Transition Period, Calm down

Nordic__Knights

Olupajmibanan wrote: »

Most of us can agree that drastic changes happen way too frequently. I haven't fully recovered from Elsweyr changes and booom, Scalebreaker dropped. I still haven't fully recovered from Scalebreaker changes yet and booooom, Dragonhold is knocking on the door. When you have a lot of different characters and you actively use them, this three-month update pattern will feel extremely disturbing.

I have 16 i try to keep up with that i enjoy different things with so yep 600k to maintenance them all every 3 months no thank you

John_Falstaff

This game is stuck in a perpetual transition period. Trial and error is all very well when it's not done on live user base.

When normal company looks at a massive overhaul, it doesn't drop a hammer on the product every three months, leaving users in confusion as to what they're to do while ground's changing right under their feet. Normal company does their bloody transition period internally, and they test things internally. Get a QA department at long last (pretty radical notion for ZOS, I know), get internal testers, take their time balancing things out, and then roll out to customers something that is less work-in-progress and more like a real product. Too myopic and greedy to balance things large scale in-house? Make longer PTS cycle, make it last bloody months if that's what it takes. Players are people who came to play, not to be experimented upon. Not to suffer being forced into playing a new draft of a future thing every three months before they'll be finally blessed with something that'll hopefully last for a while. You don't turn paying customers into guinea pigs and then make excuses about "transition period".

Vahrokh

mikemacon wrote: »

MartiniDaniels wrote: »

Lock my account, refund me my money and I will return after a year when you are finished with re-balances and performance fixes and I'll pay same money back to unlock my account and play.

Vahrokh wrote: »

I am going to tell my company customers to keep paying me every month, while I "transition".

Let's see how many care to keep paying me while I flip everything around.

Guyle wrote: »

You're right, we should all calm down during the transition period, maybe do something else while they figure it out? K, see you guys in a year.

...bye, then? I guess?

Of course. I have the loyalty subscriber tiger and all, but hey, ZOS worked SO DAMN HARD to make me hate ESO that I gave up and unsubbed at Scalebreaker PTS. Sadly I just had renewed a 3 months sub, so I still gave them money.

Grollok76

Passengers should totally have stayed calm while the Titanic transitioned from being a ship to being a submerged wreck... totally.

Taloros

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem-solving and it requires TIME.

Trial and error is actually of limitied viability when working on a working system, such as a car, the human body or - I dare to include - a MMO.
The primary approach is thinking aka theory crafting. Only after you've thought of something that looks useful, you try it out, and only in small doses.
Trial and error would be if they'd increased damage by 10%, then another 5%, then another 2,3576%, until they'd have reached a level they feel is well.

Upping DoT damage by 25%, then nerfing it by 50% is neither.

Compare that to any other setting:
"We'll try to increase ice cream sale revenues. Reduce the price by 25%, then increase it by 50% next month."
"You heart medication isn't working. We'll double the dosage, then half it if that doesn't help."
"The car's steering is slightly off, so we'll shift it to the right as much as possible, then slowly try to reach the center again."

It's not educated trial and error, it's not experimentation, it's blind chaos.

karekiz

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

Don't expect any "everything is fine", the game will shake a lot, but that is the nature of any transition period when trying to find a better solution.

SWG team at Sony thought the exact same thing. Weird.

sentientomega

BrightOblivion wrote: »

Wayshuba wrote: »

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

If ZoS doesn't do what you say they should do it's not necessarily because they don't listen, it could also be that they simply don't agree with you about what this game should be.

I am going to say this loud and clear here:

It doesn't matter if ZoS agrees with their customers or not. Know why? Your customers are right. This is where so many game development companies end up failing. Customers pay the bills, they pay the salaries. At the end of the day, once a product is released to the public it is no longer yours, it is your customers. This is the same in any industry.

What ZoS wants means jack diddly. Because if they get what they want but paying customers don't want it - guess where it leads?

Sorry, but this is the harsh reality of the business world. Without satisfied paying customers you do not have a business and many people do not have a job. Basic fact of life.

Something game developers would do well to heed. Their industry is rife with companies living high on the hog one day and being in the dust bin of history the next.

The *actual* harsh reality? Many of the people who think they know the most about the way things should be and are the most strident about it are actually the most clueless. And while there are certainly those games which failed because of a "We know best" philosophy, there are also examples of those which caved to their customers, giving them exactly what they wanted, only to lose their way and collapse as a result. Unfortunately, there's very little unified agreement on which direction to go. Just look at the response to this patch and you'll see what I mean. You've got those saying this is fine and those screaming it isn't. You've got those demanding melee and class DoTs to be better than everything else and those shouting it's the worst thing ever. You've got those suggesting to nerf Rele, Lokk, and light attacks, and those saying they should just get better at the game. It seems like for every suggestion that pops up, you wind up with people on both sides. So which of their paying customers should they listen to, exactly? *Which* customer is right? Only the ones who pay the most? Only the ones who know the most? Only the ones who agree with you?

In January of this year, they announced they were parting ways with Wrobel. It appears to have been an amicable enough parting, but it seems evident they're going in a different direction than he was. Apparently, they prefer Wheeler's vision, whatever it may be, or at least feel that it aligns better with theirs. That's why he has the job, and someone else doesn't. That's also the transition period that's being referred to. Regardless of how long Wrobel had the job, regardless of how long the game's been around, Wheeler's steering the combat boat now. When you get a new manager, especially after the company's decided they don't like the direction the old one was going in, odds are very good you're not going to be going in the same direction. Odds are also good that, once the new person's in place, regardless of how old the company is, there's going to be a period where everyone's trying to get on the same page.

Additionally, while I understand that people are angry and frustrated (I'm also scratching my head at some of the changes, feeling a bit of whiplash, and feeling less than excited about the sustain nerfs), claims that, simply because this game's been around for five years, he has no right to change things (dramatically or otherwise) and adamant declarations that it doesn't matter what they think, they'd better do what the community says even if they disagree with it, and if they don't, they're either not listening or being contemptuous or have some nefarious underlying motive, is, frankly, ridiculous. He has every right to change things. That's his job. You have every right to disagree, to explain why in a way that doesn't violate forum rules, or, if you truly wish, to find a use of your money that you feel might be more beneficial. But he's not a trained dancing monkey, and he's not required, by any stretch of the imagination, to blindly follow your whims, whichever way the wind may be blowing a given day. It doesn't mean the combat team's evil, sitting in a smoke-filled room talking about new and exciting ways to make the players' lives a nightmare (if anyone's doing that, it's probably @ZOS_Finn ;-p ). It just means they think differently.

