ZOS is updating Crown Store WAY FASTER than updating the game itself.

Pr0Skygon

I mean seriously, just look at how fast they update the crown store. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. And how long does it take between combat balance? THREE MONTHS!
But, if those 3 months time result in a polished balance change, that wouldn't be a problem, in fact, I'll be happy to wait. Unfortunately, recent patches have not proven that.
(Please note: that I'm talking about balance changes, not about new DLCs, new features, fixes and improvement, those are on a totally different side).
Yes, the patch notes sure look nice and long, but the context inside is divisive. Some patches really do have impactful content, but others, not so much.
For example, Summerset patch buffed light attack in a big way, and kind nerfed heavy attack, introducing Psijic Order skill line, introducing a "new" buff, major class balances, new sets (of course), and changes to old sets.
Ok, let's compare that to Dragon Bones. What did we have for update 17? Cast time and interrupt changes (meh), synergy changes (finally), heavy attack and off balance changes (pretty hit and miss), new sets (again, hit and miss) and minor class changes, which to be honest, did not do much (except getting a lot of backlash about Power Whip).
Let's go deeper a bit, Clockwork City, what did we have? Minor class changes and some new sets, that's it. No, really, that's it. except for the new AS weapon, nothing worth talking about.
How about Horns of the reach? Mundus stone balance (Nice), and some minor class changes again.
Compare to how awesome the new features ZOS has been throwing out lately (transmutation system, outfit system, the zones, new stories), balance changes has been really lackluster. Since Morrowind came out till Summerset, the meta for PvE has not changed a lot, if at all (except for Stamina DK, RIP heavy attack meta). PvP sure is better, but just barely, since nothing actually changed in term of combat. New meta immersed with new sets, but playstyles still stay the same. Old sets are still being abused. Class viability barely changed (if not at all).
So in conclude, what do I want to propose? ZOS, if you have 3 months to prepare for a balance change, make it worth 3 months time, because some are pretty well done (not entirely good, but well done), and a lot are just underwhelming. If you can update your crown store in such a fast succession, then please, do the same for the thing that is actually matter, balance changes. Or at the very least, make better balance changes.
But that's just 1 man opinion, what about you guys? Please share your thought believe. I'd love read them all
PS: I'm really happy with the new class rep system, hopefully it will turn the game in a better direction.

Katahdin

Did you really need to make 3 polls?

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

Katahdin wrote: »

Did you really need to make 3 polls?

No, totally not intentional. But somehow, I did. Not sure how.

Kiralyn2000

Because "balancing" combat is as quick and simple as a single artist taking an outfit that's already in the game on NPCs, and sticking it into the "sell as a costume" framework that they've already used dozens of times. Right.

Or, for a little more work, taking one of the standard mount bodies and skeletons, and making it rocky/blue, glowy/orange, or jello/green. Again, a task for a single artist that has been done dozens of times by now.

As opposed to "balancing combat", an endless & hopeless task that has absorbed the effort of MMO dev teams as long as the genre has existed.

Aetherderius

Different departments are responsible for different things.

DanteYoda

Totally agree.

3 polls at least might get Zos attention... nahh you need about 50..

Elsonso

Aetherderius wrote: »

Different departments are responsible for different things.

It is probably more to do with (1) complexity of bug and game fixes compared to recolors, and (2) they get money from monetization, so it makes sense to focus there. Devs who don't contribute directly to cash flow are expensive.

ADarklore

lordrichter wrote: »

Aetherderius wrote: »

Different departments are responsible for different things.

It is probably more to do with (1) complexity of bug and game fixes compared to recolors, and (2) they get money from monetization, so it makes sense to focus there. Devs who don't contribute directly to cash flow are expensive.

Yeah, I know, because the ART department also moonlights as combat developers, since ALL DEVS are created equal and their jobs don't have any diversity or specializations.

MEBengalsFan2001

Whatever makes money will get updated more often. In other MMOs if the game has a market place, a good game dev will update the market place at least once a quarter if not more often. I see no issues with these type of updates. It keeps the game running by encouraging players to spend money and keep the game running.

As for other updates, the devs will group things together into a larger update instead of doing smaller updates.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

DanteYoda wrote: »

3 polls at least might get Zos attention... nahh you need about 50..

yeah i don't even know why there're 3 polls, i only made 1

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Because "balancing" combat is as quick and simple as a single artist taking an outfit that's already in the game on NPCs, and sticking it into the "sell as a costume" framework that they've already used dozens of times. Right.

Or, for a little more work, taking one of the standard mount bodies and skeletons, and making it rocky/blue, glowy/orange, or jello/green. Again, a task for a single artist that has been done dozens of times by now.

As opposed to "balancing combat", an endless & hopeless task that has absorbed the effort of MMO dev teams as long as the genre has existed.

