What's going on with the Class Rep Program?

Aztlan

I know several former Class Reps are no longer serving in that role, and there haven't been any updates in quite some time.

yodased

Was a bad idea which was implemented in a worse way. It died the death it deserved.

EtTuBrutus

The problem: reps care, zos doesn't.

zvavi

Honestly, what would class reps do during those times of the game. Didn't play the class after changes cause the game is unplayable so idk?

Minno

EtTuBrutus wrote: »

The problem: reps care, zos doesn't.

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath/joy. At this point combining them into one name is appropriate; Checkjoy flows. Or Joymath if you like numbers.

SirAndy

Minno wrote: »

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath

Who also dismissed a sizable portion of the ESO player base by stating that 1st person view is for role playing.

I for one am glad that someone like that has no voice anymore as a "Combat representative".

Minno

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath

Who also dismissed a sizable portion of the ESO player base by stating that 1st person view is for role playing.

I for one am glad that someone like that has no voice anymore as a "Combat representative".

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

SirAndy

Minno wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath

Who also dismissed a sizable portion of the ESO player base by stating that 1st person view is for role playing.
I for one am glad that someone like that has no voice anymore as a "Combat representative".

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Suddwrath

I'm confused. Gina said that ZOS was working on improving communication with the community, but it has now been like 5 months since the last Class Rep meeting notes were released.

gepe87

There is a new combat team or leading dev right? Maybe they dont want class reps.

Or reps gave up because they found useless to give feedback.

Ogou

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath

Who also dismissed a sizable portion of the ESO player base by stating that 1st person view is for role playing.

I for one am glad that someone like that has no voice anymore as a "Combat representative".

Considering that most of the eso combat cues come in the form of ground based highlights and that your field of view is fairly limited in first person, making it difficult to see the ground around you. I'd have to agree. First person view is not the most convenient when you're doing any "serious" content.

SirAndy

Ogou wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath

Who also dismissed a sizable portion of the ESO player base by stating that 1st person view is for role playing.
I for one am glad that someone like that has no voice anymore as a "Combat representative".

Considering that most of the eso combat cues come in the form of ground based highlights and that your field of view is fairly limited in first person, making it difficult to see the ground around you. I'd have to agree. First person view is not the most convenient when you're doing any "serious" content.

That's not the point though.
The point is that a class rep that is supposed to be the combat expert is publicly dismissing a portion of the player base with statements that were most likely meant as an insult.

1st person obviously has a limited field of view but ground effects are clearly visible and it has its on combat cues (albeit often too invasive).

Again, the point here isn't to discuss your personal opinion on 1st person vs. 3rd person but the behavior of someone who is supposed to represent *all* of the player base as a representative.

casparian

On the one hand, the class reps worked incredibly hard to submit excellent feedback sourced from a broad variety of players on numerous aspects of the game. Despite their work, much of their feedback was ignored.

On the other hand, many of ZOS' most controversial and impactful decisions (Murkmire's shield changes, Elsweyr's NB overhaul, etc.) were not run by the class reps in advance, leaving them just as blindsided as the rest of us.

I can't speak for the reps, but I can't imagine I would feel as though ZOS valued my time or effort, if I were in their shoes.

SirAndy

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

Finedaible

Class Representative program was likely to save face on the bad communication between devs/executives and forums/player-base. Class Reps were basically used as meat-shields even though they dutifully communicated player-base pain-points during 'feedback' during test servers, not to mention the racial feedback. Devs have very rarely listened to feedback from players or Reps, so i wouldn't be surprised if they just decided to nuke it all into Oblivion anyway since they do what the marketing department wants with no regard to anything else. It's all about money and crown store in the end. I'm sure there are passionate devs who give each update their best and I thank them for that, but it's the marketing schemes that ruin it all in the end. So I can't blame Reps if they decide to abandon such a controversial position.

