Hello from the Lead Gameplay Designer

Strider__Roshin

@ZOS_RobGarrett what's your PSN? We should do some PvP some time. I also play multiple games, and there are aspects that are present in other games that I play that I believe will benefit ESO, and would love to share these ideas with ya!

Malacthulhu

Daus wrote: »

@ZOS_RobGarrett what's your PSN? We should do some PvP some time. I also play multiple games, and there are aspects that are present in other games that I play that I believe will benefit ESO, and would love to share these ideas with ya!

I would make the same offer minus my opinions about the game but, I am on xbox and I feel that your cp90 might hold me back on my progression with my limited game time crafting for you.

Strider__Roshin

Malacthulhu wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

@ZOS_RobGarrett what's your PSN? We should do some PvP some time. I also play multiple games, and there are aspects that are present in other games that I play that I believe will benefit ESO, and would love to share these ideas with ya!

I would make the same offer minus my opinions about the game but, I am on xbox and I feel that your cp90 might hold me back on my progression with my limited game time crafting for you.

Oh I would definitely help the guy with his gear. The main games I play right now are ESO, Monster Hunter World, and Destiny 2.

Malacthulhu

Daus wrote: »

Malacthulhu wrote: »

Daus wrote: »

@ZOS_RobGarrett what's your PSN? We should do some PvP some time. I also play multiple games, and there are aspects that are present in other games that I play that I believe will benefit ESO, and would love to share these ideas with ya!

I would make the same offer minus my opinions about the game but, I am on xbox and I feel that your cp90 might hold me back on my progression with my limited game time crafting for you.

Oh I would definitely help the guy with his gear. The main games I play right now are ESO, Monster Hunter World, and Destiny 2.

I never gave Destiny 2 a shot, I really liked 1 though. Ofcourse when I found out eso was on xbox that was like a gamers wet dream for me even though I was turned off by the elder scroll franchise and enjoyed how dragons dogma handled combat better, that being said I would never play the dragons dogma mmo as it looks like completw garbage to me.

Merlin13KAGL

Welcome, Rob.

Nifty2g wrote: »

Welcome @ZOS_RobGarrett I have a question though that hasn't been asked or shared here

What do you do as the lead gameplay designer, in depth would you mind explaining what that job title entails, and what you mostly work on in ESO?

I would assume where Wrobel effectively determines what an in game action does, I suspect Rob is in charge of making that action happen, implementing the keypress > UI > backend result.

(Wrobel's the what, Rob's probably the how.)

(So the please do this for PvP/PvE requests are probably not his thing.) (Not directed at you, Nifty)

So, some combination of both the interface you see, how the action is coded, and how the final result is handled internally and externally.

Rob, you mentioned wanting to see some things be different. Are you allowed to speculate on what some of those things may be, even if they never happen, or is that an internal conflict of interst.

What, in your years' playtime, bothers you and would like to see improved?

On that note some very basic, yet often still very broken features I'd like to see improved:

• On the most basic level, the client should be able to differentiate between:
  • A single keypress (Sometimes interpreted as a press and hold)
  • A held keypress. (Sometimes interpreted as a single keypress, or no keypress at all)
  • A release of said keypress. (Some combo of above, preventing other actions)
  • A non-keypress.
  This ties into HA bugs as well as some other actions as well, such as server/client desync and having to mash a button 5 times to finally get a response, often during a limited combat window.
  
• Targeting in this game is atrocious.
  • There should never be an issue hitting something the size of a house that is 2 ft in front of you.
  • HA/LA's shouldn't have to be released and pressed again to fire.
  • In non-dodge-chance scenarios LA/HA's shouldn't be going around the target and hitting nothing or the wrong thing.
• Last but not least (possibly out of your scope) Collision:
  • Portals shouldn't have collision. If you can't damage it, it shouldn't prevent you from moving.
  • Things that should have collision shouldn't be able to hide in other things' colliders. (inability to bash)
  • NPC projectiles shouldn't be able to curve path 2 different ways and hit you through solid objects (LoS)

• Keypress dodge should dodge in the direction of movement, unless no movement is present.

EDIT: Draft came back. Hellifino.

ZOS_Mika

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Caligamy_ESO

@ZOS_RobGarrett In your playtime have you tried out Warden much in PVE or PVP? I am curious to know what an insider thinks or feels about how this class performs in comparison to the rest. Personally after playing for nearly 5 years it feels incredibly awkward and somewhat clunky to me, and ultimately doesn't quite fulfill a lot of the hopes most of us had for an ice based damage dealer in ESO. It just doesn't feel anywhere near as fluid as the other classes.

