Why is everything non-constructive all of a sudden?

TequilaFire

ZOS_Adrikoth wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

@ZOS_Adrikoth would you not consider constant multiple platform war posts in multiple threads by one individual baiting, bashing and trolling? Don't console users also have the right to have a discussion with out being told we are inferior because of our platform?

Hello @TequilaFire

We do not comment on a specific user or specific posts publicly. Additionally, we do not discuss any disciplinary action taken on an account with anyone other than the account holder.

If you feel that a comment violates our rules, please report it and a member of our team would be happy to look into this. Our team aims to moderate fairly and consistently regardless of platform preferences that community members have. We ask to please keep in mind that Naming and Shaming is a violation of our Community Rules.

In general then why are console bashing posts tolerated?
Platform wars has been the bane of many forums I have moderated.

edit - I do want to say I commend your taking the time to converse with the forum.

rpa

To troll a group of people one just has to find something/anything that gets a respose from them, post that with some true, weak, faulty or completely irrelevant reasoning and watch the flames. A troll does not want to win an argument or convince people or discuss the views, all a troll wants is a response. Respond to a troll and you have lost. Troll just ignores whatever content of your response, mere attention alone is enough to feed it.

Problem with trolling is that its so easy. It's easier than ESO overland content, no challenge at all. There is always someone who takes the bait. It's hopeless to tell people to not feed the troll because they know and still do.

I myself don't intentionally troll but admit I'm not the most careful to not offend the easily offended and have gotten some of my posts removed. It's not a big deal. If you think you see something inappropriate or baiting don't discuss it, just report it.

Edit: If moderators do not see it like you do, deal with it. Their job is to keep forums useable.

GhostofDatthaw

TequilaFire wrote: »

ZOS_Adrikoth wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

@ZOS_Adrikoth would you not consider constant multiple platform war posts in multiple threads by one individual baiting, bashing and trolling? Don't console users also have the right to have a discussion with out being told we are inferior because of our platform?

Hello @TequilaFire

We do not comment on a specific user or specific posts publicly. Additionally, we do not discuss any disciplinary action taken on an account with anyone other than the account holder.

If you feel that a comment violates our rules, please report it and a member of our team would be happy to look into this. Our team aims to moderate fairly and consistently regardless of platform preferences that community members have. We ask to please keep in mind that Naming and Shaming is a violation of our Community Rules.

In general then why are console bashing posts tolerated?
Platform wars has been the bane of many forums I have moderated.

edit - I do want to say I commend your taking the time to converse with the forum.

Get outta here you console peasant Q('.'Q)

Lol I really never understood the argument. Why can't we all get along

SirLeeMinion

Kel wrote: »

....They suggested taking a shot for every PS4 bluescreen, and I said that he was going to kill the forum with alchohol poisoning.

One of the rare forum posts that made me laugh. Awesome!

oxygen_thief

that

AgaTheGreat wrote: »

I find this forum to be heavily censored and moderated at the moment. I don't remember it being this restrictive.

because of freedom of speech and democracy

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO

jcm2606 wrote: »

Probably because most people on here are unhappy with the current state of the game, to varying degrees, and aren't at all afraid to make that known, so ZoS is going in extreme damage control mode to keep everything under control, even if they're going way overboard.

you can easily voice your thoughts in a civil manner and there is no need for insults and all that stuff...so yes they dont go "damage control" they just keep them civil as stated in TOS and EULA which EVERYONE should had read before even making an account 5 years ago or purchasing...but you know...ppl just never read long stuff they just sign...if khajiit would only deal in "illicit things"

lagrue

All of a sudden?

This is nothing new lol

The constructive posts don't last long around here, they get buried by rage quickly.

apri

I must agree with the OP big time. That's the only thing I can say. I deleted most of what I wanted to add about my personal experience from the past weeks. Not because it's uncivil, coming from anger or anything. Just because I do not know if it will be tolerated anymore, based on official feedback I received. Things changed here. And that is truly sad.

siddique

When the game was relatively stable, criticism was low. Moderation was few and far between.