In the 2018, where even free MMO games such as League, Fornite, WOW, FF14 and such, are giving out faster (and most of the time, free) updates, saying that "Balancing the game is hard, so it's ok to be slow" is no more a reasonable excuse.
If you're slow on updating the game, then maybe hire more staff from all the money you made with your fast-updated crown store.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

Aetherderius wrote: »

Different departments are responsible for different things.

This is the problem. You can't say "Crown store team" is slowing down "balancing team". But when "Crown store team" is bumping out more and more updates in such a quick succession, "balancing team" is still pretty slow, and most of their updates are extremely underwhelming, with little to no impact upon the game.

DaveMoeDee

This is a meaningless assertion in the OP [edit] title.The frequency of releases is meaningless. The actual investment is what matters. Unless we are just looking for ways to make up convoluted criticisms.

Thing is, the stuff they release in the crown store is often already in the client before it becomes available in the crown store. They just hold back releasing the items. Completely meaningless topic.

If you want to argue they spend too much resources on crown store, you need to actually show that the crown store is pulling away resources from other parts of the game. It seems far more likely that removing the high margins of the crown store would mean less development in fixing the base game because they would need to maintain their margins somehow.

I suppose the game was bug free before the crown store existed?

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Aetherderius wrote: »

Different departments are responsible for different things.

This is the problem. You can't say "Crown store team" is slowing down "balancing team". But when "Crown store team" is bumping out more and more updates in such a quick succession, "balancing team" is still pretty slow, and most of their updates are extremely underwhelming, with little to no impact upon the game.

Yeah, because rebalancing can break the game. A new mount won't. And rebalancing is incredibly annoying. Less please.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

DaveMoeDee wrote: »

This is a meaningless assertion in the OP [edit] title.The frequency of releases is meaningless. The actual investment is what matters. Unless we are just looking for ways to make up convoluted criticisms.

Thing is, the stuff they release in the crown store is often already in the client before it becomes available in the crown store. They just hold back releasing the items. Completely meaningless topic.

If you want to argue they spend too much resources on crown store, you need to actually show that the crown store is pulling away resources from other parts of the game. It seems far more likely that removing the high margins of the crown store would mean less development in fixing the base game because they would need to maintain their margins somehow.

I suppose the game was bug free before the crown store existed?

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Aetherderius wrote: »

Different departments are responsible for different things.

This is the problem. You can't say "Crown store team" is slowing down "balancing team". But when "Crown store team" is bumping out more and more updates in such a quick succession, "balancing team" is still pretty slow, and most of their updates are extremely underwhelming, with little to no impact upon the game.

Yeah, because rebalancing can break the game. A new mount won't. And rebalancing is incredibly annoying. Less please.

Yeah maybe I should have been more clear about "quality", over "quantity". Thanks for the opinion

idk

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

I mean seriously, just look at how fast they update the crown store. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. And how long does it take between combat balance? THREE MONTHS!.

I think OP needs to look at quanity and it becomes a totally different picture.

So much of what the crown store has is merely reskinned items. At that the work put into them is clearly much less than what it takes to create a zone, quests and more.

Seems pretty obvious the great difference in the amount of work that goes into creating a zone, or even a dungeon vs the little effort that goes into the crown store.

Besides that, the poll was clearly written for bias. There is not an appropriate answer for me on the poll since it is mostly in agreement with OP so I did not reply.

essi2

Re-skinning mounts and tweaking costumes does not take up any significant development resources, it does in fact enable development to be done by bringing in more money.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

idk wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

I mean seriously, just look at how fast they update the crown store. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. And how long does it take between combat balance? THREE MONTHS!.

I think OP needs to look at quanity and it becomes a totally different picture.

So much of what the crown store has is merely reskinned items. At that the work put into them is clearly much less than what it takes to create a zone, quests and more.

Seems pretty obvious the great difference in the amount of work that goes into creating a zone, or even a dungeon vs the little effort that goes into the crown store.

Besides that, the poll was clearly written for bias. There is not an appropriate answer for me on the poll since it is mostly in agreement with OP so I did not reply.

There was suppose to be 2 more polls that disagree with my OP, but somehow the forum decided to leave those 2 out, and just duplicated my post twice instead

Samadhi

Aetherderius wrote: »

Different departments are responsible for different things.

This is my comprehension of the matter

similarly, Skyrim and Fallout mod makers pump out a lot of armours, outfits, and weapons
but large story mods and combat rebalances are more complex to implement and less frequently released

idk

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

I mean seriously, just look at how fast they update the crown store. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. And how long does it take between combat balance? THREE MONTHS!.

I think OP needs to look at quanity and it becomes a totally different picture.

So much of what the crown store has is merely reskinned items. At that the work put into them is clearly much less than what it takes to create a zone, quests and more.

Seems pretty obvious the great difference in the amount of work that goes into creating a zone, or even a dungeon vs the little effort that goes into the crown store.

Besides that, the poll was clearly written for bias. There is not an appropriate answer for me on the poll since it is mostly in agreement with OP so I did not reply.

