@ZoS' management, team leads and developers: regarding Quality of Service and Bugs

VaranisArano

There are always going to be glitches. You can test all the things you expect to glitch or to be,impacted by changes to content. However, I seriously doubt that anyone at ZOS expected something to change the exp per mob to 1.9 million. How do you predict that?

Turelus

Kanar wrote: »

Edit: also as already shown by the forum post, zos testing team is understaffed.

Did I miss something?

Apache_Kid

I like how lots of people are like "you're making assumptions! You don't know the inner workings of ZoS!"

Here's what I do know however, bugs that I report on these forums at the beginning of a patch many times do not get fixed til the next patch. So many bugs that were reported the first week of the CWC patch weren't fixed until the Dragon Bones patch notes.

This is over three months to fix bugs and this is absolutely totally 1000% unacceptable

What else do I know? I've been reporting crashing in DLC areas on Xbox for coding errors since I've started playing the game. This hasn't been fixed. That is over a year. The activity finder has been broken since I've started playing the game lightning staff heavy attacks have been broken since I've started playing the game I crash in Cyrodiil due to coding errors every day since I have started playing the game.

None of these things are assumptions. I've never seen a video game with issues that last for over a year like this. I've never played an Xbox game where I crash every single day to the dashboard.

Why is this? I feel like we need to make assumptions about the inner workings at this point. Why aren't the devs being given the time and resources to succeed? What in the blue hell is ACTUALLY going on here???

Edit: my game just froze in Vivec for the second time today. My friend has already froze once. El oh El

magictucktuck

Hollery wrote: »

ZoS need to put balance ahead of business

Lol that’s what every gamers wants but will never get it you would have no investors and then no games...

Kanar

Turelus wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Edit: also as already shown by the forum post, zos testing team is understaffed.

Did I miss something?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393408/hey-you-do-you-like-trials-want-to-work-here#latest

"Growing QA department" means the previous size of the QA department was insufficient.

Taylor_MB

idk wrote: »

Taylor_MB wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Taylor_MB wrote: »

idk wrote: »

I can understand OP being upset, but it is not realistic or reasonable to think that Zos could find every bug in the game. Anyone who has spent time in MMORPGS (or even single player games) knows bugs happen and some bugs are never fixed.

However, OP does come off a little disdainful and seems to lack understanding of software development.

OP has also made huge assumptions and backed them up with unrelated commentary.

Again, I understand anyone being upset about bugs, but the OP seems more like a self serving rant.

Your same criticisms of OP also applies to your own.

@Taylor_MB

Not really. I can see someone using that as an excuse with nothing to add but my comment is based on experience with multiple MMORPGs as well as single player games.

OP also makes comments he would have no clue about like the workplace environment at Zos. It is irrelevant how his workplace is when it comes to speaking about Zos.

The OP is merely a long rage rant full of assumptions.

So your comment based on subjective and biased experience with MMO's is all good, but OP based on subjective and bias experience in the industry is not good?

Both of you provided opinion, him on ZoS you on his emotions and motive, with no evidence. If you don't see how your comment is equally as unfounded as some of his more speculative points then.... *shrug*.

Big stretch to call my objective thoughts on this industry based on what I have seen subjective (and seems manufactured and false to call it biased to suite your opinion).

Also, OP has merely guessed at how the workplace at Zos might be based on information that has no relation to Zos. That is an extremely weak and clearly biased opinion he provides. A rational view upon the OP and it's supposed supporting information would clearly see that.

Rage rants generally lack logic since it often comes from emotion. I can also state from my experience building IT systems from databases and virtual networks to actual physical layers for networks that OP's points are not the standard. The two workplaces I have dealt with the environment OP speaks of were not as he says his has been. Heck, some of the most relaxed environments I have seen in all my decades.

Granted, you are entitled to your own thoughts and opinions, but I suggest actually base them on something instead of trying to belittle someone else with made up reasoning.

Dude, you are just proving my point. Now you are assuming my intentions are to belittle you on what evidence exactly? The same as trying to claim the OP purpose was "self serving", how are you even coming to these conclusions?