I mean just look at the mess that is current Bosmer passives. Bonus for a few seconds on Roll-dodge? No sane player said that crap was a good idea, ad there were a very vocal majority who disapproved of such a half-assed idea well before the update went live. There were no direct responses to changes in the PTS forums, just vague excuses anytime a major change was made.

idk

Zos has a habit of going silent which his unfortunate. Since this game has launched they have stated multiple times they were working on improving communication only to see a brief uptick then a return to the poor state it has normally been.

I think this is just part of that. They set a bar then decide to let it fall and decide to keep us in the dark..

usmcjdking

The Class Rep program was destined to fail in it's original iteration for a few reasons -

1) No clear Class Rep manager. You could talk to any of the Class Reps and come to a quick consensus that on the rep side no one was running the show, and neither was anyone on the ZOS side. The CR program was a glorified liaise service which is very limited in scope and acknowledgement of issues.

2) ZOS did not treat them as a volunteer service, but as players with an excellent source of information; aka feedback repository. This, IMO, was the biggest misstep that led to probably not much more than frustration on both ends. ZOS was very bad in dictating the information they wanted directly from the Class Reps - and that's what it should have been - dictation. Expectations were not set in stone, requests for information were not written with clear guidelines, and you could clearly see it in the Class Rep notes and comments; more often than not they were just shotgunning ZOS with info and hoping something would stick with no rhyme or reason as to why some stuff gets looked at and other stuff doesn't until well after the fact.

3) Poor backend communication. I get it, NDA NDA NDA, but at some point ZOS has to release information prior to. It doesn't need to be the complexities, but if feedback has been heard and is being actively worked on - it's something the Reps AND players should know so they can review significant combat changes in the scope of every avenue in the game. The class reps are all phenomenal people & players, but 5 minds isn't greater than the 500ish who were providing constant feedback on what information was available. General concepts need to be made available to players who assist the Class reps in their self-assigned duties.

4) Really obscure balance vision, game direction plan. It is legitimately impossible to provide accurate, qualitative and high density feedback when no one can even logically ascertain what it is even changing. We know there is a class skill line audit, and we saw NB get significantly toyed around with, is that it? Maybe, maybe not - whether the combat team is done or not is irrelevant. What is relevant is the communication behind that portion.

5) Lack of developer comments. I'm going to use Division 2 for example. Anyone who knows me knows that I've crucified this game at every opportunity for it's awful loot/character build system - ESO is light years better. That however, has no bearing on dev interaction. This one is simple. Observe.

https://twitter.com/thylander/status/1141716609641406466?s=21

Lead developer responding to a tweet about the absolute *** state of 6pc Gear Sets in Division 2. Anyone who plays Div 2 knows that they are utter garbage - all of them (except Aces & Eights which makes any ESO set you can think of look like it's designed for 3 year olds). Following that discussion, he immediately tweets asking players for thoughts about reworking all the 6pc sets into 4pc sets which IIRC originated form some random reddit comment. This does a few things for the playerbase - it shows that the developer has actively engaged a problem but does not have a working in-house solution they are comfortable with (which is why it hasn't been addressed to begin with). They read a random fix action on reddit and see that it doesn't cripple their vision (which you can see in the link) by invalidating other gear and inquire with the playerbase about the use of these admittedly garbage sets. Players respond positively.

None of this is detracting on any one person, most of all the class reps. Nor is it a total failure - there was some modicum of success with the program. And this isn't to say that it can't succeed. It simply got crushed under the pressure of it's own lackadaisical program structure. For it to succeed, it needs to be run appropriately.

@ZOS_MattFiror You're experienced, and I'm not going to tell you how to do your job because I don't know the first thing about it. What I can tell you is that I don't feel like the customer of a service. Treating ESO as a game and not a service then projecting that onto players is not above reproach.

idk

@usmcjdking

Good points but if Zos had organized and managed the system well many of those points would not be an issue. The bigger issue is Zos is poorly managed and only half ass works with player feedback from players they have selected.

The fact Zos has been poorly managed from the start was evident to anyone who played the game at launch as it has to have been the worst launch by far for a major MMORPGs. The original GF is a prime example as I cannot fathome any manager (director/president) worth their salt would have signed off on such a joke.