Now, the game performance is genuinely at it's lowest in five years. People are frustrated over the inaction/inability of developers to do anything about it.

When they make it public, it gives a bad image to the company, and moderators start flexing.

It's a vicious circle of despair.

svartorn

I'd post on the forum a lot less if the game worked.

Anotherone773

It is not what people say on the forums a lot of times it is how it is said. i sometimes delete parts of my post or rewrite them because i feel that, based on what i see is modded, they are likely to be edited or removed which would defeat the purpose of the post in the first place.

I also never attack the person or anything about them. I dont let people on a forum affect my mood just like i dont let games and issues with them affect my mood. I use too when i was younger. I would be very passionate with debating other people. But its actually not productive.

I dont attack the mods or their reason for modding. Some are more heavy handed than others. But modding is also subjective. And i am sure some mods are here more than others and so it looks like they are being more heavy handed. If i get modded i accept that i did something they didnt approve of. Most of the time, i have a good idea of what it is.

I dont chase people around the forums making snide comments in threads about things they posted in other threads. And i have been the subject to that by a few passionate individuals lately. That IS borderline harassment in my opinion. Instead, I always focus on the thread title, the OP, or a reply in that thread. We might disagree in another thread, but we are in this thread now. Lets not bring our disagreement from that thread into this thread. Also it is perfectly ok to disagree with someone just not harass them about that disagreement. That is called bullying. Regardless, you can disagree with me in one thread and even be passionate about it and in another thread i might agree with you or even hit you with an awesome if i think your comment deserves one.

Since "platform wars" were brought up, i want to address my thoughts on this real quick. Platform wars is saying, imo, "my platform is better than your platform" but it is non constructive. Its not " Sega's graphics card struggles because it doesnt have enough memory". Its " Atari is way better than that junk Sega has. I bet you would lag out playing Pac-Man on that junk!" One is making a constructive statement, the other is just insulting the platform someone else plays on in order to get a reaction. One is malicious, the other is not. One is trolling, the other is not.

This is the judgement call mods have to make. Is their intent to be malicious? Or is it to be constructive? A lot of people confuse constructive criticism with aggressive frustration. Ive seen many post in which the poster has been modded and then been like" why was my post modded? I was being constructive!" when in reality they were being aggressive and combative, neither of which is constructive.

Also i notice people who tend to be more aggressive on the forums and much less constructive, also tend to be modded more often. Whereas, people who are rarely aggressive and usually constructive get modded far less. IE: you are ( my personal opinion) far more likely to be let go on a slip up here and there if its not habit and you do not keep escalating it. When i was forum mod, for a game that no longer exists, i would be more strict with people i had to mod often. Whereas people i rarely modded, i would show more leniency towards. I would also be more heavy handed towards people who constantly challenged my modding or another moderators because 9 times out of 10 these people just wanted to cause trouble or thought the forum rules didnt apply to them.

That theory works with a lot of things in life. I think since the internet becoming such a big social platform that people for get how to talk to people as humans. Its just words on a screen, except those words are directed at real people. You have to consider if would you want someone talking to you like that ? Would you want to be a mod on this forum? People should consider how something would come across to them more if they were on the receiving end of their words before they post or say things. They wouldnt have so much conflict and drama in their life if they did.

Finally, you might think i am being a white knight for ZOS. No, i just call them as i see them. ZOS does mess up often and i call them on it. But i also know with many things people get a bit over zealous against them. Its easy to blame some else for your problems. But it takes real maturity to first ask if it was something you did or didnt do before blaming someone else. I,personally, have been humbled many times by blaming something on someone else( or a company in some cases including my ISP a few times) when in fact the problem, or a major contributor to it was my own doing.

So i learned to be a little more unbiased and consider some times it might be me and not them. My wife had a lot to do with that though...she is a very smart woman, but i might be a bit biased on that

Edit: I am bad at English and its my first language.

