Do I not understand the purpose of gaming?

BigBragg

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

Why does ZeniMax constantly shift, back and forth, nerfing with a Molag Bal sized sledge hammer ever update? This just has begun to feel like a second job, that I am constantly getting demoted at.

dem0n1k

One man's fun is another man's pain... so we need to find that one man that thinks this BS is fun & beat him up.

x48rph

So true. I don't mind reasonable changes, that's part of mmorpg life. Having to tweak some stuff after a new update is par for the course. But this is crazy, every patch you got to totally rethink, revamp, and re-gear all your builds. Do they realize how frustrating and disheartening that is, especially once you got more than a couple alts. I have alts still sitting around, barely used since last patch because I just couldn't be bothered to redo them yet again since I just did it after elsweyr dropped. Really makes me want to go look for something else to play regularly.

Ackwalan

The storyline in Pitfall was truly amazing.

Eirinin

Yeah, this is tiresome. Not fun.

RavenRoxie

Eirinin wrote: »

Yeah, this is tiresome. Not fun.

+1

I expect changes, but turning everything upside down every few months? Naw, sorry, got 10,000 other things to do.

This really isnt a good look for you ZOS. Just Saying.

Jeremy

BigBragg wrote: »

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

Why does ZeniMax constantly shift, back and forth, nerfing with a Molag Bal sized sledge hammer ever update? This just has begun to feel like a second job, that I am constantly getting demoted at.

The point of a video game is to have fun. I would agree with that.

But it's not fun to just melt everything you come into contact with. Games are more fun when they pose enough of a challenge to be interesting at least. The damage on this game has been absurd for years. It needed a Molag Bal-sized sledge hammer taken to it.

So once again I'm going to side with this new development team. They are taking this game in a better direction. At least IMHO.

ArchMikem

I was raised under the phrase, "Deal with it". Kinda obvious which people weren't.

I don't care what changes, the game mechanics aren't what's fun to me. Playing in the game's world is.

MojaveHeld

Jeremy wrote: »

BigBragg wrote: »

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

Why does ZeniMax constantly shift, back and forth, nerfing with a Molag Bal sized sledge hammer ever update? This just has begun to feel like a second job, that I am constantly getting demoted at.

The point of a video game is to have fun. I would agree with that.

But it's not fun to just melt everything you come into contact with. Games are more fun when they pose enough of a challenge to be interesting at least. The damage on this game has been absurd for years. It needed a Molag Bal-sized sledge hammer taken to it.

So once again I'm going to side with this new development team. They are taking this game in a better direction. At least IMHO.

And you would be completely wrong. The damage is nowhere near too massively high right now. Just finished up a vMoL HM prog team last week, it took us a few months to get the clear. And most of us had been together on a vHoF HM team before. That's how it should be. Experienced endgame players take a bit to gel together and clear the vet dlc trials. DPS is in a great spot right now for vet trials. It was formerly too low for the content ZOS was putting out, it's in a much more appropriate place now. The fact that there are a couple guilds in the world that can speedrun vMoL doesn't mean dps is too high. There are supposed to be extreme upper outliers like that in a healthy MMO, it's thinking that them existing means everyone should get massively nerfed that isn't okay in any way.

Banana

Ill adjust. Its that or move on for you other people.

zidders_ESO

dem0n1k wrote: »

One man's fun is another man's pain... so we need to find that one man that thinks this BS is fun & beat him up.

You're advocating beating someone up because something in your game got nerfed? Boo, hoo. Grow up and go play another game. So pathetic.

BahometZ

And so the forum warriors rock up to hand out "deal with it" stickers.

This patch roller coaster is tedious. End of. I suggest taking a break until ZOS settle on a direction.

jircris11

BigBragg wrote: »

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

Why does ZeniMax constantly shift, back and forth, nerfing with a Molag Bal sized sledge hammer ever update? This just has begun to feel like a second job, that I am constantly getting demoted at.

As much as o agree this is the way of mmos sadly. Ppl complain and devs nerf then they complain again for more nerfs. Gamers have become snowflakes over the years.

phermitgb

BigBragg wrote: »

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

did you really? I played atari 2600 as well. Combat was moderately fun most of the time. Pong was...I'm not sure what pong was - I guess it was an amusing way to turn your brain off for about 10 minutes before it became mind numbingly boring. Asteroids was a pretty fun way to hear some noises and get some modest challenge. But most of my 2600 games...various kinds of frustrating. Adventure?! seriously... and don't get me started on E.T. (my favorite movie, but the game...that damn game). Pac man was annoying as hell. Defender...wanted to love that game, but all I could do was hate it. Pitfall was ok. And those are just the ones I played often enough to remember their names nearly 30 years later.

also, almost none of those games had any real story. Sure, they had a concept story - a reason for why you were moving back and forth or up and down doing whatever - but that was the extent of it.

