What would make you like developers or Zos more as a player?

zyk

My problem with ZOS is as a whole, not individual developers.

It could be the most high profile devs who take the most flak are actually very competent but whose work suffers because of poor leadership. Whether the poor leadership is within ZOS or extends to elements within Zenimax Media, it's impossible for outsiders to know.

I consider Cyrodiil/AvA to be both an unfinished and fundamentally broken product. I think it was unethical to abandon it the way ZOS has. The customers who bought and have supported ESO for AvA deserve a working and finished product, whether it is popular or not.

SenorCrouch

Overall I like the devs, their game is pretty fun. That being said I do have a message for Zenimax.

Your creative gaming soul is your most valuable asset, not the money, not the investors, not the hype, not the advertisement, not the size, not the budget, not the time, not even us.

Never develop such an ego where you believe you are above learning, there are lessons all around us that help us grow and become better: the Great Collapse of Bungie, the off season April Fools joke of Blizzard, the Lootbox madness of EA, the micro-transaction attraction of Activision, the bomb of Bethesda.

When that gaming Spirit is lost and too many Master Hands try to interfere, properties become consumed by the light glistening off those golden coins.

Beardimus

Dracan_Fontom wrote: »

Listen to more feedback from players?

Or even acknowledgement.

Especially on bugs etc i.e. We all say Fear is broken to break free from, nothing. Maybe its not maybe we don't under understand it correctly, or maybe it is and they can't fix it. But no comment.

Snipe. Clearly something is up with it when you are on your horse. Then dead with zero warning and recap shows 4 snipes, 4 light attacks but you just dead in an instant and the sound comes after you are dead lol.

Just a note to say, yep that's working as intended or we heard you we looking at it / can't fix it.

Transparent acknowledgement and comms make such a difference.

I'd also hugely respect them to miss a DLC and focus on bug fixes. Make a big deal out of it. I.e. We heard you and respect long term player views etc

Monsieur

Improve communication. We see community managers that at best post unscripted comments once or twice a week. How can you successfully manage your community if you aren’t engaging with it? Scripted posts don’t count as engagement.

Acknowledge there are big issues with the game that people are really upset about, apologise, admit you screwed up and actually tell us what’s being done to fix it and keep us updated.
Nothing screams “We don’t care” more than silence.

Tandor

Shadow-Fighter wrote: »

Devs must do their own work and not giving their job to players/reps. I dont like the idea of reps.

I agree, my experience of past games is that once developers start dealing with a small subset of players it all gets rather too cosy and the select few players tend not to be very representative of the playerbase as a whole. The select few will tend to think they're the cream of their class, and so they may well be on Twitch or Youtube, but those aren't where you'll find the "average" players who are what you should be building the game around.

Grimm13

Tasear wrote: »

So more information the better? Not just a summary with Dev note?

Yes.

They should also be using the ESO Live shows to weekly keep the community informed, communicate their direction. Also have a transcription summary posted in the forums, attach a link to the recorded show.

A monthly letter of progress, give a response to the bigger issues the community has been asking about.

Official responses in the forums is needed. Especially in the bug report section, where are the questions to help id a bug, find common denominators of the problems?

An issue that shows they do not care one bit for the consumer is the outdated or misleading descriptions in the Crown store. They refuse to ever make these corrections. It is deceptive & dishonest in how they prey on consumers with the outfit slot. Down right bait & switch how they say you get the morag tong or imperial style convertor now that they have taken it away and replaced with making it an outfit only. Not posting the actual adds of the crates that is required of raffles, drawings and games of chance.

We want them to be honest with all their consumers, communicate to us, clue us in on the progress.

Grimm13

Tandor wrote: »

Shadow-Fighter wrote: »

Devs must do their own work and not giving their job to players/reps. I dont like the idea of reps.

I agree, my experience of past games is that once developers start dealing with a small subset of players it all gets rather too cosy and the select few players tend not to be very representative of the playerbase as a whole. The select few will tend to think they're the cream of their class, and so they may well be on Twitch or Youtube, but those aren't where you'll find the "average" players who are what you should be building the game around.

The rep system is a determent to a game. It presents a biased narrow view and squeezes the voice of the average player into silence. A game company is better severed doing frequent game wide surveys, communicate to the consumers in forums &/or podcast/ video. When doing surveys, publish results. If you don't like the results, convince us why you believe something is better, tweak your idea a bit.

swippy

are we supposed to have personal opinions of them? i like the product they put out, and that's the extent of my interaction with them.

i guess if they bought me dinner and booze and kept the conversation lively without saying anything too creepy i might like them, but if they asked me out it'd be kind of weird so i'm not sure really. i guess i'd rather just keep the relationship professional.

mague

Tasear wrote: »

It's common in game and out of game for people to talk poorly about delevopers or zos, be it right or wrong. So my question is for people what would increase your reception of game's product made by developers and Zos?