Rave the Histborn

ZOS_Adrikoth wrote: »

Hey folks, we figured we would come in this thread and try to clear some things up. Criticism is perfectly fine and we do not remove comments simply because we do not like the poster's opinion.

With that being said, our moderation team does remove posts that consist of bashing, trolling, inappropriate or rude commentary. These, along with our other Community Rules, are enforced to ensure that discussions stay civil:

We understand that sometimes tempers rise, but it is never acceptable to resort to rude comments and insults. This goes for rude comments and insults directed at other community members, and ZeniMax Online Studios employees alike.

We do not expect forum members to be completely happy about every single thing all the time and a major reason that we have these forums is for you all to express any issues that feel exist in your experience with ESO. It is okay to express frustration or disagreement, as long as it doesn't cross the line of one of our Community Rules. Trolling, baiting, or directing rude comments to your fellow community members does not contribute to a healthy discussion.

Please keep in mind that discussing disciplinary action is also against our forum rules. Our team is happy to discuss any action that is taken on your forum account, and you can appeal any forum action by reaching out to our moderation team or by submitting a support ticket at help.elderscrollsonline.com

We hope that this clears up some of the concerns mentioned in this thread.

@ZOS_Adrikoth care to elaborate on that point of criticism? I've had posts edited that weren't criticisms of ZOS but just pointed out the fixes a game like FF14 went through which were completely removed.

Forum toxicity is increasing because of this type of moderation and solely this moderation. We can't speak our mind and genuine posters are told their comments are trolling or bait (which is now just asking a question for a response). If I wanted this place to be a hug box I'd just hang out on the ESO reddit but I'm an adult and this is a game for adults where you get treated like a child for having valid criticism.

P.S. Wouldn't be surprised if a certain other mod just banned me again for this post

Araneae6537

Well, there have been a lot of non-constructive posts and threads. I don’t know whether it is more than usual or a periodic sort of thing. I have seen and engaged in threads discussing aspects of the game people would like to see changed or disagree on and those were not censored. But there have been a lot of posts with no other point than to bait and rage, even several about some game that has nothing to do with ESO.

For what it’s worth, from someone who’s never been a moderator, I think they generally do a good job and I appreciate that inappropriate remarks from posts and those quoting them are snipped out rather than deleting everything (which is how this has been handled on the GW2 forum).

Jeremy

AgaTheGreat wrote: »

I find this forum to be heavily censored and moderated at the moment. I don't remember it being this restrictive. Many posts go missing because they're "non-constructive". Threads get closed. Discussions get cut short even thought they are not at all extreme when it comes to so called flame or baiting. What's going on...


Anyone else sees the change in the forums?


(This topic is going to get closed because it's not constructive in 3... 2... 1....)

It's always been this way, and I've been here since Beta. So I haven't noticed any change.

This board is heavily moderated. Probably the most heavily moderated board I've ever seen.

Kahnak

Sure, it's the moderators that are to blame for your adversarial attitude towards others and your insistence on: Trolling, baiting, or directing rude comments to your fellow community members does not contribute to a healthy discussion.

Completely unjustified, I'm sure.

CassandraGemini

@Anotherone773

I really hope, I am allowed to have a conversation with you about this here without going against the forum rules (again) and I promise to try and stay constructive and civil. I always try that, I am absolutely against people getting personal in this type of conversation, especially since you are right, it is far too easy to forget basic manners on the internet where we don't really see people as people and more as lines of text that we either agree with or don't. But I admit that some of the things I wrote might have crossed a line I didn't want them to cross because I was getting worked up about this, so I'll try my hardest not to let it come to that this time.