You know what would be truly terrible? Firing this guy nine months in and starting this process from the start once more, with no promise that the next one would be any better. In fact, s/he may very well be worse. If you don't believe that's a possibility, just look at the people who were screaming for Wrobel's head for who knows how long and are now, jokingly or otherwise, going "Gosh, I kind of wish we had him back."

None of this changes the fact that we're being deliberately kept in the dark about where the end's supposed to be, or rather, the endgame of the vision that they have, if indeed they have any such thing. Information breeds confidence, silence breeds fear. I, for one, if I knew exactly where they were going with all this, could rest a good deal easier, and view them in a more kindly light, as could a whole lot of others thinking the same thing.

Ofc, if they don't have a vision, it would explain why they've told us nothing specific on direction.

If they have a vision, then they should tell the community, at least we'd all know what to expect.

What would you think was going on when they suddenly boosted DoTs one update, then nerfed them significantly in the next update?

BrightOblivion

daedalusAI wrote: »

BrightOblivion wrote: »

Wayshuba wrote: »

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

If ZoS doesn't do what you say they should do it's not necessarily because they don't listen, it could also be that they simply don't agree with you about what this game should be.

I am going to say this loud and clear here:

It doesn't matter if ZoS agrees with their customers or not. Know why? Your customers are right. This is where so many game development companies end up failing. Customers pay the bills, they pay the salaries. At the end of the day, once a product is released to the public it is no longer yours, it is your customers. This is the same in any industry.

What ZoS wants means jack diddly. Because if they get what they want but paying customers don't want it - guess where it leads?

Sorry, but this is the harsh reality of the business world. Without satisfied paying customers you do not have a business and many people do not have a job. Basic fact of life.

Something game developers would do well to heed. Their industry is rife with companies living high on the hog one day and being in the dust bin of history the next.

The *actual* harsh reality? Many of the people who think they know the most about the way things should be and are the most strident about it are actually the most clueless. And while there are certainly those games which failed because of a "We know best" philosophy, there are also examples of those which caved to their customers, giving them exactly what they wanted, only to lose their way and collapse as a result. Unfortunately, there's very little unified agreement on which direction to go. Just look at the response to this patch and you'll see what I mean. You've got those saying this is fine and those screaming it isn't. You've got those demanding melee and class DoTs to be better than everything else and those shouting it's the worst thing ever. You've got those suggesting to nerf Rele, Lokk, and light attacks, and those saying they should just get better at the game. It seems like for every suggestion that pops up, you wind up with people on both sides. So which of their paying customers should they listen to, exactly? *Which* customer is right? Only the ones who pay the most? Only the ones who know the most? Only the ones who agree with you?

In January of this year, they announced they were parting ways with Wrobel. It appears to have been an amicable enough parting, but it seems evident they're going in a different direction than he was. Apparently, they prefer Wheeler's vision, whatever it may be, or at least feel that it aligns better with theirs. That's why he has the job, and someone else doesn't. That's also the transition period that's being referred to. Regardless of how long Wrobel had the job, regardless of how long the game's been around, Wheeler's steering the combat boat now. When you get a new manager, especially after the company's decided they don't like the direction the old one was going in, odds are very good you're not going to be going in the same direction. Odds are also good that, once the new person's in place, regardless of how old the company is, there's going to be a period where everyone's trying to get on the same page.

Additionally, while I understand that people are angry and frustrated (I'm also scratching my head at some of the changes, feeling a bit of whiplash, and feeling less than excited about the sustain nerfs), claims that, simply because this game's been around for five years, he has no right to change things (dramatically or otherwise) and adamant declarations that it doesn't matter what they think, they'd better do what the community says even if they disagree with it, and if they don't, they're either not listening or being contemptuous or have some nefarious underlying motive, is, frankly, ridiculous. He has every right to change things. That's his job. You have every right to disagree, to explain why in a way that doesn't violate forum rules, or, if you truly wish, to find a use of your money that you feel might be more beneficial. But he's not a trained dancing monkey, and he's not required, by any stretch of the imagination, to blindly follow your whims, whichever way the wind may be blowing a given day. It doesn't mean the combat team's evil, sitting in a smoke-filled room talking about new and exciting ways to make the players' lives a nightmare (if anyone's doing that, it's probably @ZOS_Finn ;-p ). It just means they think differently.

You know what would be truly terrible? Firing this guy nine months in and starting this process from the start once more, with no promise that the next one would be any better. In fact, s/he may very well be worse. If you don't believe that's a possibility, just look at the people who were screaming for Wrobel's head for who knows how long and are now, jokingly or otherwise, going "Gosh, I kind of wish we had him back."

Fair enough: but doing a 180° in terms of DoT scaling from U23 to U24 just screams clueless, as there is no information provided about the long-term goal of where ESO's combat is supposed to go or why a complete 180° is even necessary in the first place.

U23 PTS feedback regarding the ridiculous DoT scaling has been ignored in its entirety, so I'd say q.e.d in terms them not listening.

We as the customers can't force the monkey to dance the way we want if the monkey doesn't want to, but then we just go to another monkey which is open to customer concerns/needs/feedback and give this monkey our money to see him dance.

Intriguing that you're afraid that this cycle of "mindblowing buffs followed by mindblowing nerfs" might be repeated again if a new guy comes around in 9 months, but you're fine that the cycle is currently happening in plain view with U24.

But was the feedback about the DoTs unified? Or, as tends to happen, did you have people on both sides shouting completely opposite things and possibly engaging in class tribalism ("My DoTs are fine increased, but why would you increase theirs?!")? Again, which customer do you listen to?

