Class Rep Program Update

Suddwrath

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

While the last couple updates have largely focused on the ongoing ability audits, we’ll be moving back to having regular calls with the Class Reps and posting public meeting notes very soon.

Hi @ZOS_GinaBruno, when can we expect these meeting notes to start being posted?

alewis478b14_ESO

Never seen a "class rep" program in any game be anything more than a marketing ploy. Somewhere there is a public relations box to tick that says "tell them we listen" and this ticked the box.

shaielzafine

Suddwrath wrote: »

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

While the last couple updates have largely focused on the ongoing ability audits, we’ll be moving back to having regular calls with the Class Reps and posting public meeting notes very soon.

Hi @ZOS_GinaBruno, when can we expect these meeting notes to start being posted?

Have they responded at all to this or posted anything about class reps since? It feels like they're just ignoring these tags from the playerbase and just buying time as we buy more subscription time.

Strykerous

All I ask, is please stop nerfing the Magicka nightblades. If voices are going to be heard for real and your not just saying that, we nightblade need big-time buffs! In my experience and others, I noticed magicka nightblades have a hard time in pvp nowadays.

Amunari

Volunteer systems are horrible systems and they NEVER fix the issues.
These issues are always a PR grab at making the people think they devs care, and often don't. On the other side, its full of players who only voice their own opinions, and do not advocate for opposing opinions. As such it is fundamentally broken as a means to help better the class in any meaningful way.

Developers should never, ever, listen to players on how to change a game. Developers should only listen to what the players think is wrong.

There is a very subtle, and immensely important distinction between the two.

FirmamentOfStars

Amunari wrote: »

Volunteer systems are horrible systems and they NEVER fix the issues.
These issues are always a PR grab at making the people think they devs care, and often don't. On the other side, its full of players who only voice their own opinions, and do not advocate for opposing opinions. As such it is fundamentally broken as a means to help better the class in any meaningful way.

Developers should never, ever, listen to players on how to change a game. Developers should only listen to what the players think is wrong.

There is a very subtle, and immensely important distinction between the two.

This totally depends. In ESO the experienced players very quickly find out whats wrong with the game, which skill, class or set is unbalanced and so on. But even if the players report it, ZOS mostly didnt listen and went through with their own ideas.

On the other hand also the players mostly have good ideas how to adjust certain stuff and balance things around. If a skill or set is too strong, the players realize that fast and talk about it or report it and ask for adjustement. Mostly slight changes would fix such inbalances. But ZOS likes to adjust things with a hammer and nerf stuff into dust instead slight adjustements with a chisel. Mostly players have a better feeling about how to adjust inbalances.

Even if skills get changed entirely, players have pretty good ideas for new mechanics. The devs on the other hand tend to copy paste skill mechanics: crystal weapon (crystal shard morph) is a copy of imbue weapons and even the bound armaments is a bad copy of grim focus.

I would say the experienced players just know it better.

Firstmep

SavageChain wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

Volunteer systems are horrible systems and they NEVER fix the issues.
These issues are always a PR grab at making the people think they devs care, and often don't. On the other side, its full of players who only voice their own opinions, and do not advocate for opposing opinions. As such it is fundamentally broken as a means to help better the class in any meaningful way.

Developers should never, ever, listen to players on how to change a game. Developers should only listen to what the players think is wrong.

There is a very subtle, and immensely important distinction between the two.

This totally depends. In ESO the experienced players very quickly find out whats wrong with the game, which skill, class or set is unbalanced and so on. But even if the players report it, ZOS mostly didnt listen and went through with their own ideas.

On the other hand also the players mostly have good ideas how to adjust certain stuff and balance things around. If a skill or set is too strong, the players realize that fast and talk about it or report it and ask for adjustement. Mostly slight changes would fix such inbalances. But ZOS likes to adjust things with a hammer and nerf stuff into dust instead slight adjustements with a chisel. Mostly players have a better feeling about how to adjust inbalances.

Even if skills get changed entirely, players have pretty good ideas for new mechanics. The devs on the other hand tend to copy paste skill mechanics: crystal weapon (crystal shard morph) is a copy of imbue weapons and even the bound armaments is a bad copy of grim focus.

I would say the experienced players just know it better.

Aggreed.

Thing is, it feels like they give as much weight to the opinions of new players as they do for veterans.