You and OP are both doing the same thing, making assertions and wanting people to believe you because bias and subjective experiences. Neither of you are providing evidence, both of you are making speculative assumptions, and criticising the other person for doing it is ridiculous and ironic.

idk

Taylor_MB wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Taylor_MB wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Taylor_MB wrote: »

idk wrote: »

I can understand OP being upset, but it is not realistic or reasonable to think that Zos could find every bug in the game. Anyone who has spent time in MMORPGS (or even single player games) knows bugs happen and some bugs are never fixed.

However, OP does come off a little disdainful and seems to lack understanding of software development.

OP has also made huge assumptions and backed them up with unrelated commentary.

Again, I understand anyone being upset about bugs, but the OP seems more like a self serving rant.

Your same criticisms of OP also applies to your own.

@Taylor_MB

Not really. I can see someone using that as an excuse with nothing to add but my comment is based on experience with multiple MMORPGs as well as single player games.

OP also makes comments he would have no clue about like the workplace environment at Zos. It is irrelevant how his workplace is when it comes to speaking about Zos.

The OP is merely a long rage rant full of assumptions.

So your comment based on subjective and biased experience with MMO's is all good, but OP based on subjective and bias experience in the industry is not good?

Both of you provided opinion, him on ZoS you on his emotions and motive, with no evidence. If you don't see how your comment is equally as unfounded as some of his more speculative points then.... *shrug*.

Big stretch to call my objective thoughts on this industry based on what I have seen subjective (and seems manufactured and false to call it biased to suite your opinion).

Also, OP has merely guessed at how the workplace at Zos might be based on information that has no relation to Zos. That is an extremely weak and clearly biased opinion he provides. A rational view upon the OP and it's supposed supporting information would clearly see that.

Rage rants generally lack logic since it often comes from emotion. I can also state from my experience building IT systems from databases and virtual networks to actual physical layers for networks that OP's points are not the standard. The two workplaces I have dealt with the environment OP speaks of were not as he says his has been. Heck, some of the most relaxed environments I have seen in all my decades.

Granted, you are entitled to your own thoughts and opinions, but I suggest actually base them on something instead of trying to belittle someone else with made up reasoning.

Dude, you are just proving my point. Now you are assuming my intentions are to belittle you on what evidence exactly? The same as trying to claim the OP purpose was "self serving", how are you even coming to these conclusions?

You and OP are both doing the same thing, making assertions and wanting people to believe you because bias and subjective experiences. Neither of you are providing evidence, both of you are making speculative assumptions, and criticising the other person for doing it is ridiculous and ironic.

Ending your previous reply with *shrug, lol.

More importantly you seem bent on missing the obvious and maintain the false biased. Either that or you just like to argue.

Panomania

We always see IT people complain about gaming companies and how they operate (yes, in EVERY FREAKIN MMO, not just ESO). I can understand their frustration....but unless you are actually a developer in the gaming industry, the experience doesnt relate well. Its honestly a completely different beast. Shockingly, frustratingly so.

DHale

ZOS like every company in the world....especially every publicly traded company is to make money. Fixing bugs is solely determined on minimizing risk and the ROI.

Shadowshire

idk wrote: »

I can understand OP being upset, but it is not realistic or reasonable to think that Zos could find every bug in the game. Anyone who has spent time in MMORPGS (or even single player games) knows bugs happen and some bugs are never fixed.

In my humble opinion, your remarks began well. Programmers don't stop looking for bugs because there are no more bugs.

idk wrote: »

However, OP does come off a little disdainful and seems to lack understanding of software development.

OP has also made huge assumptions and backed them up with unrelated commentary.

Again, I understand anyone being upset about bugs, but the OP seems more like a self serving rant.

Please explain how this "rant" -- as you characterize it -- is "self-serving".

Frankly, in all of my experience with software development, and as an information systems manager, the crticisms and complaints in the OP remind me of well-known textbook cases of how not to do it.

The design flaws and technical bugs in TESO software are the result of adopting the Rapid Software Development paradigm, also known as "quick and dirty programming". RSD is not gonna work when the software source is written in a 3GL such as Lua, aside from the fact that its OOP design will have the inherent inefficiencies of Lua in its implementation:

ESOUI-TheElderScrollsOnlinesourcecode

As to the criticism of ZOS explicitly, given the rather evident lack of quality assurance in the software that they expect us to use, and the evident lack of reliability in the Bethesda system, the facts support the OP.