I do think there's a middle ground between where Scalebreaker sent the DoTs and now that wouldn't make them imperative to use, and I do wish they'd stop making such large swings in their balancing. The issue is that, because they balance combat with the quarterly patches, more gradual changes means that effecting any real change in things takes even longer. If you need to increase or decrease something by 30% (say, moving DoTs from 1.25x a spammable to 1.75x- I realize that's only 28.57%, but we're rounding) but can only move by 10% at a time, that's 3 quarters right there. Three quarters of "Why are you buffing these abilities again? What about my abilities?", "That's too much!", "That's not enough!", "ZOS doesn't know what they're doing!", "Fire this guy!" For one set of abilities. God forbid they miss the mark, and it turns out to be 25% rather than 30. So maybe you change it more frequently, but does that really give you enough time to test? What if, in your hurry to get there, you miss the sweet spot entirely? It's not like there's some sign that "This is good," is there?

Currently, it seems to me, the combat team is laying out the standards for everything. Unified boundaries, power budgets, trade-offs for secondary effects, and things of that nature. (Some might argue that that that should have been done long before the game reached 5 years old, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn't, or at least not to this extent. Differing combat priorities between combat leads, I guess.) Why? Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that it's because they're still trying to transition (there's that word again) from the system at the start of the game where you had DK=tank, temp=heals, nb=stam, sorc=mag, to one where all of the classes can fill each of the roles. The issue is that, if they want to do so while giving each class the identity and time they deserve, they're going to have to spend time focusing on that one class. Under the old system, you don't really have a defined budget, so you're not really even sure where you can go with the ability and how to land it somewhere between useful and useless. (Some might argue they still aren't, hence what's happening with DoTs, but they're still trying to find it.) Additionally, all of the classes are leaning kind of precariously on one another with their varying standards, so you risk making one over- or under-powered and utterly botching both PvE (making the class either a must-have or must-avoid in group content) and PvP (Cannon fodder or king of the world). So, if you can take the time to focus on one class, it takes even longer to get anywhere.

But if everything's on the same page, if you have a defined budget you can refer to, then (at least in theory) balance is less precarious, you're less likely to create a new titan on the playground, and you're able to actually move faster. Rather than stopping to go "Wait. How strong do we want to make this ability?", you already have something to refer to that tells you that. The challenge is getting those standards down and determining what works, while not locking yourself into something that doesn't. Which, again, to me, seems like what they're doing. They haven't laid out the standards for all of us to see yet, likely because they're still working on what they are (and don't want to be locked in by the community into a "But you promisedddd!!!"), but you can see based on moving things in relation to the power of a spammable that they're working toward that.

Which feeds into the last paragraph of my previous post, which I would categorize more as wariness than fear. Wheeler and his combat team are, by virtue of not really having a great many more subsections to audit, nearing the point where their standards are laid out. There've been some stumbles with the race audit and now working with the DoTs, but they're nearing the point where things are nailed down. It's taken longer than people would like, certainly, but we're getting there. We have a rough idea where he wants to go - PvP and PvE balanced together (see the announcement of his being made combat lead), abilities balanced according to the budget they're determining (see all the talk about audits and budgets), then looking at class identity for individual classes (see Monday's video where he talks about working toward that and these changes being a first step/stopgap rather than an end destination), ostensibly to ensure they can effectively tank/heal/stam/mag in their own special thematic ways (as has been mentioned in the past). Even if we don't know exactly how we're going to get from where we are now to there, we've got an inkling that that's where he's planning to go. Love it, hate it, don't care about it. We've still got an idea.

But let's say the torch-and-pitchfork crowd is right. Let's say the executives listen to them, fire Wheeler, and hire someone new. Then what? Well, like Wheeler, they're going to have to take time to determine where they fit into the structure of the game. Maybe they decide that Wheeler was on to something with this whole standardization/audit thing and continue along the current path. But, given they fired the last combat lead for going down this path, how likely would that be? Maybe they decide they want to take their own path, do their own audit, and turn everything on its head once again. Then, nine months later, we're in a totally different place, after completely changing things once again. Maybe they decide to stop and maintain the status quo. Better, worse, faster, slower. Honestly, there's no telling. As such, I'm extremely skeptical that starting over with someone new is going to wind up being any better. It certainly won't give us a clearer picture of where we're heading.

Millz

Combat needs a benchmark and they don't even have that. So how can they make proper changes with nothing to base it on? Think simple if they adjusted damage for pve to make them happy and in turn readjust resistances and healing for pvp to compensate for the pve dmg a lot would be solved. I have a thread all about it in the combat and mech section.

Basically pve is static and the content can be controlled by devs. So it would make sense to adjust damage for pve ONLY. Let pvpers go through a few bad metas and adjust healing and resistances ie increase armor base resis, change cp values etc etc.

VirtualElizabeth

Just my two cents:

I am a HUGE ESO fan girl and plan to be here till the game enters the ether of beloved games that are no more. BUT, these constant changes are gettting old.

Please developers, stick with something - a plan, a combat style etc for at least 6 months!

x48rph

The problem with this is they are rolling out changes like we're in BETA not a transition. A transition would have a clear plan and goals. Instead we get this: "Lets buff stuff by 50% and see how it goes. Oops no, that didn't work , I know, I know, lets just nerf it all by 60%. and see how that does.. oops no we messed up again. How about we boost half of it by 70% and nerf the other half even harder just to see" This is literally how I imagine development is right now because it's obvious by the massive swings that there is no overall vision, plan, or goal. We heard repeatedly how they made "standards" for all this stuff for awhile and yet now they just keep changing their standards. Heck at least before this so called standardization there was a chance a few of your character's builds would be viable for awhile but now you can just count on having to completely revamp all of them every three months regardless of class ... I guess sadly that is sort of standardized.

CleymenZero

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

Transition: "change or passage from one state or stage to another"
Transition Period: "the period of time during which something changes from one state or stage to another ".

ESO is actually in a transition period and Update 23, Update 24 are part of it, maybe till Update 27 a lot of changes will happen in the game, Up and down, back and forth. Dev's will test things to find out the best recipe for the game.

Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem-solving and it requires TIME.

Till the moment that they figure out what to do with the champion system and make all systems works together well

Cp system (or any new system taking its place) + Skills + Sets + Adjusting the content

Don't expect any "everything is fine", the game will shake a lot, but that is the nature of any transition period when trying to find a better solution.

