Is there even any feedback from ZOS regarding all the criticism in here?

daedalusAI

Does ZOS even care about the feedback/concerns/issues etc. of their customers, or are the Community Mangers just present to purge comments and copy&paste patch notes and threads?

By simply browsing through the PTS forum I couldn't find anything.

Austinseph1

It’s usually pretty one sided, you can consider the weekly patch notes the “dev feedback”

jcm2606

The only times I can recall seeing Zenimax publicly respond to feedback and criticism would be well after the patch hits live, with maybe a sentence or two tucked away somewhere in the PTS patch notes.

As already said, the patch notes are basically the response to our feedback and criticism. If stuff got changed, they heard and (likely reluctantly) changed their mind. If stuff didn't get changed, well, they simply didn't care what we think, but will in the next month or two when our criticism and predictions come true.

Major_Lag

There's almost never any "feedback", everything gets ignored, all the time.

ZOS is far too arrogant to come out and say "hey, maybe what we had in mind for this next update wasn't the smartest idea, we'll tone down these changes in the next PTS update".

MJallday

In 5 years I’ve never know it, in fact the only time they truely reversed a big change was the 4K graphics/ hdr situation on console about 2 years ago on Summerset release but that was presumably because there’s no pts server

Based on observations, around 95% of what’s in PTS 1 basically makes it through to game

TLDR- nerfs incoming, deal with it

Major_Lag

MJallday wrote: »

In 5 years I’ve never know it, in fact the only time they truely reversed a big change was the 4K graphics/ hdr situation on console about 2 years ago on Summerset release but that was presumably because there’s no pts server

There was another "big" reversal, exactly one: cast times on shields. But that only happened because of the mountains of salt that followed.

ChunkyCat

And now, a message from ZoS:

Thank you for your feedback. We’ll... take it into consideration.

Sanguinor2

They do respond sometimes, but mostly because there is a massive outcry, take the proposed Unbreakable silence on incap for example, after About 60 pages of complaining in one thread (and it being much bigger than the official Feedback thread AND having more view than the actual patch notes) Wheeler came out to say that they would investigate counterplay Options for the silence and now we are at the somewhat useless pseudo cc incap instead of the you mag you dead incap.

Swiftnoodle

daedalusAI wrote: »

Does ZOS even care about the feedback/concerns/issues etc. of their customers, or are the Community Mangers just present to purge comments and copy&paste patch notes and threads?

By simply browsing through the PTS forum I couldn't find anything.

You have your answer right there. (bolded part of quote)
I think it's pretty obvious.

and

Austinseph1 wrote: »

It’s usually pretty one sided, you can consider the weekly patch notes the “dev feedback”

pretty much this!

VaranisArano

They talked about it on ESO Live when they released the patch notes, and probably consider that sufficient feedback until the next Patch Notes iteration.

Especially since this patch has a lot of smaller changes that require testing to determine the actual impact on DPS, as opposed to a few obviously bad ideas like shield cast times or incap's silence which really didn't require testing to tell ZOS it wasnt going to work well.

LeoSzilard

I would not expect to see much in week 2 of the PTS. They typically do rebalance and tweaks in week 3. Week 2 is usually bug fixes. I think it's pretty unreasonable to expect them to iterate and address forum feedback on a one week cycle. They have a small team. They probably have to green light PTS updates a week before it's released so that they can stay on schedule. That would explain why we generally don't see balance adjustments until week 3. Just think for a minute what has to happen at the company. High-level meetings to discuss ideas for combat and ability adjustments/balance, then lower-level meetings to hash out details. Then time for individuals to develop the ideas and meetings with combat lead to green-light their ideas. Then time for software to code. Then time for internal testing and debug. Expecting them to cram all of that into a one week cycle with time to comb through thousands of forum posts to address player feedback is really unreasonable.

AngeredDaisy2

I don't expect ZOS to respond or care. If they did either, they would know that last patch their big "fix" to make healers "relevant" again literally killed them for any content in PvE outside of trials. If they cared, they would realize that the nerfs meant to hurt the top few percentage of players, isn't affecting them, but killing players in the lower 95% of skill range in this game. If they cared, they would understand that if they want to decrease overall dps output by 20%, they need to adjust the vet dungeons and trials so they can still be beat by more than 5% of the player base. They would also create test servers for xbox and pc. They would look at the over all picture and balance pve and pvp separately. But they don't care. Their goal is to punish the top 5% of players, but honestly they are killing the main population. The nerfs to everything means that the majority of the population who has no knowledge of rotations/timing/sets/skills and didn't spend time in front of target dummies parsing and practicing will decrease from an average of 12k to 20k damage that they do currently, to 6k to 10k.