A lot of the recent changes seem to be a proof of that.

ArcVelarian

ZOS should probably do a Live Stream with the Class/Combat Devs. Lord knows we need to know what the hell is going through their heads regarding some of the poorest performing class abilities *cough* NB and DK *cough*.

LightYagami

Developers, Please Consider impacts on PvP when you're balancing classes.
Don't only focus on trial target dummies.

LtAscott

Any news on this ever?

idk

LtAscott wrote: »

Any news on this ever?

Zos has been absolutely mum on developments in this group. We have no reason to think Zos actively discusses anything with them. If they still exist we are disenfranchised from them to the point we have no reason to consider them serving our interests.

I am not knocking anyone who is a class rep and I expect they are fully aware there is a valid reason to question the group is still active.

Calm_Fury

We've had very little news about this for a long while now. Is this even active? Pretty sure it is just a "walking-dead" initiative that doesn't get really used anymore.

ZOS_GinaBruno

Calm_Fury wrote: »

We've had very little news about this for a long while now. Is this even active? Pretty sure it is just a "walking-dead" initiative that doesn't get really used anymore.

The group is still active and we talk with them regularly through Discord. The Class Reps will frequently relay concerns from the community, in addition to their own feedback, and have been an invaluable resource. We do typically have calls with the group before a PTS update to run through some of the larger combat changes planned and allow time for feedback and questions; these meeting notes aren't published due to the fact we're discussing future game content, and aren't quite ready to discuss them wider yet. That said, much of what gets posted in the Combat Previews each quarter is based around what we've already discussed with the Class Reps during our calls.

cicisch

TIL I am the walking dead we give lots of feedback and our hands have been pretty full trying to pass on feedback about the crashing and other performance issues from the past few weeks, but there are plenty of combat issues for PvE and PvP that get discussed.

Aaxc

Those sneaky class reps. You play with them now and day and they just refuse to give out secret information. You can see they know something, but aint telling.

Tannus15

From memory the last time the class reps told people what was going on people blamed them for the Dev choices. Can't blame them for being a bit quieter now.

Czekoludek

How effective class reps can gather feedback if most of the community thinks this program is dead? Great job at communication, again

Calm_Fury

cicisch wrote: »

TIL I am the walking dead we give lots of feedback and our hands have been pretty full trying to pass on feedback about the crashing and other performance issues from the past few weeks, but there are plenty of combat issues for PvE and PvP that get discussed.

That is good to know.

Was not trying to say you all don't do anything.

But look from our side: until Gina's post we had basically 0 news about this for several months (if not more than a year) now.

That is why we need better communication. Those of us that are not on that Discord can't know this is still active and still a valid way of communicating if nobody says anything.

Moloch1514

2021 Year of Communication Improvements? 😁

forztr2

Moloch1514 wrote: »

2021 Year of Communication Improvements? 😁

Well it couldn't be worse than 2020, A major change to PVP combat mechanics didn't even get a single sentence in the patch notes.

Sephyr

Calm_Fury wrote: »

cicisch wrote: »

TIL I am the walking dead we give lots of feedback and our hands have been pretty full trying to pass on feedback about the crashing and other performance issues from the past few weeks, but there are plenty of combat issues for PvE and PvP that get discussed.

That is good to know.

Was not trying to say you all don't do anything.

But look from our side: until Gina's post we had basically 0 news about this for several months (if not more than a year) now.

That is why we need better communication. Those of us that are not on that Discord can't know this is still active and still a valid way of communicating if nobody says anything.

This. Not to mention several things that we needed feedback directed to, Class Reps were quite mum to say that they'd relay it. For some of this stuff, it's far too late because we get a slew of people coming into the threads; especially in regards to the Vampire rework threads back when Greymoor launched. We not only don't know that if the program is active, we've no idea what information they're relaying at all - if at all, judging by the post count on things being seen. So yeah, I'm super skeptical of a program that doesn't seem very active on the forum at all.

Pauwer

Who is the nb class rep pls? Do they secretly main a magsorc?

BalticBlues

Was it the "Class Rep Program" or ZOS then
turning PvP in 2020 into a OP Heavy Stam meta?