As players, our role in this is to provide feedback in a way that helps them to navigate better in that mess testing the changes and explain the results we have to show what is broken, what is really bad, what is actually an improvement.

And this can be done without insulting each other or the dev's folks...

This update has a lot of things that are actually improvements and many things that still need a lot of work to improve.

Screaming at each other and raging may be fun to some of you (at least it looks like it) but it's totally useless...

DO your testings, give feedback, Explain your result and give your opinion concerning those results

And this transition period will be shorter, It's understandable that some of you feel bad about certain thing, I do as well and it's okay to feel bad about certain things, of course, but crowding the forum with hatred doesn't help at all. It just makes everything confused and tedious!

ZOS is a small team compared to other MMO big development studios and it's also a young one, keep that in mind

IF you don't want to help because "you're paying for it", "it's their job to know what to do" think about how well yourself is performing at your job in which somebody pays you for...

SO just do what you have to do during this transition period and try to be human at least IRL... quality lost for long on these forums.

Everything will be fine folks, breathe!

By the time they figure out what they wanna do with this game, it could be too late...

Also, they're wasting my money because I paid for a sub playing a certain game and get a completely different one...

I usually embrace change but this is bipolar-level of change. Previous patches showed signs of mania/hypomania and the coming patch looks like we're heading into major depressive disorder. I haven't noticed psychotic episodes yet but who knows, we have until update 27...

They shouldn't change 500 things in a patch. Work on performance first ffs... You really think it wise to work on a performance update while doing an intense combat revamp? Have you seen all the bugs introduced with vMA staff, poisons etc.? You think they're going to be able to handle all that plus the changes to performance, whether they can or not, they at least don't risk shooting themselves in the foot (as much) if they focus on the most critical issue which is performance.

Let's face it, tinkering with performance might introduce other problems, we're seeing what the changes are bringing in terms of bugs early in the pts cycle..., so why bite more thankfully you can chew?

Create a new difficulty mode, don't nerf what you spent time buffing for 3-4 patches... You're telling your users you don't know where to go!

Introduce an extra level of difficulty for all dungeons and trials and I mean, make them unforgiving and make HM rewards gold items so people who don't farm and only pve have a convenient source of gold mats. Do keep in kind that with the suggestion of gold mat rewards, I did say to make them extra hard and I mean, hard (not cheap) to a point where a Fungal I progression wouldn't be a meme but an actual thing.

So you'd get you casuals that can complete normal and maybe try their luck at vet... And the HC that are bored with burning through vet that would feel some pain at doing the vanilla dungeons again. If you don't want to spend your time at designing new difficulty levels, just make a no-CP version of all trials and dungeons.

daedalusAI

BrightOblivion wrote: »

daedalusAI wrote: »

BrightOblivion wrote: »

Wayshuba wrote: »

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

If ZoS doesn't do what you say they should do it's not necessarily because they don't listen, it could also be that they simply don't agree with you about what this game should be.

I am going to say this loud and clear here:

It doesn't matter if ZoS agrees with their customers or not. Know why? Your customers are right. This is where so many game development companies end up failing. Customers pay the bills, they pay the salaries. At the end of the day, once a product is released to the public it is no longer yours, it is your customers. This is the same in any industry.

What ZoS wants means jack diddly. Because if they get what they want but paying customers don't want it - guess where it leads?

Sorry, but this is the harsh reality of the business world. Without satisfied paying customers you do not have a business and many people do not have a job. Basic fact of life.

Something game developers would do well to heed. Their industry is rife with companies living high on the hog one day and being in the dust bin of history the next.

The *actual* harsh reality? Many of the people who think they know the most about the way things should be and are the most strident about it are actually the most clueless. And while there are certainly those games which failed because of a "We know best" philosophy, there are also examples of those which caved to their customers, giving them exactly what they wanted, only to lose their way and collapse as a result. Unfortunately, there's very little unified agreement on which direction to go. Just look at the response to this patch and you'll see what I mean. You've got those saying this is fine and those screaming it isn't. You've got those demanding melee and class DoTs to be better than everything else and those shouting it's the worst thing ever. You've got those suggesting to nerf Rele, Lokk, and light attacks, and those saying they should just get better at the game. It seems like for every suggestion that pops up, you wind up with people on both sides. So which of their paying customers should they listen to, exactly? *Which* customer is right? Only the ones who pay the most? Only the ones who know the most? Only the ones who agree with you?

In January of this year, they announced they were parting ways with Wrobel. It appears to have been an amicable enough parting, but it seems evident they're going in a different direction than he was. Apparently, they prefer Wheeler's vision, whatever it may be, or at least feel that it aligns better with theirs. That's why he has the job, and someone else doesn't. That's also the transition period that's being referred to. Regardless of how long Wrobel had the job, regardless of how long the game's been around, Wheeler's steering the combat boat now. When you get a new manager, especially after the company's decided they don't like the direction the old one was going in, odds are very good you're not going to be going in the same direction. Odds are also good that, once the new person's in place, regardless of how old the company is, there's going to be a period where everyone's trying to get on the same page.

Additionally, while I understand that people are angry and frustrated (I'm also scratching my head at some of the changes, feeling a bit of whiplash, and feeling less than excited about the sustain nerfs), claims that, simply because this game's been around for five years, he has no right to change things (dramatically or otherwise) and adamant declarations that it doesn't matter what they think, they'd better do what the community says even if they disagree with it, and if they don't, they're either not listening or being contemptuous or have some nefarious underlying motive, is, frankly, ridiculous. He has every right to change things. That's his job. You have every right to disagree, to explain why in a way that doesn't violate forum rules, or, if you truly wish, to find a use of your money that you feel might be more beneficial. But he's not a trained dancing monkey, and he's not required, by any stretch of the imagination, to blindly follow your whims, whichever way the wind may be blowing a given day. It doesn't mean the combat team's evil, sitting in a smoke-filled room talking about new and exciting ways to make the players' lives a nightmare (if anyone's doing that, it's probably @ZOS_Finn ;-p ). It just means they think differently.