Nothing. You can read about bad devs on almost any mmo forum. The game is not poorly developed. The game is just not pleasing everyones taste.

ezio45

I want them so stop trying to force whatever new direction they have been implementing since morrowind. Its not working and it most definitely isnt what players want. Balance is at an all time low compared to pre morrowind. I mean i dont remember exactly when they nerfed proc sets but honestly even with proc sets balance has never been this bad. Both in pvp and pve.

Some more specific things that are pissing me off.

There half ass'd listening skills and lack of effort in there balance changes. reps say sorc sustain is the problem, they have it served to them on a platter. They buff pet sorcs which are already fine on sustain. Ill give them the benefit o the doubt and say this is miss communication. Even then you would think the next logical step would to be go in game, look at the popular sorc set ups and rotations and see where there rotations are costly and what is having sustain problems. No, there just reduce pets cost. The reps say swift is an issue, they nerf swift and nerf expedition.

That goes into the second thing. The sledge hammer blanket nerfs need to stop. there balancing is basically wrobel and garret playing tennis with skills. Just batting them back and forth every patch, hoping the skill drops on the ground in the right place. We need more precise small changes

Lac off communication is also getting aggravating


also

shields nerfs
expedition nerf
everything they have done to templar healing since morrowind
sustain nerfs
warhorn nerf
frag stun
boundless
barrier players effected nerf
overload light attack nerf
streak
them doing nothing for non pet sorc sustain/ mobility
not doing anything about heavy armor in pvp
lag in cyro

^ more things in pissed about

Haquor

Tasear wrote: »

It's common in game and out of game for people to talk poorly about delevopers or zos, be it right or wrong. So my question is for people what would increase your reception of game's product made by developers and Zos?

I really feel you ask questions just to be seen asking questions.

starkerealm wrote: »

Tasear wrote: »

It's common in game and out of game for people to talk poorly about delevopers, be it right or wrong. So my question is for people what would increase your reception to devs?

Are you kidding? I love those guys. They're fantastic. To be fair, while I'm saying that, I realize, I've had an unusual level of access to them this year. So, when it comes to the team at ZOS, I'm not saying, "oh, yeah, I know them through their work," I'm saying that from personal experience, they're really good people.

If only we were paying them to be really good people.

Karmanorway

Fix cyrodiil, thats all

gepe87

Something is going wrong when the majority of players say the same thing and devs dont care. Performance, lack of class uniquess,crown store overcare...more and more.

bharathitman

Personally I think they are doing nothing wrong. It's just a matter perception, some people have been qq'ing about the game so much that it feels as if everyone has a problem with the game. Yes there are problems with the game and their quality control can be a bit better (cyrodiil performance, buggy trials), but no product is perfect and I am fine with it.

People who qq and a majority of us in the forums are obviously more attached to the game than your average joe who plays the game 3-6 hours a week. If the devs started listening to each and everyone one of us then the game would be an absolute mess. I rather they stick to their vision

The only thing I want is more open communication lines on problems that are plaguing the game, maybe have the community vote on the top list of problems plaguing the game and then address some of them every patch.

Odovacar

I personally never really had/have anything against the ZOS Dev's. Yes, its fun to joke around here and there with memes and whatnot, but that's just all in fun. I'm grateful they have kept the game around and yes some of the frustrating aspects of ESO can be taxing at times (trial lag, Cyrodiil load screens, uber-long load screens, certain limitations on player/housing, etc) but that's with any and every MMO game I've played. I remind myself that this game is not and will never be tailored to me and my needs, so I keep for the most part my complaints low. I don't have the skills to work in their shoes so I really cant comment on their performance accurately anyway.

If I had to critique I feel maybe a little more Q & A or response to critical issues with us here on the forums would really make an impact. I mean look at when Gina or any other ZOS employee actually acknowledges a post with a semi-specific response they are instantly praised, usually.

generalmyrick

Tasear wrote: »

It's common in game and out of game for people to talk poorly about delevopers or zos, be it right or wrong. So my question is for people what would increase your reception of game's product made by developers and Zos?

@Tasear

they need more random surprises. and to prevent people complaining that they didn't get a chance, after the surprise has been randomly found by someone, hints or something could pop your mail or announcements.

like,

insert random day zos should implement something like a new quest with a really good reward. if you're like me and you're on your main and a quest triangle pops up your like, "wtf!? :-)" go inspect it, do the quest, get like 10k gold or a an alloy or something really neat. just random, no warnings. then after someone finds and completes it an announcement goes to you, "rumor has it there is a new quest in _________.:

or, zos will hold a console wide raffle. there will be 100 winners. however! tickets will be awarded for every molag bol kill in imperial city.

or, OH NO, TROVE SCAMPS HAVE ESCAPED IMPERIAL CITY AND HAVE INVADED "insert region here," for the next 24 hours trove scamps will be seen in "insert region here."

---

stuff like that!

AlboMalefica

The biggest thing I feel is communication. I’ve only been somewhat active on the forums recently, although been playing since console launch. I thought I would find more answers here (my main source of communication from ZoS was twitter, eso live & in game) but it seems rather quiet on the official front, especially as eso live as become a rare event these days.