So, the thing is, you present yourself as being very reasonable here. Which is great and the sole reason I decided to write this post. Unfortunately you have come across at anything but reasonable a lot of times before. It is true that you don't usually attack people personally, I'll give you that, but instead you attack the platform a whole group of people play on on a regular basis, which, of course, triggers us, and I would assume that you know that. It is one thing, if you had done this once - there is such a thing as freedom of speech and everyone should be allowed to voice their opinion, whether other people agree with it or not, so long as it adheres to certain social norms. But you keep showing up in every single thread that deals with the PS4 and its problems just to tell us the same things over and over again, when you must know what the reaction to that will be. Why? If you are really interested in having constructive discussions, why can't you be the better man in that situation and just keep your thoughts to yourself when it is clear that nothing constructive will come of it?

And sure, as I said before, you never really attack anyone personally, but since you attack a whole platform that does have us, who have to reply to a single person, at a disadvantage of course. Because when we get frustrated about these posts there is a certain chance we get personal, even if we might try not to. So I apologize, if some things I said were uncalled for, but I hope you realize that what you said there - that it is oftentimes not what people say but the way these things are said - applies to you to. If you had just pointed out that the PS4 might not be equipped to handle this game the way a modern PC can, sure, okay, no one would be upset about that. But you keep making these long posts where you elaborate on why our system is bad and inferior to your equipment, all of that in a very condescending tone, and then you wonder why that triggers negative reactions? Especially when you keep coming back every time to pretty much rub it in again and again? You said you felt harassed, but really I kind of had the same feeling. Not me personally, of course (we had a very short interaction in another thread that had nothing to do with any of this and that was perfectly civil; and you can be absolutely sure that I, for one, would never be an arse to someone just because I recognize their username and I know we had a disagreement in another topic), but me as a member of the PS4 community. It does feel like harassment when someone belittles your platform every chance they get for - what feels like - just the hell of it.

Okay. I think I have made my point clear and I hope I was being more constructive about it this time (I really gave it my all here, just so you know ). And I also hope that maybe you'll consider what I said and that we can somehow manage to all get along again.

PS: English is not my first language, so no guarantees that there is nothing weird or outright wrong in this big wall of text.

MajBludd

Who gets all bent out of shape over what device you play a game on? Sounds petty, childish, and something a kid would do.

I put it on par with, "my dad can beat up yours", type of statement. Just stupid, and anyone with a life could careless about it.

GhostofDatthaw

Kahnak wrote: »

Sure, it's the moderators that are to blame for your adversarial attitude towards others and your insistence on: Trolling, baiting, or directing rude comments to your fellow community members does not contribute to a healthy discussion.

Completely unjustified, I'm sure.

As justified as belittling sarcasm?

Kahnak

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Kahnak wrote: »

Sure, it's the moderators that are to blame for your adversarial attitude towards others and your insistence on: Trolling, baiting, or directing rude comments to your fellow community members does not contribute to a healthy discussion.

Completely unjustified, I'm sure.

As justified as belittling sarcasm?

If tepid sarcasm hurts your feelings then you may want to avoid the forums altogether.

KoultouraS

Eso mod team is being obviously forced to tone down an inevitable uproar. Thus the "non constructive" term was bend to suit their supervisors' directive. What non constructive has gotten to mean nowadays is :
1. Reminding bugs plaguing the game since day1 and never being fixed
2. Commenting on the ridiculous absence of official response every single time things are getting worse after an update that was supposed to be fixing the said issues
3. Demanding better services for a paid service that is nowhere near the standard
4. Complaining about fixes never coming despite the commitment of a scheduled bug fixing yearly plan and
5. Venting the steam about how frustrating the lack of communication or the total incompetence on behalf of the mod and dev team respectively is.

Let's hope I am not getting deleted as well

GhostofDatthaw

Kahnak wrote: »

GhostofDatthaw wrote: »

Kahnak wrote: »

Sure, it's the moderators that are to blame for your adversarial attitude towards others and your insistence on: Trolling, baiting, or directing rude comments to your fellow community members does not contribute to a healthy discussion.

Completely unjustified, I'm sure.

As justified as belittling sarcasm?