You know what would be truly terrible? Firing this guy nine months in and starting this process from the start once more, with no promise that the next one would be any better. In fact, s/he may very well be worse. If you don't believe that's a possibility, just look at the people who were screaming for Wrobel's head for who knows how long and are now, jokingly or otherwise, going "Gosh, I kind of wish we had him back."

Fair enough: but doing a 180° in terms of DoT scaling from U23 to U24 just screams clueless, as there is no information provided about the long-term goal of where ESO's combat is supposed to go or why a complete 180° is even necessary in the first place.

U23 PTS feedback regarding the ridiculous DoT scaling has been ignored in its entirety, so I'd say q.e.d in terms them not listening.

We as the customers can't force the monkey to dance the way we want if the monkey doesn't want to, but then we just go to another monkey which is open to customer concerns/needs/feedback and give this monkey our money to see him dance.

Intriguing that you're afraid that this cycle of "mindblowing buffs followed by mindblowing nerfs" might be repeated again if a new guy comes around in 9 months, but you're fine that the cycle is currently happening in plain view with U24.

But was the feedback about the DoTs unified? Or, as tends to happen, did you have people on both sides shouting completely opposite things and possibly engaging in class tribalism ("My DoTs are fine increased, but why would you increase theirs?!")? Again, which customer do you listen to?

I do think there's a middle ground between where Scalebreaker sent the DoTs and now that wouldn't make them imperative to use, and I do wish they'd stop making such large swings in their balancing. The issue is that, because they balance combat with the quarterly patches, more gradual changes means that effecting any real change in things takes even longer. If you need to increase or decrease something by 30% (say, moving DoTs from 1.25x a spammable to 1.75x- I realize that's only 28.57%, but we're rounding) but can only move by 10% at a time, that's 3 quarters right there. Three quarters of "Why are you buffing these abilities again? What about my abilities?", "That's too much!", "That's not enough!", "ZOS doesn't know what they're doing!", "Fire this guy!" For one set of abilities. God forbid they miss the mark, and it turns out to be 25% rather than 30. So maybe you change it more frequently, but does that really give you enough time to test? What if, in your hurry to get there, you miss the sweet spot entirely? It's not like there's some sign that "This is good," is there?

Currently, it seems to me, the combat team is laying out the standards for everything. Unified boundaries, power budgets, trade-offs for secondary effects, and things of that nature. (Some might argue that that that should have been done long before the game reached 5 years old, but the fact of the matter is that it wasn't, or at least not to this extent. Differing combat priorities between combat leads, I guess.) Why? Well, if I were to hazard a guess, I'd say that it's because they're still trying to transition (there's that word again) from the system at the start of the game where you had DK=tank, temp=heals, nb=stam, sorc=mag, to one where all of the classes can fill each of the roles. The issue is that, if they want to do so while giving each class the identity and time they deserve, they're going to have to spend time focusing on that one class. Under the old system, you don't really have a defined budget, so you're not really even sure where you can go with the ability and how to land it somewhere between useful and useless. (Some might argue they still aren't, hence what's happening with DoTs, but they're still trying to find it.) Additionally, all of the classes are leaning kind of precariously on one another with their varying standards, so you risk making one over- or under-powered and utterly botching both PvE (making the class either a must-have or must-avoid in group content) and PvP (Cannon fodder or king of the world). So, if you can take the time to focus on one class, it takes even longer to get anywhere.

But if everything's on the same page, if you have a defined budget you can refer to, then (at least in theory) balance is less precarious, you're less likely to create a new titan on the playground, and you're able to actually move faster. Rather than stopping to go "Wait. How strong do we want to make this ability?", you already have something to refer to that tells you that. The challenge is getting those standards down and determining what works, while not locking yourself into something that doesn't. Which, again, to me, seems like what they're doing. They haven't laid out the standards for all of us to see yet, likely because they're still working on what they are (and don't want to be locked in by the community into a "But you promisedddd!!!"), but you can see based on moving things in relation to the power of a spammable that they're working toward that.

Which feeds into the last paragraph of my previous post, which I would categorize more as wariness than fear. Wheeler and his combat team are, by virtue of not really having a great many more subsections to audit, nearing the point where their standards are laid out. There've been some stumbles with the race audit and now working with the DoTs, but they're nearing the point where things are nailed down. It's taken longer than people would like, certainly, but we're getting there. We have a rough idea where he wants to go - PvP and PvE balanced together (see the announcement of his being made combat lead), abilities balanced according to the budget they're determining (see all the talk about audits and budgets), then looking at class identity for individual classes (see Monday's video where he talks about working toward that and these changes being a first step/stopgap rather than an end destination), ostensibly to ensure they can effectively tank/heal/stam/mag in their own special thematic ways (as has been mentioned in the past). Even if we don't know exactly how we're going to get from where we are now to there, we've got an inkling that that's where he's planning to go. Love it, hate it, don't care about it. We've still got an idea.

But let's say the torch-and-pitchfork crowd is right. Let's say the executives listen to them, fire Wheeler, and hire someone new. Then what? Well, like Wheeler, they're going to have to take time to determine where they fit into the structure of the game. Maybe they decide that Wheeler was on to something with this whole standardization/audit thing and continue along the current path. But, given they fired the last combat lead for going down this path, how likely would that be? Maybe they decide they want to take their own path, do their own audit, and turn everything on its head once again. Then, nine months later, we're in a totally different place, after completely changing things once again. Maybe they decide to stop and maintain the status quo. Better, worse, faster, slower. Honestly, there's no telling. As such, I'm extremely skeptical that starting over with someone new is going to wind up being any better. It certainly won't give us a clearer picture of where we're heading.

Why does feedback have to fulfill the requirement of unification for it to be valid?
Even if there's just 1 heretic who voices a completely different point of view you'd do well to at least try to verify/falsify his view, because there might by a fragment of truth in there.

You try to listen to as much customers as possible and try to incorporate their feedback/wishes etc. into your more or less predetermined goal.
ZOS is doing neither: the customer has no idea what the goal in terms of ESO's combat even is, as they treat everyone with the silent treatment. Additionally those customers during U23 PTS have to wonder why the DoT scaling went live anyway without scaling it down.