Video games have gotten better. They've gotten larger, more expansive, more ambitious. But there's still a HUUUUUGE gap between what any one person thinks is fun and what another person thinks is fun. Why does Zenimax bounce back and forth constantly nerfing things? Well, I'm betting there are a few reasons, but at least one of the reasons is that there's a fairly vocal population EVERY SINGLE UPDATE that demands that things be changed. EVERY...SINGLE...TIME.

Now, of course, there are other reasons. Internal reasons. Marketing reasons. Future development reasons. Perceptions of what competitive gameplay is from a dev standpoint vs a player standpoint vs a marketer standpoint...and on...and on, etc, etc...

but honestly, I've kept an eye on the forums since the game was in early release, and I'm telling you, at least part of the reason ZOS keeps changing things, is because of the community. SOME portion of the community keeps demanding that things change. EVERY iteration there's a group unhappy with...some way a thing is, and there is ALWAYS a group unhappy with the way something changed. And the next iteration, it's different groups with the same basic complaints, only the names have changed.

Me, I don't care. I never really did to begin with - I play the game that's handed to me, or I don't play it at all - most of my introduction to gaming started in an era where you played whatever they gave you, and occasionally some enterprising code-hacker on your local bbs would fix a thing or re-initialize some lines of code and you might get a sorta "director's cut" of a game, IF...if you were lucky and/or you knew where to look. But most of the time, the game released. It looked good and you bought it and played it and got whatever fun you could out of it, or you passed on it.

The idea that a game would release and then the developers would come to ME, me of all people, hat in hand, asking ME what kind of changes I would like to make to THEIR game...I find it...well, a little suspicious, actually. Don't get me wrong, it's a nice idea - except. Except that, I've discovered over the years that I like certain features of certain games, and I talk to people, and they HATE those features of those games. And I think, welp - what would happen if we both played the same game, and the guys that loved the new features that I hated and hated the new features I loved were asked by the devs what changes they should make? Easy answer, they'd probably make the game even worse...for ME. It'd be a lot better for them. It'd probably be worse for me. And vice versa.

That's why I think asking gamers what changes they want in a game is an inherently bad idea these days. We, as a community, don't, most of the time, have a strong sense of what would be best for EVERYONE playing the game. Not really. Oh, we say we do, but truth be told, most of us are just assuming that what would make the game better for ME would obviously make the game better for EVERYONE...which I'm discovering is a severely flawed assumption most of the time.

anyway, my point, not that anyone is really reading up to this point, is that I suspect that games in the past weren't nearly as golden-age fun as you make them out to be - they certainly were a mixed bag at best for me - and that the constant changes being made by ZOS today are A - not as bad as you make it out to be and B - to at least some significant extent, our fault (the players, that is)

blnchk

Jeremy wrote: »

BigBragg wrote: »

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

Why does ZeniMax constantly shift, back and forth, nerfing with a Molag Bal sized sledge hammer ever update? This just has begun to feel like a second job, that I am constantly getting demoted at.

The point of a video game is to have fun. I would agree with that.

But it's not fun to just melt everything you come into contact with. Games are more fun when they pose enough of a challenge to be interesting at least. The damage on this game has been absurd for years. It needed a Molag Bal-sized sledge hammer taken to it.

So once again I'm going to side with this new development team. They are taking this game in a better direction. At least IMHO.

I fail to see the merit of this constant back and forth to combat "power creep", especially at this point in time. Once (if?) they rework gear and CP, we may yet again witness wildly shifting numbers for all kinds of skills, as the devs scramble to accomodate to their own previous adjustments. It's getting tiring.

Vhozek

Modern Devs: "wE dONt WAnNa pUNiSH dA p(L)AyeR"

BrianLovesLisa

Vhozek wrote: »

Modern Devs: "wE dONt WAnNa pUNiSH dA p(L)AyeR"

Wrong Modern Devs "Don't you guys have phones"

GhostofDatthaw

zidders_ESO wrote: »

dem0n1k wrote: »

One man's fun is another man's pain... so we need to find that one man that thinks this BS is fun & beat him up.

You're advocating beating someone up because something in your game got nerfed? Boo, hoo. Grow up and go play another game. So pathetic.

Lol @dem0n1k I found who we need to beat up

idk

The mention of the old Atari console probably explains the question. Atari was only single player or local multiplayer where each player had identical tools. With different tools that classes bring there are differences that need to be tweaked for "balance".

The issue with ESO is Zos developed a game that is more complex than they can manage. They have essentially given up managing their original design and are trying to simplify things to the point they might be able to administer this game in a more normal manner. Time will tell if the truly thought this through very well.

CardboardedBox

Hm, honestly when you said about games being made for fun, I thought you were going to talk about people taking them far too seriously.