There have been countless threads about trying to adjust skills or do anything really for Warden but off the top of my head I can't say I've seen any developer feedback on them.

For example: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/416460/class-rep-warden-feedback-thread

Grimm13

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Whatever do you mean? Our UI is perfect! PER-FECT!

But seriously, the UI team is always looking for ways to improve the experience on both PC and console. Once again it wouldn't be appropriate for me to describe efforts-in-progress or future plans in detail, but we agree there are opportunities to streamline the social experience of ESO.

I assume Guild Improvements would be part of the UI team and I saw from previous posts that you play some other games for inspiration or just to unwind. The lack of customization of Guilds has always bothered me. Also so many addons which if just added to the UI would improve the QOL of ESO so much. The less need for a addon the better a game is designed and more versatile.

When you play do you find that you use addons in ESO?

Specific Guild UI Improvements I would like to see is... add in Block List for GM management. Ability to sub-divide the Guild Bank Items for access levels or seeing, larger space for about Guild, ability of GM and Officers to mass email Guild members, GM and Officers able to reply to mail.

Would also like to see the Trader options to include a sort option within the UI code.

Ruckly

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

SlippyCheeze wrote: »

Welcome, and thank you for stepping up into the harsh glare of publicity. Since you were at Riot, I'm sure you heard GhostCrawler talking about the less fun times it'll bring, as well as the good ones.

If I may, I'd suggest the most important change to make to this is to tell us, explicitly, how you want the community to talk to you. I suspect that you probably don't want a nice @ZOS_RobGarrett tag every time someone is grumpy about any aspect of gameplay. By being explicit, at least there is some chance that the appropriate community norms will be established.

It'd also be a big help, selfishly, if you laid out what makes for good and useful feedback from your perspective. I, uh, could also say that there are a few things I'd like to see changed, but as "not a ZOS employee", I'd like to know how to make my "just a player" feedback as useful as possible ... and of course, "as convincing as possible"

When it comes to giving feedback, the only hard rules are those stated in the Community Terms of Service. That being said, off the top of my head, a few pieces of advice are:

• Avoid speculation and assuming intent, but feel free to ask about it.
• Clearly described, and well researched, problems are usually more valuable to us than proposed solutions.
• Don't forget to acknowledge changes and additions you enjoy. This is not about giving us praise but rather helping us identify success and successful patterns.
• Don't be a jerk. =P

As far as game problems go many have already been solved by players(on PC). Mods enhance game experience and work around some of the tedious bits. There is a mod than increases view distance and does some stuff with the graphics. There is a method to increasing your FOV from 65 effective to 80 effective so you can quest in 1st-person which is how I played the single player games. On some classes you can run a hybrid questing pre-50 e.g. stamina weapon on one bar staff on the other with regen drink and have fun and possibly die(questing without dying is a process or at least more procedural than ~god mode).

The game is fun if the player playing it makes it fun. It's an Rpg. Covering the good or successful bits is difficult because typically everything which isn't spoken of is something enjoyed or at least on par. e.g. The mushrooms in Morrowind are droopy was discussed vs. the trees in Highrock which go unmentioned.

Presently the only problem I see with the game is the champion point system. It is a raw stat transform. It bars the way to Cyrodill(Vivec) and being an effective contributor and at the same time it makes questing too easy. I am presently trying to circumvent the problem by getting a lvl 50 toon on each alliance and playing Sotha Sil instead but it looks imbalanced. I can't say if the dominant faction and the 2nd highest pop faction have relevant battles in prime time or not since I don't have 3 lvl 50s to my name. Something more creative with champion points(what that is I don't know I imagine the game designers can figure something out) would be nice. That and contract bridge tables in the major taverns of Cyrodill.

Zypheran

@ZOS_RobGarret thanks for posting.
Do you also oversee housing?

f047ys3v3n

Welcome Rob, I am cautiously optimistic. At least ZOS has figured out something is not going so well. It has been a pretty sharp downhill starting with Morrowind.

My thoughts:

1) Maybe drop one of the two dungeon updates a year to get a little breathing room to make content actually work. Having 4 of the trials non-functional broken after the last update was pretty lame. In fact, the stability after these last two updates has been record breaking terrible. I love new content but it has not been worth it for the last two updates given how terribly broken they are.