Come again?
You try to excuse ZOS's quite apparent inability to balance the combat and its abilities based on their quarterly update schedule?
Just the fact that U23 implemented a 2,5x scaling for DoTs and U24 5.2 scales that down to 1,25x is not "missing the sweet spot", that's plain inability if you need to use the sledgehammer to go the complete opposite way instead of a scalpel to implement minor changes.

Does ZOS even QA their new releases? You can't make me believe that any half-decent QA tester during U23 just missed the way-over-the-top DoT scaling.

It also alludes to the fact that ZOS doesn't know what to do with the combat: first the stats were capped, now they're uncapped, then the game is all about spamming DoTs, one patch later it's seemingly all about stacking passives on your bar and spamming your spammable etc.

Can you point me towards any post of ZOS in which they convey the actual future goal of how the combat is gonna be reworked? I can't find anything but PR "We make ESO great again" stuff.

ZOS is doing the class identity the WoW BFA way: simplification and homogenization - which is the complete opposite of class identity, as in every class being different, and not just using the same abilities with different names and color themes.
Do enlighten me about the class identity of e.g. a magDK with U24: pitiful DoT damage, a melee cone cast in Fire Breath, a small stationary DoT in Eruption etc.

ZOS already does botch the combat by default due to not separating PvE from PvP: by not giving abilities 2 templates, 1 for PvP and 1 for PvE, they balance abilities with both in mind and fail repeatedly.

You mean they're still working on what the combat is supposed to be 5 years after the game's release, or rather what the combat is supposed to be like in each major patch?

Normal-ish software development: working towards a stable software base, having a clear scope, building towards that scope, when encountering bugs/issues using a scalpel to fix them.
ZOS development: 5 years later and still not a stable base as evident by server lags, dungeon finder not working during prime times, major balance swings with every major patch, 0 scope, always using a sledgehammer to "fix" things.

How can you have "a rough idea where this is going" if the forums is a silent graveyard in terms of ZOS communication and the only other info there is being the touted quarterly goals of reworking the game?

A tiny though experiment: they hire me as the new lead.

• I've been working in QA as a software tester for a few years now and I wouldn't allow such a bug-riddled software to be released to live server like it's done every major patch
• I would actually communicate with my customers, because why bother even having a forum and several CMs if all they do is purging comments and copy&pasting stickies, threads and patch notes?
• I'd lay out the future scope for ESO's combat in as much details as currently possible, because I'm able to take on the point of view of a customer and see how everything about the current ESO and ZOS is just crap to put it mildly
• I'm perfectly fine to admit having made mistakes, and how to fix them and to convey lessons-learned
• I'd make it mandatory to offer dev commentary on major changes in patch notes so the customers can hopefully reach the same conclusions about how a certain change was necessary
• All in all I'd just be a person who values integrity, communication and quality - and both ESO and ZOS can offer neither in most aspects

TheYKcid

A transition period would be characterised by continuous, incremental changes towards a conceivable goal.

All I've observed the last few patches are massive changes back and forth, and that doesn't give me confidence in the game's direction.

Gahmerdohn

Guys when you pay to play an MMO you pay to play in a changing world, MMOs are living things and sometimes development team members changes and sometimes there is a new one with totally new ideas and direction in mind in mind. So saying that you have paid so the game should stay the way you liked it is delusional. The game will keep changing and you may not like what the changes are bringing. when the game becomes something you don't like at all despite all the feedbacks it's time to leave.
Sometimes games only get something when the player base starts to leave, it's sad but it happens many many times.


Then another misconception about this threat, I want you to grasp the difference between "keep calm" and expose your opinion in a constructive and educated form and "Shut the F*** up" there is a big difference. This threat wasn't about you stoping to give your opinion but about giving your opinion without insulting other players or the dev team cause this is basically useless and counterproductive.

Because sometimes discussing matters in forums we somehow forget that other people here and the devs all want the same thing: Having the best game possible for us all.
Obviously we don't have the same vision of how the game should be and that is one of the reasons those forums exist in the first place. And we can do this without necessarily throwing our rage to each other!

This threat is the proof of that, we can perfectly discuss various matters without fighting, remembering time to time that we are all here it's because we all care about the game. I'm glad to read most of the comments here.

So again "calm" does not mean "shut up" it means: << Give your opinion remembering that other people and devs are humans also like you>>

Now when we talk about Zos we sometime forget that there are many people and probably not all of them agree either.

Every problem we have faced from the start of this game regarding combat changes is mainly due to the fact that the combat team is SMALL I doubt that they have 6 people in that team even 5 would surprise me. So we can complain saying that ZOS should invest to make the team bigger but we can't say that the game is going bad because those 3~6 people are not serious about their desire to make good combat for us to enjoy.

-Separate PVE and PVP (each skill having a template for each activity)
-Making an HM version fro dungeons and trial for veterans player and people that enjoy good challenges with rewards that value our efforts
-Veteran questing mode for people that are already High level so the open world and quest are not so boring.
-Constant incremental changes monitoring the impact on the game week by week and adjusting (1%~15%) little by little to achieve balance.
-Verifying that all types of gameplay are viable so each one can at least bring value to the team event when not BIS.

All of those things have one thing in common: they require a decent size team of competent people taking care only about that. it seems ZOS doesn't have that. so many time it feels like the crown store team is 6 times bigger than the Combat team.

IF there is one thing they have to understand is that whether you are doing quests, trial, dungeon, farm, PVP, BG...what ever, we are actually in combat!!!!! Combat represents most of the game and the team in charge of combat can't be the smallest!
It should be the biggest and yes ZOS have neglected combat since the start in terms of investment dedicated to this topic.

That is why it took more that 2 years to have decent stamina dps, 3 years to have decent tanks on each class and 4 years to be able to use bow/bow for example and this is WAY WAY TOO long I agree with you all.

But still the guys working there in that combat team are not to blame, but maybe the guys that decide how much to invest in that team and how much people they are willing to pay to make the combat great.

And it's not fighting each other (players) insulting each other on forums or the combat team that will solve the issue if we start to make more constructive and explanatory topics like this there is a chance to create something.

Otherwise, they'll understand when the only people playing this game will be the ones that only do housing...

daedalusAI

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

Because sometimes discussing matters in forums we somehow forget that other people here and the devs all want the same thing: Having the best game possible for us all.