In my experience, the decline began with the introduction of One Tamriel, which was a hurried, bad hack for converting the existing TESO paradigm to the new one. The decision to make that conversion was the result of a marketing survey which reportedly revealed that the biggest competitor to The Elder Scroll Online was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

And it worked. The number of TESO players began to increase substantially after One Tamriel was introduced. Personally, it has not been as much fun to play TESO as it was before. That is not so much as a result of One Tamriel per se despite some changes and compromises which were not well thought-out. The fun is gone because of the apparent haste and sheer lack of concern for quality while implementing the conversion -- which have continued in every DLC and "chapter" since. Succinctly, I spend far too much time looking at transition screens and coping with flaws in the design and in its software implementation.

Then ZOS seemingly fired most of the customer support staff, and began implementing measures to discourage player(s) from seeking personal support. (Or maybe ZOS just decided to not hire more staff to respond to the rising tsunami of player requests for assistance.) They revised the in-game Feedback feature to include "positive" feedback categories. Of course, they deigned to add any categories (for flaws) that were overlooked in the previous Feedback UI.

Suffice it to say that the ZOS FAQs and "knowledge base" are rather poor. Finding and reading them is time-consuming; they often contain outdated information and procedures; and they are simply not effective replacements for knowledgeable people.

The PTS is mostly a marketing tool that gives players a "preview" before the software is patched into the existing game. A few extremely serious flaws might be fixed if they affect enough players, but most are deferred to some vague, indefinite future time that is unlikely to ever become the present.

ZOS also implemented the Crown Store, and has continually made it an integral part of as many features as possible (such as the crafting style Mimic Stones), and of every DLC and "Chapter" since. As at least one player has remarked in their forum signature, "Developers that make great games do, others create Crown Stores."

Apparently, the Crown Crates feature doesn't violate any laws against gambling -- although it is indeed gambling! -- only because any payoff when a player "wins" is not convertible to Dollars. If you don't like the outcome, or the cost of obtaining what you wanted, then too bad, so sad.

Never has the "greed is good" credo been so brutally evident as in the half-baked implementation of the Homestead feature. Every aspect of its design and every change to it since clearly communicates that the player had best buy Crowns (with Dollars) to purchase the Homestead furnished, at the Crown Store price.

If the player is able and willing to pay with their hard-earned Gold Pieces instead, then they will soon discover that ZOS designed a very time-consuming and resource-expensive process for crafting furnishings. Placing them in a Homestead with the Housing Editor is rather likely to require many hours of time and effort to accomplish even the most elementary progress. And if there is a design flaw or a technical bug in the Housing Editor that ZOS has ever remedied, then I don't recall reading or hearing about any disclosure of that fact.

Indeed, in the Morrowind expansion, the only Homestead which I have found that can be bought with Gold Pieces is an unfurnished "penthouse apartment" in Vivec City (which channot be bought furnished by paying with Crowns instead). In every DLC that has been released since, all Homesteads can only be bought with Crowns (whether furnished or unfurnished, if that option is offered), at a Dollar equivalent price of at lease $50 and usually for far, far more.

Now ZOS is repeating the same strategy with the Outfit System and the Home Storage Furnishing features: give a little benefit at no cost, but gain a lot when players buy Crowns with Dollars to obtain a more reasonable benefit.

In conclusion, ZOS has obviously adopted a strategy which is clearly expected to maximize revenue and profit. They cannot reach the goals to which they are implicitly committed except by continually paring costs to the bare minimum. Every dollar which is not expended to produce their software and provide the megaserver to the TESO players is another dollar in profit.

The risk in allowing so many bugs in the software, and leaving all but a few uncorrected, is that eventually the software will become so unreliable in its output, and so inefficient to run, that players will begin to abandon TESO. The revenues then decline, thus the profits decline. And when the time comes that the profit is not enough to meet the expectations of the Zenimax Online Media, Inc., investors, ZOS will pull the plug on the megaserver.

So, when you pay Dollars to buy Crowns for playing TESO, kiss your money goodbye. Whatever you bought with it will not be there for you indefinitely. And when the time and effort to play becomes a burden and a chore, then consider whether you might find sastisfaction by investing them, and your money, in some other game instead.