2) Put the kibosh on cheat engine use. This will solve more than half of your balance problems. loooooots of players are on the juice. Just issue a 3 day ban or something when you throw down the hammer. I really don't think you can blame anybody for cheating when it has gone unaddressed for several years and you are basically, unknowingly, scaling content to it. You are unknowingly scaling content to it. Players do not do the sort of dps they now do legitimately. Go ahead, try out the rotations they post with the gear and buffs. You will be shocked at the difference. You will never really be able to ballance abilities, classes, or scale content when many players can set more or less any stat they want to the max possible.

3) Listen to Gina and Jessica they spend a lot of time getting the feel of the community and what it thinks about things.

4) Take (name redacted's) internal metrics and tell him to shove them. They are meaningless statistics as they include 80% casuals who have no clue, 15% copies of Alcasts latest build, and only 5% players who have a clue but are not using Alcasts latest build. He's been trying to use those statistics as a substitute for understanding game dynamics himself for years and it has accomplished nothing. Probably some buzzword tripe about data driven decisions. Those are great, if you data is great and complete tosh if it's not.

5) Communicate better, and more honestly, with the community. We often feel left in the dark and fed lies. Another dev famously said ZOS was always planning to be a sub model and not a free to play model. That lie was so obvious we never even believed it. It was just insulting. Of course ZOS was planning to go free to play from day 1. It is a better model. We did not need the lies about this. We pretty much all knew we were playing a paid beta. Give us real information about game direction, not just overblown advertisement of the next world-beating content drop.

6) The underlying basic attacks of your combat haven't really worked right since Morrowind. You might want to address that. I mean you have medium attacks that animate but no damage at all and virtually all durations of attacks do reduced damage for the stated reason of returning resources but do not actually return resources. In contrast, the attacks that do return resources do not have reduced damage but instead increased damage.

eso_lags

@ZOS_RobGarrett I do hope you will get back to someone in the comments about performance. Also i wanted to add something else to my previous post (something that isnt nearly as important as performance, but still could use some work).

Console is in desperate need of some qol or ui updates or something. I also play on pc and having skyshards and lorebooks on your map/compass is an astronomical difference... Like it pretty much makes it a thousand times easier to grind lorebooks and skyshards with these add-ons. Adding these 2 add-ons ( or something similar ) to the base game, especially for console, should have been done so long ago..

But anyway, i just wanted to add that. I noticed a few other people mentioned some stuff about UI and you replied that the team is always working on it... Thats good to hear, hopefully we will get something like this in the future. As for the terrible game performance (especially in cyrodil) i hope youll get to see my post, or one of the many others, and comment about it... Ive linked a few below but theres more. A lot of people would really like to know whats going on with this... Thank you!

LegacyDM wrote: »

Nice to meet you.

My only question is Can you fix the lag (I.e,. Cyrodil performance)?

Salvas_Aren wrote: »

It would be nice if we could get information which lags and bugs in PvP are server side problems and which can occur due to graphic rendering power, drivers etc on the client side.

Poncho88 wrote: »

Thanks for posting and clearing the air on "Management Intent".

If I may, please fix PvP before you do anything else. Large scale battles wreck client connections (or state) and the Cyrodiil faithful have put up for it since Beta.

Stop releasing fury little animals, 2 dungeon DLCs, or retro Flame Crates. Do hard stuff, not easy. Get everyone at ZOS to roll up their sleeves and figure out how to keep me and others from crashing out of Cyrodiil.

Thanks, and welcome aboard.

Lake wrote: »

Which department is in charge of the performance fixes?

On the forums, only one green staff member has ever commented on performance / technical fixes and that's @ZOS_AlexTardif .

Surely it's not just one poor guy.

@Lake surely its not

Jameliel wrote: »

Do you PvP? If so, why is Cyrodiil gameplay so terrible? What's going on with the resources, wall strength, disconnects and lag?

Raudgrani wrote: »

Nice to see you here. Get into Cyrodiil and experience the world of glitchyness, and make your colleagues aware of them please. That's about the only thing with this game (in terms of quality) that kind of [removed profanity] me me off. Take care!

Karivaa wrote: »

Some of us mainly PVP. I would love to see you help fix it. Many of the best players have left. You can find out why on the forums. Please help make it great again!

fatmanatcomp wrote: »

I would ask about the pvp lag and all the bugs in Cyro, will they ever be fixed, i soooo tired of being ignored. Was a thread about a bag that couldn’t be looted, that got an answer.

They have made poor in Cyro the norm because they have shown they can make it a lot worse in there. Look we have given you back poor instead of unplayable. Be grateful

ccfeeling wrote: »

Hi RobGarrett , nice to meet you .

Quick question , have you lag in PVP / PVE ? If yes , what you gonna do with this ? Thank you !