Every problem we have faced from the start of this game regarding combat changes is mainly due to the fact that the combat team is SMALL I doubt that they have 6 people in that team even 5 would surprise me. So we can complain saying that ZOS should invest to make the team bigger but we can't say that the game is going bad because those 3~6 people are not serious about their desire to make good combat for us to enjoy.

And it's not fighting each other (players) insulting each other on forums or the combat team that will solve the issue if we start to make more constructive and explanatory topics like this there is a chance to create something.

You lost all your credibility with that one:

• ZOS cares about the state of the game and "making the best game possible"? Swinging the sledgehammer pendulum from +50% to -50% or more in the span of just 2 patches is far from caring, and offering your customers nothing but the silent treatment shows your true colors
• Yet again that baseless "the team is small" excuse. According to Wikipedia ZOS has 250 employees, but people like you are so deep in your fanaticism of making excuses on behalf of a company which couldn't care less about its customers that it just blows my mind
• What shall "we" create by being even more constructive than "we" already are? It's a fact that ZOS doesn't care one bit, or did you see communication from them regarding the U24 5.2 criticism? I'd say q.e.d.

Dedricus

Imagine a 5 year old game having a transition period. Wewlad.

LegacyDM

What. What transition period? Transition period from when to when? They’ve been in transition period since beta. What is the catalyst for this transition period? Wrobel doing something else? so because wheeler is in charge of combat all continuity goes out the window and wheeler has free ran to turn everything upside down and we call that a transition period? Is there no vision or project management at zos? Are they riding by the seat of their pants and just implement whatever the new guy wants? What happens when wheeler moves on? Does the new guy go in a different direction and call that “transition period”?

DoonerSeraph

Also, unless I'm grossly mistaken, working with a skeleton crew is their choice, since people say the game is thriving, so they could afford to have a few more devs to work on combat, right? But I guess re-skinning mounts gives more cash

Also, I know there are different devs for different assignments, but the team budgets are still defined by management, they work with a skeleton crew on combat by their own volition.

Gahmerdohn

@daedalusAI

I don't think you cared to understand any of what I said. So I'll try one more time 250 employees right? How many of them are working on combat changes???? Or even qualified to work on combat changes? I think most of them are working on crown store and design new content and very few of them are in the combat department that is what I call SMALL.

250 employees in the company not in the combat team? you get it?

Another thing that shows me that you don't read before talking is that you dare to talk about fanatism when in my post I talk about all the mistakes they are doing about this subject witch is: One of the biggest mistakes of ZOS is to not take combat seriously and not investing more on the subject by, for example sending more people in the combat team department or recruiting for that.

The only one that is losing credibility is you because you talk without listening witch means that you are only reacting emotionally and you don't try to understand what people are saying. By doing so you are demonstrating what I talk about in this post: fighting each other instead of talking about the issues and how we can deal with it without bursting in rage to each other.

have a good night

Gahmerdohn

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

Also, unless I'm grossly mistaken, working with a skeleton crew is their choice, since people say the game is thriving, so they could afford to have a few more devs to work on combat, right? But I guess re-skinning mounts gives more cash

Also, I know there are different devs for different assignments, but the team budgets are still defined by management, they work with a skeleton crew on combat by their own volition.

This is what I've been saying for years now and everybody kept saying that no the combat is perfectly fine (clearly because those people weren't affected by the problems the combat have from the start ), now with the recent changes, everybody starts to see that combat has been neglected for years now. Sweet irony ...

sentientomega

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

DoonerSeraph wrote: »

Also, unless I'm grossly mistaken, working with a skeleton crew is their choice, since people say the game is thriving, so they could afford to have a few more devs to work on combat, right? But I guess re-skinning mounts gives more cash

Also, I know there are different devs for different assignments, but the team budgets are still defined by management, they work with a skeleton crew on combat by their own volition.

This is what I've been saying for years now and everybody kept saying that no the combat is perfectly fine (clearly because those people weren't affected by the problems the combat have from the start ), now with the recent changes, everybody starts to see that combat has been neglected for years now. Sweet irony ...

Neglected how? What combat problems?

Everyone who likes TES should be able to play this game, not just top-level hardcore players, and I'm about as far from that category as you'd expect. I like this game, I want to stay in it, be able to play it; keep soloing dolmens for the daily, public dungeons for that daily, and all other content objectively easier than those.

Until the broad raft of changes finally come to an end, of sorts, anyway, as everything's perpetually changed in an MMO, I plan to live in my own metaphorical Vault 111, because it seems pointless to try to adjust to the changes, since they're coming so thick and fast now. There has to be a point at which things calm down, for a longer while, from a developer standpoint, that's the moment I'm waiting for. That, is when I can make something resembling long-term plans.

Agalloch

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

Transition: "change or passage from one state or stage to another"
Transition Period: "the period of time during which something changes from one state or stage to another ".

ESO is actually in a transition period and Update 23, Update 24 are part of it, maybe till Update 27 a lot of changes will happen in the game, Up and down, back and forth. Dev's will test things to find out the best recipe for the game.

Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem-solving and it requires TIME.

Till the moment that they figure out what to do with the champion system and make all systems works together well

Cp system (or any new system taking its place) + Skills + Sets + Adjusting the content

Don't expect any "everything is fine", the game will shake a lot, but that is the nature of any transition period when trying to find a better solution.

As players, our role in this is to provide feedback in a way that helps them to navigate better in that mess testing the changes and explain the results we have to show what is broken, what is really bad, what is actually an improvement.

And this can be done without insulting each other or the dev's folks...

This update has a lot of things that are actually improvements and many things that still need a lot of work to improve.

Screaming at each other and raging may be fun to some of you (at least it looks like it) but it's totally useless...

DO your testings, give feedback, Explain your result and give your opinion concerning those results

And this transition period will be shorter, It's understandable that some of you feel bad about certain thing, I do as well and it's okay to feel bad about certain things, of course, but crowding the forum with hatred doesn't help at all. It just makes everything confused and tedious!