If tepid sarcasm hurts your feelings then you may want to avoid the forums altogether.

Could say the same for what you were talking about, if you can't handle baiting and trolls you may want to avoid the forums altogether

Kiralyn2000

A few rage posts get rightfully locked, along with a couple off-topic (TES Legends), and 'complaints about moderation' (which are auto-locked on every company forum I've ever been on - how have people not learned this by now?), and you guys think it's a sudden wave of excessive moderation by an overzealous mod?

Really?

Wow, I can't imagine what you'd have thought of some of the actually heavily-moderated forums I've seen in the past. (Games Workshop's official forums, back in the day - wow, they had some strong moderation. Something got cut out of their games' lore - like the Squats - and it was never to be seen again on those forums. Along with any discussion of pricing or business practices.)


Seriously, this is nothing - I'm honestly amazed that so many hate-posts are allowed to keep going. This forum has relatively light moderation. Maybe you're just used to Reddit or Youtube. /shrug

khajiitNPC

Because a lot of it isn’t done in a constructive manner and is filled with false or misleading statements, if not pointless conjecture.

Performance is a major issue. Again, I don’t have a negative experience. I mostly PvP at peak hours, the most I experience is frame rate drop at congested areas, lasts maybe 2 seconds, sometimes it gets me killed, oh well. It’s nothing major and I don’t experience it all the time. What I experience the most is load screen after keep flip — I hardly ever disconnect. I’d like to see that fixed. 2nd is the stuck in combat bug, that isn’t game breaking — it might prevent me and others from getting to point B a little longer but is more of an annoyance. That literally is my biggest issues PvP side. I do understand that others have it a lot worse and that sucks, as a paying customer you should at least be able to play the game. BG if not in a full group can be a pain to get in.

PvE there are a number of bugs in dungeons that are super annoying. But over all even in vet trials I still have an over all enjoyable experience without many issues. Group finder bug needs to be addressed, but I typically have a full group when I use it so no problems.

Console chat bug definitely needs to be fixed.

And that is literally all the issues that I face. I know I’ll have a lot of people flame me because I’m not having the negative experience they are, which is whatever, I don’t have to convince them — I know what I’m saying is true because it’s what I experience.

Things that aren’t valid complaints: they nerfed x. Yes MMOs are always changing — get over it you’re a crybaby or go play a different game.

Things that aren’t true: The game is dying, everyone is leaving, ect. Now while the game isn’t as populated as it was when it was first released. Every nov-March the game tends to slow down, with spikes durning the new life festival. Just because a handful of your friends are leaving doesn’t mean the game is dying. Also new game
Releases. Not everyone can no life a video game. I mean I do, but not everyone can.

People who cry about cash shop — while I do wish eso offered more freebies — they do have quite a bit of stuff you can earn cosmetically, but cash shops are what they are — you don’t have to buy anything from them.

Devs don’t care about their game. Yes they don’t care. Lol. Do you know how stupid that argument is? That’s saying Devs don’t care about their lively hood. Not only with this game but game projects they might work on in the future unrelated to zenimax. What they develop goes is a reflection of their ability to potential companies in the future. Coding is not easy. Ask any coder. And yes unfortunately some stuff takes a longgggg time to fix.

Katrk

It’s just not the forums that are having these problems. The main discord where the class reps input collected data from the community have absolutely fallen apart. All it is these days is people spewing toxicity at the game and developers, and the channels that do collect data haven’t been used in 6 months. Overall these feelings are discontent won’t just disappear overnight. Eventually players are just going to get fed up and leave. I love the game to pieces but the future does look grim based on what I have seen in both in game and on discords relating to ESO.

Anotherone773

The forum has become quite toxic with the ZOS bashing. It is not constructive but also not unwarranted. Players are irritated that their issues seem to be getting worse not better and new content keeps coming out while many seem to have an ever declining gaming experience.