But I digress. Zos has a history or not listening to players feedback in controlled and semi-controlled tests. This goes back to alpha and beta. Since launch it is most notable that Zos flew players like Gilliamtherogue, Alcast, Woeler and more to play test the game leading up Morrowind.

During that play testing Zos and the players discussed many aspects of the game, ideas and more. Zos purposely left out the biggest changes which was the heavy nerf to sustain across the board including the reword of CP.

If Zos had competent management then that would have been part of the discussion.

Iskiab

Thing is about these kind of programs and being a dev...

1. Players quit after a while, no one plays forever. Plus, people usually don’t say when they quit and it’s gradual, it would be a lot of work to manage the class reps
2. Class reps types come in all shapes; kiss asses, unstable types, amazingly magnanimous doing free work, etc.... If some are great maybe that’s all they need
3. Devs have to be extremely careful about what they say because things will be thrown in their face. It’s common to see posts from 2015 quoting a dev in threads that go, ‘OmGz WhY ThIs No HaPpEn YeT!’ Limiting statements means limiting promises so nothing gets thrown in your face like no-one’s allowed to change their mind
4. Class reps being potentially unstable can mean they take the position too seriously and start thinking they’re in charge, when all they wanted was someone to bounce a couple ideas off of or get a player’s perspective
5. Devs are probably way more knowledgeable about the game then people give them credit for

One last thing to consider, now that they have ESOlogs they can datamine the info pretty easily for quantitative research.

Things to consider.

TheNightflame

The reps have been giving some of the same feedback for years, and often it's barely touched or changes out of the blue are produced and they have to try to correct those mistakes. They put A TON of work in and have produced enough knowledge to nearly fix the game, but zos has done nothing for so long that they can't believe that sos actually wants to fix the game. It's torture putting so much time and belief into something when you know you're deluding yourself, and it's hard to think you're not with zos' track record now.

Katahdin

It's dead Jim

Minno

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

youll never meet a more passionate rep than checkmath

Who also dismissed a sizable portion of the ESO player base by stating that 1st person view is for role playing.
I for one am glad that someone like that has no voice anymore as a "Combat representative".

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

fire up old school morrowind without mods and let me know how 3rd person view goes lol.

Jabbs_Giggity

SirAndy wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

I would even be willing to put money that majority of these poll voters are 2-star tier or less and have never completed an end game trial on vet (unless carried) or ranked higher than 10 in Alliance War because their idea of the game is to walk around LA/HA oppenents in 1st person...

I remember when I first played Oblivion....truth is, you cannot rationally rely on polls within General Discussion in this forum as majority are noob-ish players that come to the forum to complain about how other players are better than them. Also, majority of combat players at a higher caliber do not float around in 1st person vs 3rd person forum polls...They are either in combat & character, PVP/PVE, Bug Reports or PTS (when active).

The simple fact is...if you are in a PVP zone, duel or Vet Trial you are not in 1st person unless inexperienced or new to the game.

@Minno I support your claims.

Minno

SirAndy wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

Lol.

kylewwefan

Remember the game starts you out in first person view. I didn't discover third person view til I was around Vet 7 or so.

Focusing on a new player experience, that’s something to consider.

And the older Elder Scrolls games were first person view. You see some popular reviews of this game online. Many of them are first person.

So when a friend finally showed me how to put it into third person view, it blew my mind! There are many places in game where the camera gets all wonky and I find it better going back to first person.

That might not be enough to write off a passionate class rep, but something to consider anyways.

That and any focus on endgame that way more than half of all players will never get close to experiencing.

For PS4 trophies, %12 have a level 50 character. So it’s more like %88 of players will never experience endgame. You might want to change focus from vet stuff.

Jabbs_Giggity

Minno wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

Lol.

Went to each of the polls. They are littered with 3rd Person votes in comments. And of all those comments 3rd person voters are all 5-star and up activity on the forums. All for 1st Person votes are 3-star and below activity on the forums.

Vildebill

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

Lol.

Went to each of the polls. They are littered with 3rd Person votes in comments. And of all those comments 3rd person voters are all 5-star and up activity on the forums. All for 1st Person votes are 3-star and below activity on the forums.