ZOS is a small team compared to other MMO big development studios and it's also a young one, keep that in mind

IF you don't want to help because "you're paying for it", "it's their job to know what to do" think about how well yourself is performing at your job in which somebody pays you for...

SO just do what you have to do during this transition period and try to be human at least IRL... quality lost for long on these forums.

Everything will be fine folks, breathe!

I agree with every thing you said OP ..but why ESO fired so many people in the last years? Just one example :

https://www.mmogames.com/gamenews/zenimax-studios-lays-off-300-employees/

The actual ESO is more different than the original concept of this MMO . The best recipe is to mantain the original concept and adjust it in time to make the players have fun playing ...not to brake it ...

But since Scalebreakeer...we see up and down changes and awful nerfs... all of this after 5 years...After 5 years the staff of Zeni don't know their own game? There are so many brutal changes that I never see on other MMO before...most of them seem untested before to go to live.

I hope they know what they are doing.

I always was a fan of ES Universe ..and of ESO ..and I hope for ESO to not fall down...

English is not my native language.

MCBIZZLE300

The transition period is way too long, we dont want to endure 18 months of massive changes.

Squidgaurd

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Expecting everyone to calm down is all very well, if it were not for the fact that the most likely reason for the ongoing rage with each successive patch is the almost total lack of communication from ZOS regarding their plans.

People would be considerably more understanding if they knew where this was all leading, and the reasoning behind the changes in each patch.

This is not too much to ask of the combat team. Of all the many MMOs I’ve played ZOS are by far the worst at sharing their visions, and no one should be surprised...least of all ZOS....when the forum erupts.

Someone pointed out that Starbucks(?) had every right to not sell hamburgers. It is indeed any company’s right to do or not do what they choose. Just as it is everyone’s right to stay with that company or to leave it. If ZOS took a little time to post the reasoning behind the decisions they choose to make, we their player base might choose to calm down.

Aurelle1 wrote: »

Expecting everyone to calm down is all very well, if it were not for the fact that the most likely reason for the ongoing rage with each successive patch is the almost total lack of communication from ZOS regarding their plans.

People would be considerably more understanding if they knew where this was all leading, and the reasoning behind the changes in each patch.

This is not too much to ask of the combat team. Of all the many MMOs I’ve played ZOS are by far the worst at sharing their visions, and no one should be surprised...least of all ZOS....when the forum erupts.

Someone pointed out that Starbucks(?) had every right to not sell hamburgers. It is indeed any company’s right to do or not do what they choose. Just as it is everyone’s right to stay with that company or to leave it. If ZOS took a little time to post the reasoning behind the decisions they choose to make, we their player base might choose to calm down.

No you

Gahmerdohn

@sentientomega

Maybe I've explained myself poorly:

When I say neglected I talking the fact that combat changes have been the slowest always, so neglected by Zenimax Online Studio.

Do you think it's normal to have a Fantasy MMO with bow in it but only used to apply AOE dot at mele range for almost 3 years?
Do you think it's normal to have stamina being useless for 2 years almost?
Do you think it's normal that most of the classes like DK , sorc, and NB almost useless as healers for more than 2 years?
To me it's not normal to put somebody away from the progression team only because he's playing stamina.

That is what I'm talking about when I say neglected cause combat changes are amazingly SLOW and this is mainly due to ZOS investing nothing in their combat team. Some of these issues can be attributed to the community but still, players will always take the path of least resistance. It's the combat team that have to make sure that those path doesn' left behind players and spect or at least to the minimum.

What is happening now is the result of this negligence accumulated over the years and now trying to solve everything.

SO yes there are reasons to be mad at ZOS, of course there is, but yelling at each other on the forum will not solve anything at all

IronWooshu

I would argue there are much better ways to do trial and error then the current method of extreme buffs and nerfs every patch.

We all know if they dont change DOT damage they are gonna buff them next patch but when they dont act on something the entire board already knows needs a change then their method you seem to lay out in the OP looks like trash.

Blaqmagik

I used to be optimistic like you, then every single build and play style I enjoyed took an arrow to the knee.

Jodynn

Drastic transitional changes are for Beta periods not Releases; You don't alter mechanics and numbers to a point someone has to change their entire build around every damn patch; I'm sick of it and it's just not fun anymore especially this patch it's the most boring rotation I've done but other rotations aren't worth it because they are more complex and lose DPS.

Sureshawt

Gahmerdohn wrote: »

Transition: "change or passage from one state or stage to another"
Transition Period: "the period of time during which something changes from one state or stage to another ".

ESO is actually in a transition period and Update 23, Update 24 are part of it, maybe till Update 27 a lot of changes will happen in the game, Up and down, back and forth. Dev's will test things to find out the best recipe for the game.

Trial and error is a fundamental method of problem-solving and it requires TIME.

Till the moment that they figure out what to do with the champion system and make all systems works together well

Cp system (or any new system taking its place) + Skills + Sets + Adjusting the content

Don't expect any "everything is fine", the game will shake a lot, but that is the nature of any transition period when trying to find a better solution.

As players, our role in this is to provide feedback in a way that helps them to navigate better in that mess testing the changes and explain the results we have to show what is broken, what is really bad, what is actually an improvement.

And this can be done without insulting each other or the dev's folks...

This update has a lot of things that are actually improvements and many things that still need a lot of work to improve.

Screaming at each other and raging may be fun to some of you (at least it looks like it) but it's totally useless...

DO your testings, give feedback, Explain your result and give your opinion concerning those results

And this transition period will be shorter, It's understandable that some of you feel bad about certain thing, I do as well and it's okay to feel bad about certain things, of course, but crowding the forum with hatred doesn't help at all. It just makes everything confused and tedious!

ZOS is a small team compared to other MMO big development studios and it's also a young one, keep that in mind

IF you don't want to help because "you're paying for it", "it's their job to know what to do" think about how well yourself is performing at your job in which somebody pays you for...

SO just do what you have to do during this transition period and try to be human at least IRL... quality lost for long on these forums.

Everything will be fine folks, breathe!

I agree with all of this for a game that has been out for a year or so but this game has been out for 5+ years!

Let's not forget the back and forth YOYO changes e.g. Buff DoTs > Nerf DoTs. This just one example of going back and forth over the same ground that has been going on for years.