Then ZOS makes an attempt to fix something but does it in parts so players have to keep redoing their characters and because its only half done, it really messes people up. Add to this being kept in the dark a lot of the time about everything( even events until its almost time for them to go live) and poor communication from ZOS( though i do see some improving here) and you have a recipe for toxicity.

I think ZOS really needs to implement more player feedback and participation in testing when it comes to the game. Also some prioritizing based on the customers wants.

I think if both tried to meet in the middle both would benefit. But ZOS has to be the one to take the major steps to better communication because they hold all the cards...while players hold the wallet.

Utilizing Gamers to help improve the game they pay for may be one of the most intelligent common sense approaches that is almost always overlooked in favor of: company does what it wants, players attack company, new game from different company comes out, players passionate about the game leave and take a majority of revenue with them, game shuts down. company makes new game. repeat.

Araneae6537

Anotherone773 wrote: »

The forum has become quite toxic with the ZOS bashing. It is not constructive but also not unwarranted. Players are irritated that their issues seem to be getting worse not better and new content keeps coming out while many seem to have an ever declining gaming experience.

Then ZOS makes an attempt to fix something but does it in parts so players have to keep redoing their characters and because its only half done, it really messes people up. Add to this being kept in the dark a lot of the time about everything( even events until its almost time for them to go live) and poor communication from ZOS( though i do see some improving here) and you have a recipe for toxicity.

I think ZOS really needs to implement more player feedback and participation in testing when it comes to the game. Also some prioritizing based on the customers wants.

I think if both tried to meet in the middle both would benefit. But ZOS has to be the one to take the major steps to better communication because they hold all the cards...while players hold the wallet.

Utilizing Gamers to help improve the game they pay for may be one of the most intelligent common sense approaches that is almost always overlooked in favor of: company does what it wants, players attack company, new game from different company comes out, players passionate about the game leave and take a majority of revenue with them, game shuts down. company makes new game. repeat.

Regarding listening to player feedback, we have to also keep in mind that those posting on the forum are a minority of players. How representative our collection of views are of the community as a whole, who can say? Going by a recent poll, I would say not representative of the experience level in game (a few of us newbs cane to the forums right away, but most of you are far more experienced). Obviously no one is happy when things are broken, buggy or cancelled, but of course ZOS doesn’t need to listen to players to know that, but assuming you’re talking instead about directions of combat balancing, content, etc. ...

Grimm13

Kiralyn2000 wrote: »

Seriously, this is nothing - I'm honestly amazed that so many hate-posts are allowed to keep going. This forum has relatively light moderation. Maybe you're just used to Reddit or Youtube. /shrug

It's be a pretty bare forum and look as if very few play.

Grimm13

Katrk wrote: »

Eventually players are just going to get fed up and leave. I love the game to pieces but the future does look grim based on what I have seen in both in game and on discords relating to ESO.

It's been happening for some time now but the pace is picking up.

Katrk

Grimm13 wrote: »

Katrk wrote: »

Eventually players are just going to get fed up and leave. I love the game to pieces but the future does look grim based on what I have seen in both in game and on discords relating to ESO.

It's been happening for some time now but the pace is picking up.

Unfortunately for me I’ve invested too much time and money on ESO, so I’m here to stay until the ship starts going under. I just hope the supposed fixes coming in Q1 actually do something and not just make things even worse. If what they implement backfires, it could be apocalyptic for the game. I hope everything does go over well, for the sake of the game.

Grimm13

Tandor wrote: »

I also think that one thing that has changed recently is the number of ex-players who have pretty much given up on the game now for one reason or another but who still hang around the forum. Their comments are increasingly toxic and it's right that they should be moderated.

It's kind of hard to be a ex-player in a B2P game, now you can be a non-active player. Those non-active players may come into the forums and express they are still unhappy and letting it be known they are not yet returning to the game. What ZOS needs to remember that each of these non-active players is lost potential revenue as if they are not logging in then they are not a potential cash shop purchaser.