For what I gather, Zos have a direction they want to go in with the game. I do completely understand that we shouldn’t be privy to details & nor do I believe that Zos should give in to every demand people make. All I want is more dialogue between the community & the devs, it’s apparent that we all love this game (otherwise why would so many care?). Obviously not every idea will be great but having the dialogue will find the best course of actions to appease everyone

Numerikuu

Actually listening to their communities feedback--especially on pts--would be a nice start, but let's not kid ourselves. The Crown Store/Crates take top priority now and the ONLY way they will listen to a slither of customer feedback on anything outside of those two things is to speak, loudly, with your wallets/unsub from the game.

Inhuman003

If ZoS add in a Mummy Wrap Boss in a Dungeon or Trial with Wrappings mechanics and Tomb puzzle solving also
add Mummy Polymorph. And Mummy Wrap is Lore basic in Elder Scrolls.

ZOS_Mika

We have removed a few off topic and bashing comments from this thread. Please ensure that the discussion remains civil and constructive.

Davor

Tasear wrote: »

It's common in game and out of game for people to talk poorly about delevopers or zos, be it right or wrong. So my question is for people what would increase your reception of game's product made by developers and Zos?

For me, it's respect. I don't feel like Zenimax respects their customers and fans. That can be a long story right there, so will just leave it at respect. Hard for me to get anything excited what Zenimax releases (and Bethesda Publishing now) when they don't respect us and take us for granted.

Morgul667

That they provide a game with reasonable performance and listen to pts feedback

Participating in pts and seeing many good feedback or ideas ignored by devs was a starting point in my rupture with zos

Noisivid

I'd like them to explain in detail exactly what the "vision" for combat and related gameplay actually is.

This would include skill lines, CP, item sets (dropped and crafted), how they see the various archetypes working together in PvE and PvP, etc and so on. What exactly are they trying to accomplish?
Maybe they've done this somewhere and I missed it? Most of what I've seen is rather vague.

oh yeah, and then follow through on it

there are other things but this is the main issue for me

Nestor

I know they want to roll out new stuff, and I am all for that. But, some resources need to be dedicated to the base game:

1. Fix the UI, the modders have shown you the way, emulate them.
2. Fix the Intro to the game for both new and existing players. Give more cohesion to what happens to the character out of the wailing prison. My vote, a generic starter area, Faction Independent, then travel from there to any of the current starting areas.

xan4silkb14_ESO

I'd like armor sets to have more unique bonuses and less stat/recovery bonuses.

Skwor

If they would just play the game, then they would know what our issues are.
For the love of the Three why do the devs NOT play this game?

Suddwrath

The current quality of communication from ZOS is abysmal and it needs to improve.

ZOS needs to be more engaging with the community. Whether it is via the forums, blogs, Reddit, Discord, or Twitch, they need to start engaging more. The communication used to be great, but for some reason this year it went downhill and is basically nonexistent now.

What is the point in having Community Managers and forum moderators if they don't even communicate with the community?

Rain_Greyraven

More honest communication, and a focus more on entertainment than ANY ideology.

Honestly, no matter what side you come down on you're alienating half of your audience, and lets face it, DICE, EA, and Bioware may think they are on the right side of history, but giving the middle finger to half of their audience means less games and less jobs,( I have many woke developer friends who are currently looking for work) and you can't eat convictions.

Further, everybody and their ugly cat are crusaders these days....why not act like the USO and entertain the troops?

Don't focus so much on growth, Blizzard was all about growth and this is what they have turned into.



Finally don't take the bait from Trolls who are outraged about everything all the time, it isn't real....deal with it the same way you would deal with reading the tabloid headlines at Kroger, laugh shake your head and move on. Your numbers will tell you if that particular bit of outrage has legs.

That's all from me....Happy Freaking New Year.

Putinof

Fix the RNG. RNG is cancer.
Nobody wants to play the game that gets him frustrated all the time.

I dont have much time to play, and more often then not i find myself wasting literaly days on farming stuff i want, and eventually giving up, since it never drops.

Grinding is riddiculous. Mages, Undaunted, Psijic, and Rank 6 for stamina alone requires how much time?

DLC Vets? Too hard to even bother for a casual.

So the only reason for subscription is a crafting bag. They sure as hell made sure its mandatory.

And the 3 way bg's.. there was enough said about that already. Cyrodill lag? Fun indeed.

There are quite few promising titles just around the corner, and yeah. Good luck

I used to love this game, but its not improving whatsoever in my eyes.

So for me to like the devs, id like them to take care of the crucial (for me) parts of the game. Its lacking in so many aspects..
I doubt this game stands a chance to stay in my library for another year, but since i bothered to write all this i guess i still have some hopes.

Kiwi

acknowledge the issues that have been reported with proof for years that stop people from being able to play at all without paying extra money and jumping through hoops