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• [IN PROGRESS] ESO Store and Account System for maintenance – April 16, 8:00AM EDT (12:00 UTC) - 12:00PM EDT (16:00 UTC)
To ZOS: PvP state of affairs is unacceptable, indefensible! (Your players deserve better, Zenimax!!)
jristaub17_ESO
✭✭✭
This is a explicit request for information, an explanation, from ZOS. As paying customers, customers who have in some cases been asking FOR YEARS (literally) for fixes to the Cyrodiil PvP performance, gameplay and graphics issues, we deserve better from you. I only recently got into PvP, but even when I was just getting into it, it only took minutes to learn the rolling jokes about PvP in ESO, particularly in Cyrodiil. They are just that bad, and it only takes a few minutes to start running into the problems. It took only a few more minutes to learn that players have been asking for fixes for these issues going on as long as FIVE YEARS (at least, some say as far back as the betas).
Now, things were bad when I started PvPing in January, but not so bad that you wanted to quit the game and never return. Even through Midyear Mayhem, it was playable enough. Since the latest game Patch, however...and well before any kind of COVID-19 lockdown really hit, Cyrodiil performance became atrocious. Not just lag, but worse. Lag is a problem, and some times my ping (which used to be around 20ms, and has consistently been around 100ms since the patch, some FIVE TIMES greater latency) will jump to 500ms and sometimes even seconds (while a concurrent ping in a terminal window to say google.com and abc.com will remain at 20ms...so we are talking about a latency issue specific to ESO servers, not a general network issue), there is a much deeper issue.
Even with a ping of 100ms, there is a server-side sync issue that can delay skill activation, or say summoning a mount, by several SECONDS! SECONDS!! That is THE difference between life and death in PvP! There are other skills, such as Stalking Blastbones, that are just broken (have been ever since I played the game), where it will often just get stuck, and blow up in place...rather than "stalking" at all. These latency and skill issues are on top of various graphics rendering issues (flickering polygons which can often really do a number on your eyes/sight, which is terrible during a battle), as well as the constant Cyrodiil loading screen issues (in some areas of the map, you can get a loading screen about every 5 seconds...and every time it appears, you are stopped dead in your tracks; which, I'll add, is often also the difference between life and death).
The Cyrodiil PvP issus post patch, which I experience most as that's the type of PvP I play most, are truly infuriating, and have effectively destroyed any real semblance of "fun" that Cyrodiil used to have. Is that truly the experience you want your players, paying customers (and I pay the $15/mo myself...I'm old school, and paying a monthly fee for an MMO seems quite normal to me...but, that makes me a REGULARLY PAYING customer.) To play a game that is infuriating and unfun? This is a really sad state of affairs. It's a joke, that PvP in ESO is a joke, and that joke is starting make greater rounds with so many players online these days with COVID-19 lockdowns...which, BTW, have just made all these issues THAT MUCH WORSE.) No one even expects ZOS to actually do anything about it, as nothing has been done for years. So not only is your game becoming a joke, but a hopeless one at that. Do you really want your game, and the gaming experience, to just be the butt of a hopeless joke? Do you not want your customers to have a good experience when they play your games, the kind of experience that makes them rave about things, rather than complain and joke about them?
This is an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs. We, as your paying customers, deserve so much better than this. We were told the patch would improve things. We know you said you would "start" improving things with this patch, and that improvements would be ongoing throughout the year. The problem is, your patch made things so much worse. It took a step back, not forward. Not only did you not improve anything, you made them worse, and more often than not, PvPing in Cyrodiil, and often in other places, gets so infuriating you just want to shelve the game forever. Your players deserve more. We deserve a better explanation than "we are working on it." (BTW, server sync issues seem to affect all manner of gameplay, PvE as well as PvP, not just in Cyrodiil...its an extensive problem that has an impact on the game overall, dungeons and trials, etc.)
There are other issues with PvP, such as the half-assed "solution" to Battlegrounds being dominated by certain teams and types of players, of no longer allowing groups to queue. That is not a well thought out solution, it's a hacked up band-aid that probably solved the problem "expeditiously" and "cheaply", but did not really deliver a solution to the problems your players faced without nerfing something so many of them relied on: the ability to play with their FRIENDS (vs. random numbskulls who are more often than not ridiculously toxic.) ZOS needs to put more thought into solving the problems your customers are facing, rather than hacked up solutions.