Palidon wrote: »

Well if he play's this game every day like he says, then he well knows the problems with the game performance and issues associated with the PC and console. Actions speak louder than words and ZOS always has words but in the end, no action.

ZOS has cried wolf too many times for me to believe anything they say anymore.

coplannb16_ESO

A late welcome @ZOS_RobGarret from me too. I hope you will have a great time at ZOS, within the game and engaging the community.

+1 from me for the suggestion to not do 3 DLCs / 1 Expansion per year. I think the game could now do with less new dungeons. In my opinion we are overinflated with dungeons and gear sets plus monster sets. Instead the base game and existing DLCs and game mechanics could use continued rework or polishing. Some things of my head:

#1 complete class and skill system overhaul.
- rebalance of skill costs/duration/damage/effect (example: basically all DK skills are more expensive than other classes skills)
- rebalance of all passives (make them equally usefull between classes and between magicka and stamina)
- maybe addition of a 4th skill line per class in order to allow for 1 tree for DPS, 1 for Healing, 1 for Tanking, 1 for Utility/PvP. This would allow to get some class identity back (e.g. maybe DKs could get back their evasion bonus on Cinderstorm or their original World in Flames and those healing morphs could go to new skills, Wardens could get that ice wall spell that some NPCs use or those moving ice shards to flex out the ice-caster theme,...)
- alternatively add more morph options per skill (in this case please add multi-spec so we dont have to respec everytime between PvP and PvE)

#2 Cyrodil
- we didnt have any major additions to the alliance war ever, IC doesnt count as it doesnt happen "in" Cyrodil
- I for my part want more people in Cyrodil and less queues. give us back 500 vs 500 vs 500 epic battles (game could run these before all calculations moved to the server). There are other ways to prevent cheating even with client-side calculations.
- make IC more like Darkness Falls from Dark Age of Camelot where you could use the dungeon to get into the rear of the enemy defense -> more entries / exits all over Cyrodil, also less loading screens/doors, it should be one connected zone under Cyrodil, also allow scrolls to be taken there so you could run the scroll though IC to the keep of your choice
- dynamic events in Cyrodil, e.g. a large imperial army leaving IC to take a keep from the players, caravans traveling between keeps with supplies that could be raided...
- more alliance skills/skill lines
- realm ability system for progression?

#3 gear grind
- new/better token systems for BoP gear (e.g. for vMA and monster sets). Some people run vMA a hundred times and didnt see an inferno staff or bow yet. changing traits helped some, but if you never get the item you need to begin with you are out of luck...

#4 dungeons, heists and trials
- please add more "modes" (look at how SWTOR handles their Flashpoints, e.g. add a solo and duo mode for all dungeons and maybe trials (adjust dropped gear as seemed necessary). this is for experiencing the story and learn mechanics before involving other people, or if you want to do it just with a close friend or your gf/bf)
- add duo modes for Thief/DB Heists
- add a duo challenge like MA / DSA for 2 people

#5 overland
- add dynamic events like the rifts from Rift. Dolmen are pretty boring in comparison. Rift events scaled according to players in the zone and could affect the whole zone on an epic level (e.g. invasion events).

#6 fishing and harvesting
- maybe add a fishing skill line (or champion point skills) that improves chance to get rare fish, containers, improves the fishing time, improves the chance to get a perfect roe etc.pp. maybe also add fishing poles as items that you can improve... (Rift has a nice fishing system too)
- same for harvesting (the 10% chance for a doubled yield is nice, but it could be more engaging)
- add a chance for special events on fishing/harvesting so you dont fall asleep while doing it

#7 housing
- add the possibility to grow and harvest plants and mushrooms (like once a day or every 12 hours)
- add an item like a harvesting chest/mailbox. if you have it set up in your house the hirelings of all your characters will drop the crafting materials right there on cooldown without you having to log your characters in/out
- allow to add all your characters to your house. then if you interact with them you can access their inventory and add/remove items

#8 riding skills
- when visiting a stable allow to train all your characters (e.g. you can switch through all your toons and train them individually)
this and the housing changes would remove the need to login and out of each of your toon every day (which is a pain and causes unnecessary server load)

#9 Auction House
- guild traders are a pain for both sellers and buyers, as well as for guild leadership (ghost guilds and syndicates are a problem), also single players should be able to sell their wares somewhere too. Thus create a global auction house or add a merchant NPC you can buy and setup in your house where you can list items and browse items of all other players who listed their (independent of guild traders).