TirantLoBlanch

I´m not a professional gamer and youtuber.
i have a job, a family, friends...
My time is limited.

So I expect that my efforts in the game grinding, doing boring and repetitive quests needed for maxing the chars, and practising rotations, will have a reward.

But this patch says me that I will have to work a lot more to LOSE, not to achieve otr mantain DPS.

Imagine your boss saying "Yo will have to work more for half the wage"
And some job mate saying "Adapt"
And the CEOS saying "My wage is high enough to not care, i know This enterprise pays me too much"

bearbelly

I need to hook my 2600 back up. I haven't played it since I moved a few years ago.
I miss Adventure and Yar's Revenge. Even Combat.

Weisstag

Unpopular opinion : I like the changes, means I can make new builds and that's my favorite part of eso

SydneyGrey

I can only conclude that a couple of people at Zenimax feel the need to justify their jobs by constantly changing stuff. They don't seem to care if the players hate it.
I'm sick of it, now. There are other games I can be playing. This has been my favorite game for three years, but I now have nerf exhaustion, I guess. It's too much.

Idinuse

ArchMikem wrote: »

I was raised under the phrase, "Deal with it". Kinda obvious which people weren't.

I don't care what changes, the game mechanics aren't what's fun to me. Playing in the game's world is.

I was raised under the phrase "Don't just clench your fist in your pocket, you can make a change".

Kinda obvious which people weren't.

VaranisArano

Whatever the purpose of gaming, the purpose of ESO right now seems clear: pull in new players with regular quarterly content, while old players are kept occupied by the constantly changing rat race of chasing the meta, hopefully everyone spending plenty of money until that day when they finally get tired of the rat race and quit.

Kel

Most MMO's I've played tent to balance things with a feather, or a fine tooth comb. They make changes of 2%...maybe 5% on the extreme side.
(Excluding WoW with thier ability pruning... and even they are walking back on that now somewhat.)

Zos seems intent on balancing with a sledgehammer, buffing one patch just to drastically nerf it next patch.

"We've nerfed volly again. We found players were still using bows. We don't like that and we aim to stop it."

Yes, of course every MMO has change. That's obvious to anyone who plays this genre.
Name another successful MMO that wildly and drastically changes every 3 months?

None. Because it wears out your playerbase. These kinds of changes could be acceptable once per year, not every 3 months.
You thought event fatigue was a thing? The nerf/buff cycle every patch is 10x worse.

ArchMikem

Idinuse wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

I was raised under the phrase, "Deal with it". Kinda obvious which people weren't.

I don't care what changes, the game mechanics aren't what's fun to me. Playing in the game's world is.

I was raised under the phrase "Don't just clench your fist in your pocket, you can make a change".

Kinda obvious which people weren't.

That change is called "Play something else".

Should i repeat the obvious statement or should we not devolve into five year olds.

Joosef_Kivikilpi

Jeremy wrote: »

BigBragg wrote: »

Since the days of an Atari 2600 in my childhood, I always though video game were fun. Something to get deep into for a good story. Too push your skillset further. Enjoy some killer mechanics. Wonder at a creative universe. Whatever floats your boat, they should be fun right?

Why does ZeniMax constantly shift, back and forth, nerfing with a Molag Bal sized sledge hammer ever update? This just has begun to feel like a second job, that I am constantly getting demoted at.

The point of a video game is to have fun. I would agree with that.

But it's not fun to just melt everything you come into contact with. Games are more fun when they pose enough of a challenge to be interesting at least. The damage on this game has been absurd for years. It needed a Molag Bal-sized sledge hammer taken to it.

So once again I'm going to side with this new development team. They are taking this game in a better direction. At least IMHO.

Buffs damage by 116%.... 3 months later, nerfs by 60%. Guess what... buffing a garbage unused skill by 120% of 5000 damage over 10 seconds is 11000. Nerfing 11000 by 60% is 4400 damage over 10 seconds.

From where I'm from, we don't call that progression- we call it stupid.

Aurie

Weisstag wrote: »

Unpopular opinion : I like the changes, means I can make new builds and that's my favorite part of eso

If I want to make a new build I’ll roll a new character.

Artanisul

ArchMikem wrote: »

Idinuse wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

I was raised under the phrase, "Deal with it". Kinda obvious which people weren't.

I don't care what changes, the game mechanics aren't what's fun to me. Playing in the game's world is.

I was raised under the phrase "Don't just clench your fist in your pocket, you can make a change".

Kinda obvious which people weren't.

That change is called "Play something else".

Should i repeat the obvious statement or should we not devolve into five year olds.

When people continue to roll over and "take it" time and time again, they become victims. The fist in the pocket needs to be taken out and used. The forums and other websites are our battlegrounds. Trying to silence that with the "get over it" speeches is enabling the situation.
It isn't rocket science....