Shadowshire

Thogard wrote: »

I’ve never played an MMO where every new patch consistently breaks more things than it fixes.

Heh, .... should I suppose that you haven't been playing TESO either very much or for very long? Did you start after One Tamriel was introduced?

Each and every TESO patch since has added yet more bugs that will never be fixed, aside from a few that might be fixed sooner or later. To be fair, each patch often includes some bug fixes. However, from all that I can recall, they are the sort which probably don't require much time or effort to find, then remedy. There are some bugs that ZOS continues to ignore which, in my humble opinion, should have never occurred and should be fixed.

After each of the most recent three patches, I've begun to notice that some details in features which were working previously are now either absent or frequently, if not consistently, malfunctioning. That is not a good omen, believe me.

Personally, I am not spending any more money to play TESO other than the monthly subscription.

Gilvoth

i agree with this need for stuff and also please increase sneak speeds.



































thank you

Thogard

Shadowshire wrote: »

Thogard wrote: »

I’ve never played an MMO where every new patch consistently breaks more things than it fixes.

Heh, .... should I suppose that you haven't been playing TESO either very much or for very long? Did you start after One Tamriel was introduced?

Each and every TESO patch since has added yet more bugs that will never be fixed, aside from a few that might be fixed sooner or later. To be fair, each patch often includes some bug fixes. However, from all that I can recall, they are the sort which probably don't require much time or effort to find, then remedy. There are some bugs that ZOS continues to ignore which, in my humble opinion, should have never occurred and should be fixed.

After each of the most recent three patches, I've begun to notice that some details in features which were working previously are now either absent or frequently, if not consistently, malfunctioning. That is not a good omen, believe me.

Personally, I am not spending any more money to play TESO other than the monthly subscription.

I think i worded my comment wrong.

i HAD never played an MMO in which every patch consistently broke more things than it fixed...

... until ESO.

Anotherone773

Im pretty sure the company owners dont read the forums of this game. So really, your plea falls on powerless ears.

I own a small business. My wife is very senior( just shy of executive level actually) in a Global Fortune 100 company. My experience with owning my own business and my knowledge of corporate america i learned from her business gives me quite a bit of insight into how decisions are made in most companies.

Basically it boils down to this for 99.9% of companies...

Lets say you have $500k in capital to spend on a project. You have two choices of how to spend this capital:

1) You can spend it fixing bugs, upgrading servers and IT, and improving customer support. I should note that your not going to get all bugs fixed, great servers and IT, and great customer support. Your improving it, not making it perfect.

2) You can create a DLC.

To put it simply, a risk analysis. Is it more profitable to fix the current product and upgrade servers? Or is it more profitable to create a DLC and sell it to existing customers and use it to entice new customers?

Option 2 almost always wins. Companies do what they think are the most profitable. A companies entire purpose is to make money. And as long as you, the player, are willing to buy shoddy products full of bugs and keep forking cash over to them for stupid things like vanity items, and a little bit of content, they are going to milk that cow dry. Its how business works and the poor quality of products we see now is a direct result of people not refusing to put their wallet away when they encounter broken games. We still pay for the games, so they dont care about fixing them.

It wasnt always this way. In the early 2000s, games were fixed all the time. Major bugs were almost non existent and minor bugs were rare. I remember one company put out a really buggy game, and didnt fix it properly. And the company tanked soon after. No one would buy any more of their games.

But its a different world today. People will pay premium prices for broken stuff and expect the devs to fix it because they paid for a bunch of stuff. That isnt how life works. Those devs are just cogs in a machine. The management that makes those decisions sees that we will still buy barely working junk and feels there is no reason to spend time( because time is money) on improving it and doing it write. Just push it out the door and collect the check.

Game of War is a prime example of this. Even now that game pushes out new content updates 3 or 4 times a week that makes stuff you just bought obsolete. I knew a couple in that game that was relatively poor. The wife got a settlement from a work injury, before that they couldnt afford to spend $5 on that game. Soon as she got the settlement they spent $20 each. That wasnt enough so it became $20 a week each, Then $20 every other day each. Then they started dropping $200-$300 a week on the game. After two months of playing and thousands of dollars invested, they quit playing. All that money down the drain. Even now people still dump a thousand a week into that game and its a terrible game. Its a money pit. You just pay to upgrade and 3 days later you have to upgrade again because if you dont and another player attacks you, you lose big.