Haha so what? This isn't a social platform for 12 year old kids where some stars indicates your gaming knowledge.

Liko, one of the best DDs in this game, has 3 stars on the forums. Is he good enough for you?

Qbiken

kylewwefan wrote: »

Remember the game starts you out in first person view. I didn't discover third person view til I was around Vet 7 or so.

Focusing on a new player experience, that’s something to consider.

And the older Elder Scrolls games were first person view. You see some popular reviews of this game online. Many of them are first person.

So when a friend finally showed me how to put it into third person view, it blew my mind! There are many places in game where the camera gets all wonky and I find it better going back to first person.

That might not be enough to write off a passionate class rep, but something to consider anyways.

That and any focus on endgame that way more than half of all players will never get close to experiencing.

For PS4 trophies, %12 have a level 50 character. So it’s more like %88 of players will never experience endgame. You might want to change focus from vet stuff.

The console statistics include anyone who ever logged on to the game, even if they only tried during a free trial. And on console the achievement trophy statistics only updates if you actually go and check those achievements. Don't use those statistics to prove a point because they're heavily skewed and doesn't give anywhere near a correct picture of anything.

Minno

SirAndy wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

Lol.

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Minno wrote: »

im pretty sure 99% of ESO is played 3rd person. Its the only ES game where 3rd person is actually better than 1st view.

I'm pretty sure you are 98% wrong ...

Did a quick search and found 2 polls, one of which is as recent as February of this year.

One shows a 90%/9% split and one shows a 70%/21%/7% split where the third option (21%) is people voting "both" indicating they switch between the two.

So there's a solid base of 7%-9% playing exclusively in 1st person and a 21% base of players who switch between the two (like myself). That's about 30% of all ESO players.

That's far, far off your 99% estimate and validates my point above. A class rep should make an effort to represent *all* of the player base.


PS: Also not sure why ZOS polls don't add up to 100%. Just another bug in the long list of bugs i guess

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/250803/1st-person-or-3rd-person-view/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/458416/first-person-or-3rd-person/p1

I would even be willing to put money that majority of these poll voters are 2-star tier or less and have never completed an end game trial on vet (unless carried) or ranked higher than 10 in Alliance War because their idea of the game is to walk around LA/HA oppenents in 1st person...

I remember when I first played Oblivion....truth is, you cannot rationally rely on polls within General Discussion in this forum as majority are noob-ish players that come to the forum to complain about how other players are better than them. Also, majority of combat players at a higher caliber do not float around in 1st person vs 3rd person forum polls...They are either in combat & character, PVP/PVE, Bug Reports or PTS (when active).

The simple fact is...if you are in a PVP zone, duel or Vet Trial you are not in 1st person unless inexperienced or new to the game.

@Minno I support your claims.

its not just that some of the playerbase "perfers" first person. It's that all but a select few spend a majority of their time in 3rd person (99% of their game time). The game was originally designed around such, while it was added later as per suggestions from the RP players, combat was never reorganized around 1st person. You can even tell but seeing the animations in 1st person view; you dont even see all of the debuffs on your toon because your buffs are overriding the visuals.

Someone already mentioned your view hiding AOE or other mechanics. Most of these are designed around the fact you are playing competitive in 3rd person view. And that poll was in 2016; its 2019 with a many of the players coming from WoW who also play a majority of their time in 3rd person.

I am sorry, but this game cannot be a normal elder scrolls game with 1st person view without serious restructuring of the game mechanics; and they didnt even do a proper class audit this patch lol.

SirAndy

Jabbs_Giggity wrote: »

Went to each of the polls. They are littered with 3rd Person votes in comments. And of all those comments 3rd person voters are all 5-star and up activity on the forums. All for 1st Person votes are 3-star and below activity on the forums.

So, that means everyone that voted for 3rd person isn't playing the game but instead hangs out here on the forums while everyone that voted 1st person spends most of their time in-game actually playing.

Got it, makes perfect sense ...

Onefrkncrzypope

This is now a nerf first person thread.