#10 Crafting
- allow to upgrade the level of gear (eg. increase from CP150 to CP160 at the cost of the difference between CP160 and CP150 craft cost for that item)
- remove the crafting materialcost inflation going from CP150 to CP160, its neither necessary, nor logical and a relict of a time when crafted CP160/VR16 gear was the best you could get...
- increase the cap of transmutation crystals. We know you want these to be rare and not horded, but at the moment I have 200/200 and bags of transmutation crystals worth another 300 or so on my toons. Inventory space is precious, but due to the cost of transmutation I will definity stick to my bags no matter what, so why not get rid of this limitation. it serves no purpose except creating frustration. Frustration is not why we p(l)ay this game...

geekboy09

Hey @ZOS_RobGarrett
I’m a recently returned player. I played beta and launch for a week then stopped. I can see the game has greatly improved, there are still some problems with it. Why don’t you guys hire a game master to better control the bots. Is lag on Cyrrodill going to be improved. Are you aware of the sprint bug. Also, I don’t think this is in your area but I think quality of life needs to be brought into the base game like textures needs to be improved with some other things tweaked here and there.

dan958

Welcome

Rungar

with regards to the poster above who would like to see something for non guilded players for selling wares i would like to see npc guilds which are already in the game in the form of "local" fighters, thieves and mages guilds. Let players join "one" of these and let them sell 10 items at a time for some basic fee structure.

couldnt be that hard to set up each of these places with a trader kiosk.

moonio

HELLOOO ROB!!
We welcome you

Sogreth

Vanthras79 wrote: »

Isn't she the worst!
(Kidding! We love all love you Gina )

Who?

xxthir13enxx

Your first order of business at the next board meeting should be...giving Gina a raise...
Since Gina is in the frontline dealing with us on a day to day basis...dealing with issues and complaints that amazingly never have anything to do with the forums... y’all owe Gina. Especially after Summerset dropped...

aetherial_heavenn

Nebthet78 wrote: »

Welcome @ZOS_RobGarrett , You have a lot of work ahead of you but do hope you enjoy your time here. I'm sooooooo glad to see a developer finally coming onto the forums and hope to see more communication in the future.

As such, if you don't mind I'd like to provide you with my Top 5 wish list. Sorry, I type a lot, so I'll put it in a spoiler tag so you don't automatically see a wall of text.

#1) The grind for things is at a tipping point. It's no longer fun. So many grinds to obtain things in this game, from armor to furnishings, to materials have been added, that the more casual players pretty much have to work at it more than their real life jobs. When a game hits that tipping point of requiring more than half the time of a real life job to get certain things, it's no longer fun. Players begin playing less. They stop subscribing. They stop buying Crowns.. because what's the point? They are not having fun playing the game any more.

- Reduce the number of motifs and it's pieces released every year. No more than 4 motifs and release them about 6 months between each other. This gives players time to get the peices they need without having to grind so much to get it, in preparation for the next release of 14 motif pieces. Please do not do stuff like we had with the Glass motif ever again. No one liked it.

- Jewellery Crafting Grind... I'm looking at you!! Then 10x item requirements for refing of trait pieces on top of more 10x requirment for refining the quality items is too much. It should be the same as the other crafting abilities. Remove the dusts and give the full upgrade material at least. It's better now with the reduce in upgrade mats needed, but still is a heck of grind.

- Minimize the RNG grind. Either token system or let people choose their prize in places like VMA, VDA and Trials. The last boss should always drop a weapon or jewellery for everyone, not just select players.

If you have a good game with good content, people will play it over and over again with their friends for the social aspect, and not because they have to grind to get something to keep doing what they used to do previously.

#2) Please work on seperating PVP skills from PVE skills so that we have two completely different systems. As a mainly PVE player (who has played enough PVP), I'm tired of having my PVE character nerfed into the ground in the name of "balance" (which is never gonna happen) of PVP.

As a player with a disability, you've taken enough from me that I can no longer keep up with my friends who continue to play. You have changed things so they rely mainly on "animation cancelling" and "attack weaving" which I cannot do reliabley enough. I'm left in an area where I'm powerful enough that normal trials are boring and unchallenging and not as fun, but not powerful enough where I'm allowed to particpate with friends in a core raids group. Trying to get people to do regular Vet trials when they have people who don't meet their or the community set standards is hard to come by.