What we deserve is ZOS actually INVESTING some actual MONEY (i.e. hire more developers, architects, people who can engineer real solutions) in solving these LONG STANDING, perpetual, and WORSENING issues. The current state of affairs is unacceptable, it is indefensible, and something needs to change. Starting with an explanation of why these issues got worse with the patch, and what you are doing to fix them, and when. Followed up with more explanation of what you will be doing for us going forward to not only fix the issues the patch introduced, but finally resolve the long standing problems that have persisted for years. Your servers, "megaservers" that I suspect at the time of their introduction may indeed have been, no longer seem to be up to the task of handling the player volume you have, and are clearly not ready for growth in the coming years. This is a fundamental issue that must be addressed before your servers simply cannot handle the load at all... (An eventuality I fear is not that far off, given the frequency of disconnects and hard crashes the servers have when I PvP in Cyrodiil these days.)
Now, things were bad when I started PvPing in January, but not so bad that you wanted to quit the game and never return. Even through Midyear Mayhem, it was playable enough. Since the latest game Patch, however...and well before any kind of COVID-19 lockdown really hit, Cyrodiil performance became atrocious. Not just lag, but worse. Lag is a problem, and some times my ping (which used to be around 20ms, and has consistently been around 100ms since the patch, some FIVE TIMES greater latency) will jump to 500ms and sometimes even seconds (while a concurrent ping in a terminal window to say google.com and abc.com will remain at 20ms...so we are talking about a latency issue specific to ESO servers, not a general network issue), there is a much deeper issue.
Even with a ping of 100ms, there is a server-side sync issue that can delay skill activation, or say summoning a mount, by several SECONDS! SECONDS!! That is THE difference between life and death in PvP! There are other skills, such as Stalking Blastbones, that are just broken (have been ever since I played the game), where it will often just get stuck, and blow up in place...rather than "stalking" at all. These latency and skill issues are on top of various graphics rendering issues (flickering polygons which can often really do a number on your eyes/sight, which is terrible during a battle), as well as the constant Cyrodiil loading screen issues (in some areas of the map, you can get a loading screen about every 5 seconds...and every time it appears, you are stopped dead in your tracks; which, I'll add, is often also the difference between life and death).
The Cyrodiil PvP issus post patch, which I experience most as that's the type of PvP I play most, are truly infuriating, and have effectively destroyed any real semblance of "fun" that Cyrodiil used to have. Is that truly the experience you want your players, paying customers (and I pay the $15/mo myself...I'm old school, and paying a monthly fee for an MMO seems quite normal to me...but, that makes me a REGULARLY PAYING customer.) To play a game that is infuriating and unfun? This is a really sad state of affairs. It's a joke, that PvP in ESO is a joke, and that joke is starting make greater rounds with so many players online these days with COVID-19 lockdowns...which, BTW, have just made all these issues THAT MUCH WORSE.) No one even expects ZOS to actually do anything about it, as nothing has been done for years. So not only is your game becoming a joke, but a hopeless one at that. Do you really want your game, and the gaming experience, to just be the butt of a hopeless joke? Do you not want your customers to have a good experience when they play your games, the kind of experience that makes them rave about things, rather than complain and joke about them?
This is an absolutely unacceptable state of affairs. We, as your paying customers, deserve so much better than this. We were told the patch would improve things. We know you said you would "start" improving things with this patch, and that improvements would be ongoing throughout the year. The problem is, your patch made things so much worse. It took a step back, not forward. Not only did you not improve anything, you made them worse, and more often than not, PvPing in Cyrodiil, and often in other places, gets so infuriating you just want to shelve the game forever. Your players deserve more. We deserve a better explanation than "we are working on it." (BTW, server sync issues seem to affect all manner of gameplay, PvE as well as PvP, not just in Cyrodiil...its an extensive problem that has an impact on the game overall, dungeons and trials, etc.)