Wayshuba

We'll see how it goes, but ZoS has a reputation of ignoring the feedback and going live.

Then when they upset even more people they go extreme on the adjustments.

At this point, I and quite a few others have lost faith this is ever going to be fixed or stop. We are fed up.

I have been ESO+ since I started and will let the renewal lapse at the end of October. Will probably still log in daily for the rewards and to do my stable upgrades but, for now, it is time to put ESO on the back burner for a bit to see if they get their act together. I will probably give it about six months to see if they can correct coarse but I am not holding out hope.

We will also see, as a group of us started something else last night. Just too many of us fed up with this out of control combat skill swings from patch to patch. Just tired of a team that doesn't seem to have a clue of what they are doing.

Oh well, c'est la vie.

HuawaSepp

Well, after getting tick tock tormentor, immortal redeemer, gryphon heart and trying to get godslayer I decided to stop. I also cancelled my sub because I won't need it anymore.

And only because of this and the last patch.
But not because of the patch itself.
Because there is just no guild left I could and want to do it with.
It doesn't even matter now if i like or dislike the patch, the people are gone.

But thats maybe not a bad thing, right?
Better i stop to play eso now.
The direction eso goes isn't a good one anymore, well maybe never was but now it is way worse than anytime before...

LeoSzilard

SipofMaim

The weekly notes will probably be it for "We hear you," acknowledgements and explanations. That's been true even when playerbase outcry had a noticeable impact - eg the cast time on shields reversal - which it generally does not.

InvictusApollo

daedalusAI wrote: »

Does ZOS even care about the feedback/concerns/issues etc. of their customers, or are the Community Mangers just present to purge comments and copy&paste patch notes and threads?

By simply browsing through the PTS forum I couldn't find anything.

Let me ask you one thing: would you prefer a developer to spend one hour preparing and posting a response on the forum or would you prefer him to spend that hour working on game?

Wayshuba

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Let me ask you one thing: would you prefer a developer to spend one hour preparing and posting a response on the forum or would you prefer him to spend that hour working on game?

Whichever they believe is the smartest way to retain the most customers. Even now, just because of the proposed changes many players have already put ESO on hold. Why keep working on something when you know they are - once again - going to wipe it all out in a couple of months?

They have an issue NOW. So it would probably be a better use of an hour to actually respond to how bad this is. The negativity around this patch is far more than has ever been in patches in the past. I don't think they even have until next patch to save many of the players that have had it at this point.

Most of us have already seen a big drop in the number of players logging in since the patch announcement. Given ZoS's track record of completely ignoring PTS feedback, I don't think an hour programming is the smartest use of a hour right now. The smarter use would be to acknowledge these notes are pushing things too far and either a.) Put most of these changes on hold for now or b.) fix in the coming patch what people are telling you is the issue. However, I don't think anyone has faith that ZoS will do the right thing, so many are moving on now (not waiting for U24).

AngeredDaisy2

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Let me ask you one thing: would you prefer a developer to spend one hour preparing and posting a response on the forum or would you prefer him to spend that hour working on game?

I would rather they pay a few people to work the forums for the developers on addressing concerns in the forums. The devs should rarely if ever respond directly to player concerns. But there should be a team of people who speak to the devs and respond to us. This isn't a new concept.

vestahls

To play devil's advocate, just because they don't respond now doesn't mean they don't take notice. It's impossible to say what goes on without working there, but you do hear from class reps or playtesters stuff like "I ranted about this x updates ago and they're just fixing it now after two years". Also there's probably more that goes into decisions than just what the forum says, especially seeing as it's just a fraction of the active population who even visits the forum.

Usually, customer feedback isn't the sole determining factor in whether something gets done or not. I imagine stakeholder expectations are their main concern, then costs, then staff availability, then customer demands - unless, as was said above, there's a huge outcry about something in particular.

Major_Lag

Wayshuba wrote: »

We'll see how it goes, but ZoS has a reputation of ignoring the feedback and going live.

Then when they upset even more people they go extreme on the adjustments.

As an engineer by trade, I immediately made the connection after seeing this.