Part of that problem I feel is this notion that for the last two years, changes were made and we as players were told it was to lower the ceiling and bring up the floor. This hasn't happened AT ALL!! You can't lower the ceiling by nerfing the players. That can only happen by nerfing the content. The top 1% of players, who use macro keyboards are always going to be the top 1%. If you don't want them getting 75k dps, then put a DPS cap in the game. That's the only way you can control that. Players won't like it though. But the changing of the type of trials, and the different mechanics haven't made a difference to the requirements. Before these changes happened, players were required to have 25k stamina or 20k magicka dps. Now, it have risen to requiring 35k stamina dps and 30k magicka dps. That ceiling has gotten higher. Not lower, and because of the changes made to the way combat works in the game, players like me, get more left behind and gimped even more than our own disabilities make us, because of the changes that have been made.

I'm not sure how you can solve this. Perhaps it is time to start looking at soft and hard caps and implementing them again. Make the CP use matter. If a player has too much CP into attack abilities that they go over the DPS cap, it will force them to use CP in places for defence or something else, without hindering those of us who need the extra points in those trees to help boost our DPS to compensate for our disabilities. (Some CP abilities may need to be moved around a bit.)

Example: Johnny is one of the elite 1%. He currently always pulls 50-60k dps in Trials. ZOS doesn't really want players pulling that much DPS because they go through content too quickly and bypass mechanics. ZOS puts a 40k max DPS cap into the game. Now, no matter what Johnny does, he can only get 40k DPS, but Johnny still seems to be dying a lot in Trials. So, to compensate, he takes some points out of his DPS abilities, slots a heal for himself, and puts those points into the CP that increases his healing skills. Maybe Johnny doesn't die so much any more.

Example2: Jenny is a disabled/older player who can get between 25k-30k DPS depending on rotation and luck. She can't animation cancel reliably. She knows the mechanics pretty good for most Trials, but no matter what she does, she can't get over that DPS hurdle. So Jenny is left out of playing in Trials groups with her friends. After a couple new updates come out, CP is increased enough that Jenny can put more points into her Penetration and Weapon Dmg or Direct Attack Dmg to boost her DPS more. She seems ok in the surviving department, so the few given there will compensate. With more practice and fiddling with her CP and the correct abilities, Jenny is now reliably getting over 30k DPS and closing in on the 35k DPS requirements where she might get a chance to play with her friends again.

Ok the two examples might be a bit overly simplistic in understanding, but they are an example of an idea.

#3) Please use one least one Dungeon DLC to instead work on fixing as many of the bugs in this game as possible. It is due for a serious bug cleaning.

#4) Please hire a couple people full time who go from server to server to take care of the botting problem in this game. Yes, it is a problem that severely needs to be taken care of. Most players are no longer willing to report bots any more due to it being extremely time consuming. Most only have an hour or so a night to play, and who wants that time eaten up by reporting bots that should be taken care of weekly by a GameMaster visiting and checking out known botting locations?!

#5) Please add a 6th ability tab for use of a toggled passive only. The active ability cannot be used in combat. (Therefore not needing to add any more buttons to press for the consoles than there already is). This may add a different dynamic to combat and help to elevate the dps of a few people who need it. Yeah, it will elevate the top players too, but they are so beyond everyone that they don't really count any more.

Thank you for time and even attempting to read this all.
I used to love this game, but the grind and not being able to keep up with my friends has kinda killed the spark.

I hope this post is not overlooked. The game has many disabled players who can do hard content but can no longer complete vet trials dps tests.

High latency also compounds technical bugs like break free simply not working and compounds targeting issues. Players are hit by aoes that they have roll dodged out of. vMA is difficult because of the roll dodge mechanic being RNG with high ping. PvP is a whole other thing.

We players with high ping or poor reaction times or somesuch need to be part of your user groups. I suspect there are more of us than many developers are aware of. The mechanics of vet trials can be anticipated . Synergistic play is a delightful challenge and does't have to rely on roll dodging. (Check out some old school designs ...enrage mechanics are great if implemented properly. Tank swapping and waves of adds that require different damage make fight interesting. As are reflects. All these would make healers and steady dps necesary and knowledge matter. ... The game is very bursty at the moment. I agree with other posts describing this problem. )

We 'B-plus' players can contribute to vet trials if these factors are taken into account in designing instance mechanics.

A more user friendly ui would help players who cannot see animations, or see them 300ms later than most NA players, to learn them and tutorial content like the normals 1 dungeons could have a 'too high cp cap' so no carries.

Anyway I hope that you continue to enjoy this game as much as i do, and thanks for the conversation. Welcome.
Edit: I love that you pvp.

eso_lags

coplannb16_ESO wrote: »

A late welcome @ZOS_RobGarret from me too. I hope you will have a great time at ZOS, within the game and engaging the community.

