Feedback from a Developer

redgreensunset

Mancombe_Nosehair wrote: »

I guess the mods haven't closed this yet, as they are too busy laughing.

Well as basically everyone could do with a good laugh right now I think they might be thankful. I am, kinda. I haven't been this well entertained in a long time.

Nord_Raseri

Amunari wrote: »

Comparing me, or any other developer giving feedback to the general player base is out right stupidity.

Fancying yourself as anything other than part of the general player base(and that's being generous) in the case of ESO is outright arrogance. No one here cares that you are a developer. There are a great many developers among ESO's player base. You are not special. Your obvious lack of knowledge and understanding when it comes to playing this game far outweighs any developing experience you may have. Most of your points so far show only your personal preferences for a game you do not yet know, nor understand.

redgreensunset

Mancombe_Nosehair wrote: »

Just imagine if an actual developer was reading this thread...

I hope so. I think they could do with a good laugh too.

zvavi

Amunari wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

Various Things about dungeons

Now that we are on track here is where my thinking is...

Group Size

First i have noticed that some dungeons and/or battlegrounds are "three" players, and others "four". I am not exactly sure what is the cause of them, but it may be population related issues that i just have not caught on yet. I was under the impression however that it was simply just how some content was designed, some having three players, others four.

So my point here was to just stream-line it all and make it three man content.

Some by-products to this is that 1) queues are faster with less people, 2) there may be some balance tweaking needed for Vet dungeons. 3) with only one damage, one tank and one heals, each role is equally valued and skill is equally important. In the situation where two damage are present in group (in a four man) you have one dps potentially carrying the other.

From a design perspective because there is generally more dps a fourth dps role makes sense but would be even better is if we could design the classes in the way where they can be dps and still fill the roles of tanks or healers, at least enough to carry through a dungeon / vet dungeon.

The problem of only having "damage"roles

One thing we learn as designers all to well is that players are "super efficient". This efficiency drives players to kill the same mods 1000 times over for "faster leveling rates" or " better income", and it is also the chief mechanic for why we can never perfectly balance a game (we balance, they break it after)


I use this as an example because it is one of the single most powerful things that we can depending on as designers. You players (or rather we players) will also do what is believed to be the most efficient 99.9% of the time. That perception may change but in general its a constant thing.

So by adding a "bonus item" on the end of each dungeon run (you know those consumable boxes you open with random quality of gear in it), or some extra gold people will que as tanks or heals. If we require / put in some "conditions" (like having so many healing skills on a bar, and then locking the skills after entering the dungeon) this solves the problem of not having heals or tanks in que. Faster gearing, or more income is powerful enough to shift atleast some of the population, especially if it was a controlled form of reward (Like gain Dungeon points (as opposed to alliance points) that allows you to buy a SPECIFIC gear set for example "king slayer") then players would absolutely queue for tank or heals.

These are "napkin" idea's but they show the potential of fixing this part of the game.

First, in BG you sometimes get only 3 people because of system inefficiency, if they don't fix it, in your "only 3 people idea" you end up with only 2 (which by the way, happens sometimes rarely too), or that someone leaves right away. So if this was your main reason, it already makes the idea, not needed.

Now, to your elaboration on the idea of making tanks and healers more rewarding, it is a good way of thinking, they should be more rewarded, but as long as you don't have a system that rewards better tanks and heals and assure the rewards are not exploited, you will need a lot of work done. And with cutting dungeon groups to even less dds, the work done will be even higher. The reward is just not worth the effort.

A much, much better approach (without changing the fundamental core of 90% of the group play) is to create additional role tutorials at the undaunted, explaining what is expected from every role in the content you are doing through gameplay test(normal, vet, dlc, vet dlc) providing a base line for those roles, and forcing people to complete it at least once per character for "certification" for the specific role they want to do in that content, quick 2-3 minutes test that can be breezed through if you know what you are doing, rewarding good xp for first clear. Putting the community and the players base on the same line of what is expected from each role is expected to do.