There are other issues with PvP, such as the half-assed "solution" to Battlegrounds being dominated by certain teams and types of players, of no longer allowing groups to queue. That is not a well thought out solution, it's a hacked up band-aid that probably solved the problem "expeditiously" and "cheaply", but did not really deliver a solution to the problems your players faced without nerfing something so many of them relied on: the ability to play with their FRIENDS (vs. random numbskulls who are more often than not ridiculously toxic.) ZOS needs to put more thought into solving the problems your customers are facing, rather than hacked up solutions.
What we deserve is ZOS actually INVESTING some actual MONEY (i.e. hire more developers, architects, people who can engineer real solutions) in solving these LONG STANDING, perpetual, and WORSENING issues. The current state of affairs is unacceptable, it is indefensible, and something needs to change. Starting with an explanation of why these issues got worse with the patch, and what you are doing to fix them, and when. Followed up with more explanation of what you will be doing for us going forward to not only fix the issues the patch introduced, but finally resolve the long standing problems that have persisted for years. Your servers, "megaservers" that I suspect at the time of their introduction may indeed have been, no longer seem to be up to the task of handling the player volume you have, and are clearly not ready for growth in the coming years. This is a fundamental issue that must be addressed before your servers simply cannot handle the load at all... (An eventuality I fear is not that far off, given the frequency of disconnects and hard crashes the servers have when I PvP in Cyrodiil these days.)
13
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jadarock✭✭✭✭✭Nope they'll just cram the rest of these changes down our throats and make the combat completely unplayable(Its not just pvp I'm having trouble getting skills to fire in overland pve )
Roleplaying with cosmetics from the crown store will be the only things that work. Gg Zos5 -
ThornJagger✭✭✭Come on ZOS, stop killing OUR game!I never loose... I either win or learn.
Vae Victis forever3 -
jristaub17_ESO✭✭✭Yeah, the sync issue with skills is pervasive. It is not just a PvP issue, it can definitely be an issue in trials, although it seems worse in Cyrodiil. But that is also a very serious problem. Some times I sit there spamming the same skill and it just won't fire. That wasn't an issue before the patch.
It's really bad form to leave long-standing problems in the game, promise some improvements, then release something that makes it all worse...and then go silent. Meh.1 -
ChickenCrack✭✭Closed betas have less bugs tbh.. oh and whats that? Zos is just going to keep throwing new broken buggy sets that require you to pay for eso plus or the dlc! You will take forever to grind cuz people wont be able to comfortably play with all those connections issues to the game server, i mean, skills dont even proc sometimes! LmaoPS4 - NA1 -
jristaub17_ESO✭✭✭@ZOS, are you just going to ignore this, like all the problems you have been ignoring for years? Or are you going to communicate with your customers and player community about what you are doing to actually keep them playing (and paying for) your broken game?1
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Jabbs_Giggity✭✭✭✭✭@jristaub17_ESO Honestly, you're not at all wrong and ZOS is fully aware. They will never do anything about it. Why? Because ESO is already at "half" its life-span, they are more focused on promoting Crown items and Cash Grabs to maximize profits while creating content that only draws in newer players for revenue.
Truth is, they don't care for long-term players anymore because they are just focusing on cashing out on ESO for as long as possible, while doing the bare minimum to keep up profit margins.
This is really going to hurt their reputation, long-term. However, as a large developer that has brought one of the greatest MMO's to console (this is actually a big deal, no disrespect to PC players) casuals will continue to flood in, pay their dues and exit. Rinse and repeat for as long as possible.2 -
jristaub17_ESO✭✭✭Yup, crickets.
The state of the game industry is truly sad these days. I was really into Anthem before it was released. Sounded awesome. I got in on the late betas...and what an utter disaster. Six years of game development, and what they gave ups felt like 6 months of half-hearted development of a dissociated concept concocted by someone with dementia. Utter disaster. Most un-fun, gratingly repetitive game I've ever encountered, with ZERO reward. (I was smart and just paid the monthly Origin fee and never actually bought the game, some people prepaid...lot of people prepaid, and that was a disaster as well, on both sides...so many returns, so many people rejected for returns.)
Game companies get away with far too much these days. They shove mediocre crap on their customers, and there are zero consequences. So nothing ever changes. I'm not a big fan of regulation, but sometimes it may be needed...and it is starting to feel like this aspect of game development, shoveling hyper-buggy, incomplete, broken products on paying gamers might need some governmental regulation to stop it. It really needs to stop...3