+1 from me for the suggestion to not do 3 DLCs / 1 Expansion per year. I think the game could now do with less new dungeons. In my opinion we are overinflated with dungeons and gear sets plus monster sets. Instead the base game and existing DLCs and game mechanics could use continued rework or polishing. Some things of my head:

#1 complete class and skill system overhaul.
- rebalance of skill costs/duration/damage/effect (example: basically all DK skills are more expensive than other classes skills)
- rebalance of all passives (make them equally usefull between classes and between magicka and stamina)
- maybe addition of a 4th skill line per class in order to allow for 1 tree for DPS, 1 for Healing, 1 for Tanking, 1 for Utility/PvP. This would allow to get some class identity back (e.g. maybe DKs could get back their evasion bonus on Cinderstorm or their original World in Flames and those healing morphs could go to new skills, Wardens could get that ice wall spell that some NPCs use or those moving ice shards to flex out the ice-caster theme,...)
- alternatively add more morph options per skill (in this case please add multi-spec so we dont have to respec everytime between PvP and PvE)

#2 Cyrodil
- we didnt have any major additions to the alliance war ever, IC doesnt count as it doesnt happen "in" Cyrodil
- I for my part want more people in Cyrodil and less queues. give us back 500 vs 500 vs 500 epic battles (game could run these before all calculations moved to the server). There are other ways to prevent cheating even with client-side calculations.
- make IC more like Darkness Falls from Dark Age of Camelot where you could use the dungeon to get into the rear of the enemy defense -> more entries / exits all over Cyrodil, also less loading screens/doors, it should be one connected zone under Cyrodil, also allow scrolls to be taken there so you could run the scroll though IC to the keep of your choice
- dynamic events in Cyrodil, e.g. a large imperial army leaving IC to take a keep from the players, caravans traveling between keeps with supplies that could be raided...
- more alliance skills/skill lines
- realm ability system for progression?

#3 gear grind
- new/better token systems for BoP gear (e.g. for vMA and monster sets). Some people run vMA a hundred times and didnt see an inferno staff or bow yet. changing traits helped some, but if you never get the item you need to begin with you are out of luck...

#4 dungeons, heists and trials
- please add more "modes" (look at how SWTOR handles their Flashpoints, e.g. add a solo and duo mode for all dungeons and maybe trials (adjust dropped gear as seemed necessary). this is for experiencing the story and learn mechanics before involving other people, or if you want to do it just with a close friend or your gf/bf)
- add duo modes for Thief/DB Heists
- add a duo challenge like MA / DSA for 2 people

#5 overland
- add dynamic events like the rifts from Rift. Dolmen are pretty boring in comparison. Rift events scaled according to players in the zone and could affect the whole zone on an epic level (e.g. invasion events).

#6 fishing and harvesting
- maybe add a fishing skill line (or champion point skills) that improves chance to get rare fish, containers, improves the fishing time, improves the chance to get a perfect roe etc.pp. maybe also add fishing poles as items that you can improve... (Rift has a nice fishing system too)
- same for harvesting (the 10% chance for a doubled yield is nice, but it could be more engaging)
- add a chance for special events on fishing/harvesting so you dont fall asleep while doing it

#7 housing
- add the possibility to grow and harvest plants and mushrooms (like once a day or every 12 hours)
- add an item like a harvesting chest/mailbox. if you have it set up in your house the hirelings of all your characters will drop the crafting materials right there on cooldown without you having to log your characters in/out
- allow to add all your characters to your house. then if you interact with them you can access their inventory and add/remove items

#8 riding skills
- when visiting a stable allow to train all your characters (e.g. you can switch through all your toons and train them individually)
this and the housing changes would remove the need to login and out of each of your toon every day (which is a pain and causes unnecessary server load)

#9 Auction House
- guild traders are a pain for both sellers and buyers, as well as for guild leadership (ghost guilds and syndicates are a problem), also single players should be able to sell their wares somewhere too. Thus create a global auction house or add a merchant NPC you can buy and setup in your house where you can list items and browse items of all other players who listed their (independent of guild traders).

#10 Crafting
- allow to upgrade the level of gear (eg. increase from CP150 to CP160 at the cost of the difference between CP160 and CP150 craft cost for that item)
- remove the crafting materialcost inflation going from CP150 to CP160, its neither necessary, nor logical and a relict of a time when crafted CP160/VR16 gear was the best you could get...
- increase the cap of transmutation crystals. We know you want these to be rare and not horded, but at the moment I have 200/200 and bags of transmutation crystals worth another 300 or so on my toons. Inventory space is precious, but due to the cost of transmutation I will definity stick to my bags no matter what, so why not get rid of this limitation. it serves no purpose except creating frustration. Frustration is not why we p(l)ay this game...