You know what always works, never has any bugs, and has great servers? The payment processors. You wont find a game with a terrible payment processor. Sure customers have problems with them sometimes, but thats almost always on the customers end, or banks end, not the processors. Payment processors work flawlessly for video games. The game might crash 3 times on start up and you might fall through the landscape every 3 minutes but that payment processor will suck the money out of your wallet like an industrial Hoover.

The devs likely have little control over fixing bugs. Some may even work on them in their off the clock time. But on the clock pushing new money making content will be priority and if they have time they can attempt to fix a bug. Zenimax doesnt have $2.5 billion in equity because they spend their time fixing bugs, they have it because they spend their resources pumping out more things to suck money out of your wallet. And as long as you keep letting game companies suck up your money for subpar quality, they will continue to deliver the lowest quality they can get away with.

I only know of 3 companies that really care about what their customers think to a point it affects development:

1) CCP, owner of Eve Online.
2) Stardock, owner of various space game titles including Sins of a Solar Empire.
3) Obsidian Entertainment, the company that famously crowd funded the game Pillars of Eternity and who have devs that were part of the Neverwinter NIghts and Baulder's Gate series.

Just those 3, and ive been playing video games for 20 years online and off. Every other company has the primary goal of getting you to open your wallet and sacrificing quality for profits.

Letho2469

Apache_Kid wrote: »

I like how lots of people are like "you're making assumptions! You don't know the inner workings of ZoS!"

Here's what I do know however, bugs that I report on these forums at the beginning of a patch many times do not get fixed til the next patch. So many bugs that were reported the first week of the CWC patch weren't fixed until the Dragon Bones patch notes.

This is over three months to fix bugs and this is absolutely totally 1000% unacceptable

What else do I know? I've been reporting crashing in DLC areas on Xbox for coding errors since I've started playing the game. This hasn't been fixed. That is over a year. The activity finder has been broken since I've started playing the game lightning staff heavy attacks have been broken since I've started playing the game I crash in Cyrodiil due to coding errors every day since I have started playing the game.

None of these things are assumptions. I've never seen a video game with issues that last for over a year like this. I've never played an Xbox game where I crash every single day to the dashboard.

[...]

^pretty much this.

[...] Lets say you have $500k in capital to spend on a project. You have two choices of how to spend this capital:

1) You can spend it fixing bugs, upgrading servers and IT, and improving customer support. I should note that your not going to get all bugs fixed, great servers and IT, and great customer support. Your improving it, not making it perfect.

2) You can create a DLC.

To put it simply, a risk analysis. Is it more profitable to fix the current product and upgrade servers? Or is it more profitable to create a DLC and sell it to existing customers and use it to entice new customers?

Option 2 almost always wins. Companies do what they think are the most profitable. A companies entire purpose is to make money. And as long as you, the player, are willing to buy shoddy products full of bugs and keep forking cash over to them for stupid things like vanity items, and a little bit of content, they are going to milk that cow dry. Its how business works and the poor quality of products we see now is a direct result of people not refusing to put their wallet away when they encounter broken games. We still pay for the games, so they dont care about fixing them.

It wasnt always this way. In the early 2000s, games were fixed all the time. Major bugs were almost non existent and minor bugs were rare. I remember one company put out a really buggy game, and didnt fix it properly. And the company tanked soon after. No one would buy any more of their games.

But its a different world today. [...]

^Sadly this even more.....

Dominion_Mirages

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Im pretty sure the company owners dont read the forums of this game. So really, your plea falls on powerless ears.

I own a small business. My wife is very senior( just shy of executive level actually) in a Global Fortune 100 company. My experience with owning my own business and my knowledge of corporate america i learned from her business gives me quite a bit of insight into how decisions are made in most companies.

Basically it boils down to this for 99.9% of companies...

Lets say you have $500k in capital to spend on a project. You have two choices of how to spend this capital:

1) You can spend it fixing bugs, upgrading servers and IT, and improving customer support. I should note that your not going to get all bugs fixed, great servers and IT, and great customer support. Your improving it, not making it perfect.

