useless skills, sets and items.

The slow death of pvp.

A completely broken crafting system that seriously has no rhyme or reason.

An enormous shift in metta that happens from time to time that completely contradicts itself. Ie. Damage is too high so we will nerf sustain across the board but since we are nerfing sustain Lets release a monster set that does over 30k damage in 5 seconds (heres looking at you zaan!)

Facefister

idk wrote: »

Gaming communities are generally not fond of the one who brings change to their gaming world. That is it in a nutshell. Yes, some changes do not make sense, but mostly we adapt and move on.

Adaptability is a trait of a good player.

Armitas

His beard is like end boss raid level powerful.

Jamini

Honestly, the main reason I dislike Wroble is that he couples massive changes into small updates.

Wide-sweeping changes to a game are not generally welcomed with open arms in any community. Doubly so if you happen to (by design or by accident) severely damage a major class while doing so. This has happened several times (NB tanks with the siphoning changes, DKs with the morrowind changes, sorcs with the frags change, whatever the everloving useless *** that new heal on NB that nobody every in their right mind would use is) and once it happens it can take at least three months (and often far closer to a full YEAR) before the issue can be addressed.

Balance is best done in small incremental tweaks, with large-sweeping changes only coinciding with a major release. Frankly, we should be getting minor combat updates and bugfixes *weekly* or *biweekly* if wroble was interested in actually "balancing" the game. RIOT, Blizzard, Square, and even *** Bossa Games all get that. While those companies make plenty of mistakes, often major bugs (or at least a hotfix that patches particularily impacted classes/heroes) is sent out within days of a release. In ESO, we are lucky if we get a single hotfix two weeks later before three months of waiting for the next major balance patch.

Also, frankly, some really under-performing skills (I'm looking at you: Blood Altar, Circle of Protection, Trapping Webs, Silver Lash, Volcanic Rune, Bone shield) and sets (Combat Physician, Barkskin, Light Keeper anyone?) could use some serious boosts. There is a lot of relatively "useless" chafe that could be made more useful as low-hanging fruit to garner more positive reactions.

Hymzir

He's the Lead Combat designer, so he's the face of the Combat team. Thus he gets all the praise when they do good, and also gets to bear the ire of all the gruntled players when things go wrong. And the combat team has a long and illustrious history of getting things wrong.

They keep rolling out random changes after another. They do not do balance, they do constant revamps where they massively change everything and just end up changing one set of issues with another set of problems. It's like there isn't any kind of unified vision driving their actions.

And it's Wrobel that gets to be the poster boy for all that random mess. In short, the combat team in ESO appears unprofessional, and thus Wrobel gets to look inept. And people are not happy to have someone they consider inept to be in charge of things.

It doesn't really help that he's really bad at expressing his thoughts. Everyone of this Live appearances has been a train wreck. He just ends up saying something utterly ridiculous that hen gets turned into the latest meme.

And thus.. I have come to consider Wrobel to be unqualified for the position he has. I fully admit I could be wrong, but that is the way it seems to me. I do not know the guy, never met him, nor do I work at ZOS, so I can't really say. But I am not happy with the performance of the Combat team. It's just random *** after random ***. They present us with non existing problems and come up with non-sequitur solutions that just end up breaking some other thing.

I have no idea what the truth of the matter is, maybe the team is under staffed, maybe his hands are tied by higher ups, or maybe there just is a lack of talent there. Who know? And it doesn't really matter much either. The fact remains that the Combat Team is not performing well, and it's Wrobel's name that gets associated with everything they do. Add that's why, sometime ago, I advised Wrobel to resign and find another job, before his name became synonym with failure. Not sure if that is the case yet, but based on all the Wrobel memes fluttering about the internet, he certainly aint far from that. And that makes me sad.

I mean, he seems nice enough a fellow, at least from my limited view point. And some of the abuse he gets heaped on is downright vicious. But at the same time, I myself, am not convinced he has the skills required by the job. All in all it's not a pretty picture, and I see no reason to expect things to get better. On either side of the equation.

Kalante

after horns of the reach patch wrobel is dead to me, now everyone just run warrior on all stam classes. There could had been so much build diversity.

QuebraRegra

Drdeath20 wrote: »

The real question is after all these years can we definitively say the game has gotten better?

The only thing that has changed about animation cancellation is that wrobbel went from calling it an exploit to calling it a feature.

Did the stamina/magicka split actually create more build diversity or just water down every class, some to the point where they dont have an identity.

Broken/useless skills, sets and items.

The slow death of pvp.

A completely broken crafting system that seriously has no rhyme or reason.

An enormous shift in metta that happens from time to time that completely contradicts itself. Ie. Damage is too high so we will nerf sustain across the board but since we are nerfing sustain Lets release a monster set that does over 30k damage in 5 seconds (heres looking at you zaan!)

All of this is on point. BTW, he was right when he called AC and exploit/bug and they proceeded to try and fix it for several subsequent patches before giving up and declaring it a "feature". A lot of people either don't know the history, or are in denial.

QuebraRegra

Armitas wrote: »

His beard is like end boss raid level powerful.

he has a beard now?

Armitas

QuebraRegra wrote: »

Armitas wrote: »

His beard is like end boss raid level powerful.

he has a beard now?

Afaik. I haven't been paying much attention. I just saw the pic Rohammed Ali posted. (#33)

greylox

He might as well just do all the changes he wants and then let the game settle in that regard, build on what he has done. The large, regular changes are a bit jarring.

I'm sure he has an idea of where he wants to go but I wish he'd just get there already.

aeowulf

i don't hate anyone. Waste of energy. It's almost like when something goes wrong, it can't be reverted and has to continue as intended. NB tanks - gone. Have been for a year, plenty of time to fix them, surely. There was an ESO live, where he was asked about nightblades, the answer was 'um, yeah...' it didn't I still me with confidence.

Then there is dk healer, has anyone actually ever seen one of those? At least nb tanks were a thing, once.

I think Wrobel just gets the blame for it all, whether the changes are his choice or not

Sabbathius

greylox wrote: »

I'm sure he has an idea of where he wants to go but I wish he'd just get there already.

I'm with you on this one. I just want to know what he wants to do, so I'm not figuratively bashing my head against the wall. If his vision is that DKs are tanks, Templars are healers, Wardens are mushrooms, and anything that doesn't conform gets nerfed into non-competitive uselessness, that's fine. I mean, it's not fine, but at least we'd know where we stand.

Look at how Blizzard did their classes. You choose a Warrior, and the game tells you "This character can be a tank or melee DPS". Right off the bat you know that this character will never be a competitive ranged DPS or healer. I mean, you can still run around with a bow and yell "pew pew" and maybe kill a few squirrels, or run up to people and bandage them whenever someone screams "Medic!" The game still lets you do these things, you can still play the way you like. It's just not competitive. But the best part is that it is known what your intended roles are. So you don't have to wriggle to make it work. If you're not meant to be a healer, you know it on character creation.

Meanwhile in ESO, they are still sticking to their schtick that you can play any way you like. Yeah, right. When was the last time you saw a Sorc or NB main-tank a vet trial? It does happen, it's just very rare. And if it's a leaderboard run, the tanks will be DKs, and healers will be Templars. It is what it is. And if that's his vision, I wish he'd just tell us and be done with it. It would suck for a while while we come to grips with the new reality, but we'll adapt and go from there.

Quite honestly, with all that's been going on, it wouldn't be a bad idea to just scrap classes altogether. So they can leave this class nonsense behind, and just work on combat mechanics and abilities instead.