Suggestion above solves some things.
1. Creates a small hassle barrier for fake tanks and healers.
2. Create a small psychological barrier for tanks healers and dds, that they must fulfill base line of a role. Which will create a small increase in the "fake" roles, that actually complete their roles to an extent.
3. Will keep out damage dealers that can't provide the damage needed for specific content. The base line will be relatively low. Which in turn will increase tanks in queue.
4. Will also provide a reassurance of some sort. Some people don't want to heal because they are not sure they can do it, that they can keep their allies alive. This is only one example of people that will be queuing more if this change will be implemented, and draw a base line helping them reach the conclusion that they have reached the "base line" of their role.

PS people usually do the role they want to do, and giving them "rewards" for support roles won't change that. Not closely enough to how much it is needed. Especially since rewards for healers/tanks already exists in queue. It is faster. Doesn't do much good to the game.

EvilAutoTech

CassandraGemini wrote: »

Mancombe_Nosehair wrote: »

I'm impressed that this thread is still running.

The complete lack of moderation in this thread and the fact that OP has only created their account today is giving me some weird conspiratorial ideas...

I'd make you a hat but I used all my tin foil for baking.

Mancombe_Nosehair

I haven't had this much fun since since we had the picture and gif thread that time the pc eu server fell over last year.

CassandraGemini

EvilAutoTech wrote: »

CassandraGemini wrote: »

Mancombe_Nosehair wrote: »

I'm impressed that this thread is still running.

The complete lack of moderation in this thread and the fact that OP has only created their account today is giving me some weird conspiratorial ideas...

I'd make you a hat but I used all my tin foil for baking.

Don't worry, I have my trusty old tinfoil-hat that I wear at all times, because... you never know, right? It's just safer and also fashionable!

But I do appreciate the thought, thank you so much!

wolfie1.0.

MultipleGuild Systems
Having multiple guilds removes the players dedication to that guild, and at the very least splits their attention. This first has an impact on the guilds cohesion which directly impacts retention rates and players "social" loyalties. Multiple guild systems have never done anything to benefit the community in any significant way and are largely responsible for the "who cares i can get another guild" type of attitude which helps breed toxicity into the game.

In the end you end up with a more toxic atmosphere, and being massively loyal to one guild, and using the others. You could get far more quality out of one guild doing all things then you would out of many doing many.

Guild Store Names
Think about this. People come into ESO with an idea, a standard set by games like world of warcraft. Eso is not Wow, but the industry is massively influenced by wow, and people "expect" specific things. The trade system may or may not be better then wow but when multiple people tell me "trade system was hard to understand at first" and a designer is telling you "that could be fixed by familiarizing concepts from eso to the industry standard" You may want to give it some thought.

What does it hurt you its named Auction house? It does not, and it benefits the new players massively at freeing up confusion and giving them a hint "hey, the buttons are not named so well but your in the right place for buying/selling". Im not advocating for any changes out side of GUI related changes, really.



Housing
Small houses like the "inn rooms" are really bad, there is no room and it makes me claustrophobic. It almost seems like a grab at money. The houses should sell themselves, and the dev team should not get cheated out of that money (buy taking alternative ways to buy a house). The housing system could be cleaned up a lot. For example just putting the houses into three sections (small, medium, large) and putting a small variance of size (10x10 block to 12x120 blocks) would clean it up a lot.

Im not advocating for huge-small houses. I am just advocating that the small houses are more then luxury coffins.