2) You can create a DLC.

To put it simply, a risk analysis. Is it more profitable to fix the current product and upgrade servers? Or is it more profitable to create a DLC and sell it to existing customers and use it to entice new customers?

Option 2 almost always wins. Companies do what they think are the most profitable. A companies entire purpose is to make money. And as long as you, the player, are willing to buy shoddy products full of bugs and keep forking cash over to them for stupid things like vanity items, and a little bit of content, they are going to milk that cow dry. Its how business works and the poor quality of products we see now is a direct result of people not refusing to put their wallet away when they encounter broken games. We still pay for the games, so they dont care about fixing them.

It wasnt always this way. In the early 2000s, games were fixed all the time. Major bugs were almost non existent and minor bugs were rare. I remember one company put out a really buggy game, and didnt fix it properly. And the company tanked soon after. No one would buy any more of their games.

But its a different world today. People will pay premium prices for broken stuff and expect the devs to fix it because they paid for a bunch of stuff. That isnt how life works. Those devs are just cogs in a machine. The management that makes those decisions sees that we will still buy barely working junk and feels there is no reason to spend time( because time is money) on improving it and doing it write. Just push it out the door and collect the check.

Game of War is a prime example of this. Even now that game pushes out new content updates 3 or 4 times a week that makes stuff you just bought obsolete. I knew a couple in that game that was relatively poor. The wife got a settlement from a work injury, before that they couldnt afford to spend $5 on that game. Soon as she got the settlement they spent $20 each. That wasnt enough so it became $20 a week each, Then $20 every other day each. Then they started dropping $200-$300 a week on the game. After two months of playing and thousands of dollars invested, they quit playing. All that money down the drain. Even now people still dump a thousand a week into that game and its a terrible game. Its a money pit. You just pay to upgrade and 3 days later you have to upgrade again because if you dont and another player attacks you, you lose big.

You know what always works, never has any bugs, and has great servers? The payment processors. You wont find a game with a terrible payment processor. Sure customers have problems with them sometimes, but thats almost always on the customers end, or banks end, not the processors. Payment processors work flawlessly for video games. The game might crash 3 times on start up and you might fall through the landscape every 3 minutes but that payment processor will suck the money out of your wallet like an industrial Hoover.

The devs likely have little control over fixing bugs. Some may even work on them in their off the clock time. But on the clock pushing new money making content will be priority and if they have time they can attempt to fix a bug. Zenimax doesnt have $2.5 billion in equity because they spend their time fixing bugs, they have it because they spend their resources pumping out more things to suck money out of your wallet. And as long as you keep letting game companies suck up your money for subpar quality, they will continue to deliver the lowest quality they can get away with.

I only know of 3 companies that really care about what their customers think to a point it affects development:

1) CCP, owner of Eve Online.
2) Stardock, owner of various space game titles including Sins of a Solar Empire.
3) Obsidian Entertainment, the company that famously crowd funded the game Pillars of Eternity and who have devs that were part of the Neverwinter NIghts and Baulder's Gate series.

Just those 3, and ive been playing video games for 20 years online and off. Every other company has the primary goal of getting you to open your wallet and sacrificing quality for profits.

^^this

I'm just going to leave this here...

P.S. Note that this post is from 2012 MMO producer's point of view and you may encounter some old thoughts/ideas already implemented around.

https://forums.anarchy-online.com/showthread.php?596846-Good-article-on-leveling-speed&p=6040923#post6040923

Turelus

Kanar wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Kanar wrote: »

Edit: also as already shown by the forum post, zos testing team is understaffed.

Did I miss something?

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/393408/hey-you-do-you-like-trials-want-to-work-here#latest

"Growing QA department" means the previous size of the QA department was insufficient.

That or they're looking for a way to test trials without pushing everything onto PTS for guilds to do.

If they can handle all the QA in house and put trials out without players having PTS it would help with the games competitive end game.

Lotka

Community rules state you should PM them if you really want to get their attention. lol Also, can you say something about focusing on cleaning out the bugs in PvP? Le Sigh.

WillhelmBlack

I don't feel sorry for the devs. They made this game what it is and that's why this update is the final nail in the coffin for some. I might be back, not any time soon.