There was suppose to be 2 more polls that disagree with my OP, but somehow the forum decided to leave those 2 out, and just duplicated my post twice instead

Even with that it is still poorly written. Basically a lot of answers that seem to say kind of the same thing.

It really does not matter. Forum polls are entertainment value only. Even if this poll was well written it would not offer any statistically relevant information since their is not control of the sampling.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

essi2 wrote: »

Re-skinning mounts and tweaking costumes does not take up any significant development resources, it does in fact enable development to be done by bringing in more money.

The thing is, with all the money they made with Crown Store, maybe put some of those into the "balancing team"? Since updating the game is still slow in quantity, and lack in qualities.

red_emu

TL:DR

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that they have different teams responsible for cosmetics and game balance / performance.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

idk wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

I mean seriously, just look at how fast they update the crown store. EVERY. SINGLE. MONTH. And how long does it take between combat balance? THREE MONTHS!.

I think OP needs to look at quanity and it becomes a totally different picture.

So much of what the crown store has is merely reskinned items. At that the work put into them is clearly much less than what it takes to create a zone, quests and more.

Seems pretty obvious the great difference in the amount of work that goes into creating a zone, or even a dungeon vs the little effort that goes into the crown store.

Besides that, the poll was clearly written for bias. There is not an appropriate answer for me on the poll since it is mostly in agreement with OP so I did not reply.

There was suppose to be 2 more polls that disagree with my OP, but somehow the forum decided to leave those 2 out, and just duplicated my post twice instead

Even with that it is still poorly written. Basically a lot of answers that seem to say kind of the same thing.

It really does not matter. Forum polls are entertainment value only. Even if this poll was well written it would not offer any statistically relevant information since their is not control of the sampling.

Well since none of us can access any of ZOS staff and income info, polls and posts on this forum are mostly bias and self-claimed. Just take it too seriously

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

red_emu wrote: »

TL:DR

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that they have different teams responsible for cosmetics and game balance / performance.

Yeah and 1 team is obviously doing a better job than the other.

EölMPK

I see your point, and I respect that, but I can't say I'm 100 on it

Apples and oranges. Update the shop is waaaaaay easier than updating the game.

Gythral

Crown Store team just re-skin existing assets
Of course they can put out things 3, 300, or 3k times the speed of the team working on content
& if a whale will buy it, where's the issue?
great ROI for ZOS

Cpt_Teemo

Totally agree.

Thank EA for the crown store to begin with, the lead operator for Cartel Market quit EA for Zo$

Samadhi

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

red_emu wrote: »

TL:DR

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that they have different teams responsible for cosmetics and game balance / performance.

Yeah and 1 team is obviously doing a better job than the other.

Do admit it would be nice if the content team put out new locations, quests, and creatures more frequently

it would give the Crown Shop team potentially more interesting stuff to reskin

Linaleah

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Because "balancing" combat is as quick and simple as a single artist taking an outfit that's already in the game on NPCs, and sticking it into the "sell as a costume" framework that they've already used dozens of times. Right.

Or, for a little more work, taking one of the standard mount bodies and skeletons, and making it rocky/blue, glowy/orange, or jello/green. Again, a task for a single artist that has been done dozens of times by now.

As opposed to "balancing combat", an endless & hopeless task that has absorbed the effort of MMO dev teams as long as the genre has existed.

In the 2018, where even free MMO games such as League, Fornite, WOW, FF14 and such, are giving out faster (and most of the time, free) updates, saying that "Balancing the game is hard, so it's ok to be slow" is no more a reasonable excuse.
If you're slow on updating the game, then maybe hire more staff from all the money you made with your fast-updated crown store.

uh. league and Fornite are not MMO's and the only content updates they have are maps and occasional new hero.

WoW and FF14 are not even remotely free - they are paid expansions, subscription required. so no, those updates are NOT free. and they are most certainly NOT as quick as you say you are, i mean.. WoW balances combat what.. once a year, maybe at most? they have also been known to go without content updates for 6 months or more, AND they have also been known to release a patch that adds ability to take screenshots in game in a new way and post them on twitter and called it full fledged game update, so...

but anyways, what other people said. balancing takes a lot more time and completely different tool set from designing an outfit or a pet/mount recolor and making it available for sale.

Ananoriel

Making skins is a lot easier than changing the game's mechanics and make it more balanced. A lot is connected in the game, so if you tweak one thing, you have to check and tweak a lot of different stuff as well.

Pr0Skygon

Totally agree.

Grunge wrote: »

Apples and oranges. Update the shop is waaaaaay easier than updating the game.

But then you realized those apples and oranges are from the same grocery. The shop is filled with apples, and barely any oranges, but customers all love orange juice. And when the new oranges do arrive, they're mostly bad.

idk

Pr0Skygon wrote: »

red_emu wrote: »

TL:DR

I'm no expert but I'm pretty sure that they have different teams responsible for cosmetics and game balance / performance.

Yeah and 1 team is obviously doing a better job than the other.

Considering Summerset, good story lines, good zone and a new trial. Yes, the content development team is doing great.