Multiguilds - i am not sure that i agree that restricting accounts to only one guild would solve the problems that you are claiming. toxicity will exist no matter what you do in the game. being restricted to just one guild at a time will cause more problems than you think. For one All guilds that can't maintain a trader will die slow deaths. All of your RP guilds, all of your social and PVP focused guilds will struggle. Focus will be around the economy and that just won't work. In addition ZOS would also need to make massive changes to how guilds function in ESO. For one, they would need to increase the player cap and allow guilds to accommodate more players that will now have to decide which guilds they will join. two they would need to provide additional tools to GMs to manage guilds and guild membership. sales trackers, acvitity tracking, contribution tracking. better guild storage options. a guild specific mail service, the ability to make guild announcements in guild chats, improvements to the application system among others. To be frank, its my honest opinion that the option to just allow one one guild per account goes against the style of play that ESO is built around. ESO right now has a lot of different types of people playing right now everyone from housing decorators to PVE'rs, to fishing, to social, to pvp, to hardcore traders. Why upset that? why make player's choose just one aspect of the game and then have to get a second account just to enjoy another aspect? Your expectation is that a guild will participate in ALL aspects of the game but based on what i have seen in other MMO's with this type of restriction this will not be the case.

Guild Store Names - To be honest and quite frank ZOS needs to do a better job of introducing players to how things work in this game, tutorials for NEW accounts need to be better and easier to opt in and out of. THAT out of the way, regardless of how OTHER games operate and name things people need to accept and learn that ESO works differently. Guild Traders are not auction houses. An auction house is a place where you put things up for bid and players can bid on them. that is the nature of an auction house. A store is a place where people can visit and choose to buy things for the listed price. ESO has stores, not auction houses.

Housing - the Crown store cost of items vs what you can buy/sell crowns for via in game trading is irrevelant mainly because you can't gift houses without getting ZOS involved so the gold vs crown costs don't really matter. But i do wish that they allowed us better acces to what we can place in houses. one of my complaints is that they have special slots for collectibles and special collectibles and i would like it if they removed such restrictions and added these slots to the general placement pool thus expanding it. I want to show off my mounts and pets ZOS, but i can't do that if you dont allow me to place All of them. All these restrictions do is give me an incentive to NOT buy any more mounts once i reach the cap for houses and characters.

and while we are talking about housing. Lets talk about the fork in the room, that if i place takes up the same inventory slot as a banana, or a chair, or a 50 ft statue, or a dragon..... Something needs to be done to address the issue of placing small objects and the inventory slots in houses that they take up. i mean its hard enough to set the table correctly in game, i shouldn't need to decide if i place a fork or a target skeleton.

xXMeowMeowXx

Olauron wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

ESO is a wow clone. Guild wars 2, is a wow clone. Rift was highly successful until its team tanked it to Pay to win concepts. Btw, rift created "aoe looting" as a industry standard, one that was COPIED BY WOW.

If ESO is already a WOW clone then it doesn't need any of your changes to appeal to WOW players. Luckily it is not and it doesn't need to be. In fact it plays very different from WOW.

Yh this ^

MusCanus wrote: »

Ok, posts like this make me believe ZOS' team is not so bad after all. Not the brightest kind, but we've been too harsh to them. The state of the game might be much, much worse if there were "developers" like this.

Thank you, OP, I'm glad you're not the part of the ZOS' team, that gives me hope.

Partly This ^

The_Camper wrote: »

You keep calling yourself a developer and expect it to mean something?

for all we know you could be developing black and white films in your dark room and call yourself a developer.

Amunari wrote: »

Comparing me, or any other developer giving feedback to the general player base is out right stupidity. that is not to say my "opinion" of problems or fixes are any less valid in the aspect of the "ux-phase" of the design cycle, in that case we are all the same, but that feedback is more like "I like what you did with this change" or "i did not like it because...." that is not equal to "VP/HP is bad because x, and we should remove it for the game because of x reason".

i am just saying that suggestions made by a developer are not even close to being equal to a player, developers have massive insight to.. well the development cycle for starters.

to clear things up, you are just a player here. not a developer and judging by your comments i doubt you have a massive insight to anything related to ESO development or how the basics of game work when it comes to that.