Some great ideas. Ive thought about a lot of these things before. Sad thing is that we will never see this. When the dev team does something new, or game changing, its like once a year. For example we arent going to get some real new cyrodil content and dynamic events at the same time. We arent going to get either but the point is that no matter what we get it is going to take a long time for us to get it.

Think about it. Housing, bgs, dueling, jewelry crafting, trait change, outfit system.. How many of these are massive changes? They impact the game a lot but they are not like, lets say, spell crafting. That would impact the game a lot and change the entire face of the game. While these changes impacted the game heavily, most are small changes. Housing and bgs were pretty big but the other stuff is more like qol, imo..

It just seems like they dont have the budget or just dont want to do some real big changes to this game.. There are so many mmos that enjoy more than eso but the combat system and elder scrolls story is what keeps me. I love the combat system, as cancer as it can be, more than any other mmo i have ever played...

But there are many things i wish this game incorporated... Dynamic events both in and out of cyrodil that were actually challenging.... Housing with farming, risk vs reward trading&pvp zones, spellcrafting, more skill variations, more classes, more unique weapons/armor that are actually hard to get and actually do something awesome... Even more in game events at random zones, just to get people to go to zones that we never go to and be rewarded for it..

I look around this game and i see so much lost opportunity. I understand that many things cannot be done because of one thing or another but i feel like spellcrafting (or something like it) should have been here by now. This games been out for a while, we need something big. Even new classes. We should at least be getting one, IMO, every year. At least til we have like 6 or 7.. And i know that wishful thinking but that my opinion... But i do love many things about this game and i think they did a great job with a lot of things, to be fair..

Karivaa

I am so thrilled that you spent time with us during Midyear Mahem on console! Thank you!!!

ruikkarikun

ZOS_RobGarrett wrote: »

Hey everyone!

I just wanted to take an opportunity to introduce myself here on the forums. I'm the Lead Gameplay Designer on ESO, overseeing the Systems, Combat, PvP, and User Interface teams. Some of you may have seen me on ESO Live last month. I was a little nervous in the beginning of the show if you couldn't tell. =P

Hello. Is it you who nerfed sorcs? Stop doing it pls. Google "alternative" word. Also pick any stam and try against mag sorc, look how it disgusting for sorc.

Arthg

Hey -

Very nice message: humble yet experienced, always a good combo.

I sincerely hope you don't main a NightBlade.

Best,

TequilaFire

@ZOS_RobGarrett Good to see you posting, maybe we will cross blades on PS4 NA Vivec sometime.

As you can see in many threads there is animosity between PvP and PvE players which is nothing new in games.
However it would go a long way if the patch notes would describe why a particular change was made per game mode so it doesn't always look like a skill or other item was nerfed because of PvP alone but was also made to balance PvE.

DrSweetazz

@ZOS_RobGarrett welcome aboard. I sincerely hope you put a priority on communication. That has been my biggest gripe with issues in this game.

It's good that you're on console too. Maybe having a higher up playing on console wont make us wait months for fixes that are game breaking like we've had to deal with in the past....maybe.......

Also you should strongly consider somehow enabling console players participation in PTS changes, either via console or via a pc account with only access to the pts. and rather than just opening a pts with no direction beyond the patch notes listing changes, tell players what you want them to test and provide feedback on. Other games are capable of running a PTS on xbox, and capable of putting out patches within a day or two, so I'd love to see the excuse of a 2 week wait stop being used.

DLC and update days have turned into a point of aggravation for console players as it inevitably breaks something (MoL nearly unplayable for half a year, cyrodiil performance issues for months, and many many more). I don't understand cutting out two entire platforms of valuable feedback for content that you sell us.

Fake Remedy

oh hi o/

Universe

Strong communication between customers and the developers is necessary in any serious development project.
It is good to see that ZOS is trying to be more open to communication.
Keep up the good work and don't stop being open to the community

Vanthras79

Rob, Will we ever get a search function for guild stores on PC/MAC and on consoles? It would make browsing such a breeze!

Vanthras79

Rob, how close are you guys to delivering everything that was mentioned from Quakecon 2014? With Murkmire just being announced I feel like there is one thing that has eluded being mentioned lately...

...Any updates on spell crafting? (Some of the player-base would really like some new spells to play around with, the old set of skills are getting rather bland)