That's right, we're in a "positive feedback loop" here, by the look of things.
And in engineering, "positive feedback" is the "bad" kind, which normally leads to instability/oscillation.

The adjustments (nerfs/buffs) increase in magnitude with each update - at this rate, by U25 we'll be seeing 500% buffs and 80% nerfs

daedalusAI

InvictusApollo wrote: »

daedalusAI wrote: »

Does ZOS even care about the feedback/concerns/issues etc. of their customers, or are the Community Mangers just present to purge comments and copy&paste patch notes and threads?

By simply browsing through the PTS forum I couldn't find anything.

Let me ask you one thing: would you prefer a developer to spend one hour preparing and posting a response on the forum or would you prefer him to spend that hour working on game?

Are you talking in general, or regarding ZOS?

A half-decent company would actively seek out feedback from its customers, stay in contact and inform them about changes.

ZOS does nothing: they just hope you're still around if they yet again hit a new patch with a sledgehammer while limiting their communication to patch notes.

daedalusAI

AngeredDaisy2 wrote: »

InvictusApollo wrote: »

Let me ask you one thing: would you prefer a developer to spend one hour preparing and posting a response on the forum or would you prefer him to spend that hour working on game?

I would rather they pay a few people to work the forums for the developers on addressing concerns in the forums. The devs should rarely if ever respond directly to player concerns. But there should be a team of people who speak to the devs and respond to us. This isn't a new concept.

Don't you see them?
Their work is limited to purging comments and copy&pasting stickies, threads and patch notes while holding titles such as "Community Manger".

Canned_Apples

Zos doesn't care about feedback.
They always do whatever they think is best for "their" game and their vision- even if it's wrong 90% of the time.

daedalusAI

vestahls wrote: »

To play devil's advocate, just because they don't respond now doesn't mean they don't take notice. It's impossible to say what goes on without working there, but you do hear from class reps or playtesters stuff like "I ranted about this x updates ago and they're just fixing it now after two years". Also there's probably more that goes into decisions than just what the forum says, especially seeing as it's just a fraction of the active population who even visits the forum.

Usually, customer feedback isn't the sole determining factor in whether something gets done or not. I imagine stakeholder expectations are their main concern, then costs, then staff availability, then customer demands - unless, as was said above, there's a huge outcry about something in particular.

Even a devil's advocate has to adhere to context and facts, which considering ZOS and their refusal to listen to U23 PTS feedback about over-the-top DoT scaling really limits the possibility of them "taking notice" now.

There is a huge outcry on the PTS forums right now, but did you see any official ZOS response to even acknowledge said outcry?

Canned_Apples

daedalusAI wrote: »

Even a devil's advocate has to adhere to context and facts, which considering ZOS and their refusal to listen to U23 PTS feedback about over-the-top DoT scaling really limits the possibility of them "taking notice" now.

There is a huge outcry on the PTS forums right now, but did you see any official ZOS response to even acknowledge said outcry?

Please... @ZOS_BrianWheeler still thinks that u23 was a huge success, with regards to bringing build diversity. Dude refuses to admit that his vision was a complete failure and that it actually introduced the most generic and least diverse build meta that the game has ever had.

Vlad9425

I'm sure most of them don't even play their own game at a high end level at least. Then they get feedback from players who do and they are lost.

Katahdin

The only response I've seen is posts warning us to behave and threads moderated and/or closed.

I dont expect to see more than that.

Grandma

if there's enough backlash to the whiplash you'll see something on the pts notes the next week. For example, after the riots in the streets over the single orb change, they put a tiny note in the next weeks notes that orbs would be able to be activated by multiple people in the future. that's about as far as it goes. no comments, no streams, not posts, just patch notes sometimes.

daedalusAI

Grandma wrote: »

if there's enough backlash to the whiplash you'll see something on the pts notes the next week. For example, after the riots in the streets over the single orb change, they put a tiny note in the next weeks notes that orbs would be able to be activated by multiple people in the future. that's about as far as it goes. no comments, no streams, not posts, just patch notes sometimes.

Don't you feel valued as a customer of such a company?

With such a company I do what I always to in such cases: purchase it for the lowest prices possible, sub for the shortest time possible to get the most of it, e.g. in ESO's case finishing my omni-crafter, filling crafting bag etc. - and now I just wait for ~1 year to see the numerous coming "transitions periods" without paying a dime.

Morgul667

The beauty of ZOS is that they can keep a straight face while making posts about improving communication and yet ignore players feedback