"The 2020 Heavy Stam Plan"
1. Buff Heavy with a 25% damage boost ring ... check
2. Buff Heavy with auto-healing Proc Sets ... check
3. Buff Stam with auto-killing Proc Sets ... check
4. Nerf Vampires (Mag) into self-killing prey (some creeps even will like that!) ... check
5. Buff Werewolves (Stam) into one-bar-gods (why not combine all buffs?) ... check
6. Disable kill-disturbing AoE heals from solo players because of "performance" ... check
7. Limit group size so that there are more solo players as prey ... check

So was this "Heavy Stam Plan" made to make ESO great again on Youtube?
So that the most valued YouTubers enjoy Heavy Armor Stam Proc God mode?
So that 90% of people now have to play Heavy Stam to stay competitive?

Sorry, but I really do not know any players of the good old times who like the new PvP uniformity.

Husan

Who are the class representatives for templar? What are their recommendations for the future of the templar class? Is there anywhere I can read this? I might be aiming too high with the next question, but is there anywhere I can read up on the developers side thoughts on the current state of the templar class and their future plans with it?

Czekoludek

Husan wrote: »

Who are the class representatives for templar? What are their recommendations for the future of the templar class? Is there anywhere I can read this? I might be aiming too high with the next question, but is there anywhere I can read up on the developers side thoughts on the current state of the templar class and their future plans with it?

That would require from ZOS to work a little on their communication skills so no chance mate, even if your requests are valid

Dracane

BalticBlues wrote: »

Was it the "Class Rep Program" or ZOS then
turning PvP in 2020 into a OP Heavy Stam meta?

"The 2020 Heavy Stam Plan"
1. Buff Heavy with a 25% damage boost ring ... check
2. Buff Heavy with auto-healing Proc Sets ... check
3. Buff Stam with auto-killing Proc Sets ... check
4. Nerf Vampires (Mag) into self-killing prey (some creeps even will like that!) ... check
5. Buff Werewolves (Stam) into one-bar-gods (why not combine all buffs?) ... check
6. Disable kill-disturbing AoE heals from solo players because of "performance" ... check
7. Limit group size so that there are more solo players as prey ... check

So was this "Heavy Stam Plan" made to make ESO great again on Youtube?
So that the most valued YouTubers enjoy Heavy Armor Stam Proc God mode?
So that 90% of people now have to play Heavy Stam to stay competitive?

Sorry, but I really do not know any players of the good old times who like the new PvP uniformity.

And I oophed.
Very true.

techyeshic

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Calm_Fury wrote: »

We've had very little news about this for a long while now. Is this even active? Pretty sure it is just a "walking-dead" initiative that doesn't get really used anymore.

The group is still active and we talk with them regularly through Discord. The Class Reps will frequently relay concerns from the community, in addition to their own feedback, and have been an invaluable resource. We do typically have calls with the group before a PTS update to run through some of the larger combat changes planned and allow time for feedback and questions; these meeting notes aren't published due to the fact we're discussing future game content, and aren't quite ready to discuss them wider yet. That said, much of what gets posted in the Combat Previews each quarter is based around what we've already discussed with the Class Reps during our calls.

I really question the term "class rep" if a lot of us who play the classes and the game are not aware they still exist. Not to even mention where many of us might feel the classes and metas are going in the wrong direction as they may not have any control of it at all, or its just confirmation of you all dumping the previous group because you want affirmation over feedback.

Strider__Roshin

ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »

Calm_Fury wrote: »

We've had very little news about this for a long while now. Is this even active? Pretty sure it is just a "walking-dead" initiative that doesn't get really used anymore.

The group is still active and we talk with them regularly through Discord. The Class Reps will frequently relay concerns from the community, in addition to their own feedback, and have been an invaluable resource. We do typically have calls with the group before a PTS update to run through some of the larger combat changes planned and allow time for feedback and questions; these meeting notes aren't published due to the fact we're discussing future game content, and aren't quite ready to discuss them wider yet. That said, much of what gets posted in the Combat Previews each quarter is based around what we've already discussed with the Class Reps during our calls.

Cast times on instant ultimates are still a thing so either you're not listening or you need better reps.

Calm_Fury

Is there an "official" or "sanctioned" way of communicating with the current Class Reps?

techyeshic

Calm_Fury wrote: »

Is there an "official" or "sanctioned" way of communicating with the current Class Reps?

Interesting thought. Would be a bit different than just hearing conversations have taken place invisible to us all under the shade of NDA.