Very evident ^

karekiz wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

Weapon Balance
Light and heavy attacks have been redesigned.
- Weapons will now naively be counted as either a light or heavy attack. Light attacks will have only a GCC cool down but heavy attacks will have a 2 second cool down and will functionally work like current light attacks (having the charge mechanic removed)

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

YUUUUUS !! this too^

Thnx for your developed digital toilet paper

BooPerScOOper

"Stable Genius"

idk

I am disappointed. The title that this thread is feedback from a developer so I expected to see what experience and actual credentials OP actually had related to developing MMORPGs or any type of GaaS. I say this because when the game launched I was in a guild with supposed game developers. Both of them tried to act like they knew what they were talking about but they really lacked a clue.

I did not bother getting into the OP's comments because their opinion is no more important than any of ours yet they start off with a tittle suggesting they know better, that they are a developer of some sort.

Edit: but I have read some of the replies and they are truly entertaining and seem to agree that claiming to be a developer (of something that is seemingly imaginary) is pretty meaningless. OP is just a player here like the rest of us and doubtful they have been a real developer of a MMORPG or GaaS.

idk

MaxJrFTW wrote: »

This isn't feedback though, you're mostly proposing changes and most of them are nonsensical.

But it is from a developer (of something) so they know better than we do.

farorae

Amunari wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

MusCanus wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

I was very clear that new players, from other mmos or not have had issues understanding how to sell things.

The ones on the left side of the IQ bell curve? That's understandable.

Coming from the orc....

BTW, i have a 136 IQ, How about you?

So because that's your IQ, it means you're better than us? No it doesn't. Sit down. You're not better than anybody here bc you're a dev or because of your IQ. That's such a pompous attitude thinking you're better than anyone because of some numbers.

No, it means i am smarter then you

Seems like everyone in here is smarter THAN** you.

idk

farorae wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

SilverIce58 wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

MusCanus wrote: »

Amunari wrote: »

I was very clear that new players, from other mmos or not have had issues understanding how to sell things.

The ones on the left side of the IQ bell curve? That's understandable.

Coming from the orc....

BTW, i have a 136 IQ, How about you?

So because that's your IQ, it means you're better than us? No it doesn't. Sit down. You're not better than anybody here bc you're a dev or because of your IQ. That's such a pompous attitude thinking you're better than anyone because of some numbers.

No, it means i am smarter then you

Seems like everyone in here is smarter THAN** you.

OMG. The OP actually said they are smarter. LMAO. I called it, and I am sure others did as well, that OP thinks their opinion is more important than ours because they are a developer (of something but I doubt they have any idea about developing a GaaS.

EvilAutoTech

I have searched for hours trying to find a list of industry standards for video games. I would like to know where the op learned that "auction house" is the standard term for a system where you sell items to other players.

worrallj

EvilAutoTech wrote: »

I have searched for hours trying to find a list of industry standards for video games. I would like to know where the op learned that "auction house" is the standard term for a system where you sell items to other players.

Anyway it's not an auction house in eso since you don't bid you just buy...

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all,

After removing a handful of comments due to Baiting, as well as just generally not providing anything to the discussion, we have decided it best this thread remain locked. Baiting is a violation of our rules and is stated as such:

Trolling or Baiting: The act of trolling is defined as something that is created for the intent to provoke conflict, shock others, or to elicit a strong negative or emotional reaction. It’s okay and very normal to disagree with others, and even to debate, but provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community. If you do not have something constructive or meaningful to add to a discussion, we strongly recommend you refrain from posting in that thread, and find another discussion to participate in instead. It is also not constructive or helpful to publicly call out others and accuse them of trolling, or call them a troll—please refrain from doing so. If you genuinely believe someone is trolling, please report the post or thread to the ESO Team, and leave it at that.

In the future, when making threads/posts, we ask that they be kept civil, constructive, and within the guidelines of the rules we have in place. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-