Smoke and mirrors

merevie

Context: the pvp community was informed that we 'didn't like' proc sets anymore so they were being banned for months. This was after another round of forced testing when Zos admitted again, they'd not gotten any improvement, and had made lag worse. We've been enduring this for a year -the random, forced tests.

1. You did not ask us if we 'liked' this. There was no poll. There was no survey.
Where did you get this data from? [snip]

2. When entire PvP teams defect for 3wks to Valheim, people are not enjoying themselves.
Have you looked at who is doing PvP at the moment?
Did you consider that with this, along with those who already are screaming about cp, might sink an already almost unplayable ship?

4. 'Proc' sets for the purpose of testing included backbone sets that players have never had issues with.
Since the testing is done, are you putting staple sets like Seducer back in game?

5. Players have made it super clear that pay to win sets like Crimson are issues from PTS.
Why was PTS feedback ignored, and then the player community slapped with a set ban for months?

6. PvP is unbalanced towards stamina now.
How do you plan to address this?

7. Personally, I have 6 PvP toons. Am I expected to pay for the mats to outfit them while this set ban is in place for months?

8. Are you being honest about 'players don't want to play with any of their proc sets anymore' to make it easier to problem shoot the trouble we all expect from the new cp system?

9. We have been hearing that 'pvp matters' for four years. No promises were kept. Now you say you have 'found' things to work on. Is that true? Please name those things if so, and give us an honest timeline for that being done.
Edited by merevie on March 6, 2021 1:39PM

[Edited to remove Bashing]

Goregrinder

So how many of your builds got wrecked?

merevie

They only allow 15 sets.
No one has used most of them for years.
All of them.

gatekeeper13

Best decision ZOS took in a long time.

SidraWillowsky

Goregrinder wrote: »

So how many of your builds got wrecked?

This has nothing to do with builds, unless you're defending the cheesy Crimson/Malacath/proc set build that everyone and their mom is wearing right now.... Not all proc sets are created equal and it would be smarter to tone down the ones that are problematic vs. the blanket ban.

Also it's absurd to hit Seducer and Crimson with the same hammer.

Pepegrillos

In addition, Zos said:

"We found this test did not impact performance in a measurable amount; if anything, there was a very slight degradation of performance at times, likely due to a higher population of players in Cyrodiil."

Two things about it:

1) The test in its current ruleset made performance worse, yet they have decided not only to extend it for 7 months, they are actively working to bring it to consoles too.

2) They don't know what made it worse, they are just guessing ("likely due to...").

merevie

Why is that, Gate?

Do think 'we heard some players liked it' is an acceptable reason for a company to make 90% of its set content unavailable to players overnight?

Sets players have bought DLC packs for, farmed for and invested in?

That's all cool?

Jaraal

Pepegrillos wrote: »

2) They don't know what made it worse, they are just guessing ("likely due to...").

Yeah, that in itself is disturbing. Three weeks of testing and they still have no clue.

merevie

Jaraal wrote: »

Pepegrillos wrote: »

2) They don't know what made it worse, they are just guessing ("likely due to...").

Yeah, that in itself is disturbing. Three weeks of testing and they still have no clue.

If only. They started testing well over a year ago.

LostHorizon1933

Got the mirrors. Now where’s my smoke?

Nezyr_Jezz

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best decision ZOS took in a long time.

No its not. Not until classes are balanced. Tell to a magblade that he needs to use those [snip] sets.

Unless a complete class balance will be created there is no chance i will support this [snip].

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

merevie

What are our legal rights to content we've purchased but is being withheld?
Is this accurate?

'The Consumer Rights Act says goods must be:

Satisfactory quality.
Fit for purpose.
As described.
The rules for digital content are slightly different to those for physical goods. The Consumer Rights Act defines digital content as "data which are produced and supplied in digital form". Just like physical goods, digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for a particular purpose, and as described by the seller'.

And are they allowed to just say, oh we'll refund you, while refusing 90% of gear sets to the entire base of customers?
I'm not familiar with American advertising laws lol.

Who would we contact? The legal Dept at Microsoft?

GreenHere

I just don't understand why they didn't make a separate campaign or few with this ruleset, and restore the others back to normal.

My opinion of ZOS' decision-making skills just keeps getting lower all the time, and I seriously didn't think it could!

What are they thinking with this "all or nothing" long-term "solution"? Would it have been too hard to run both proc & non-proc campaigns side-by-side, to see where the community REALLY falls in terms of preference? Or was it just that no one over there even thought of it?

Seems like "incapable" or "incompetent" are the two choices here. Either way, it seems laughably sad... but I am curious which it was.

Maybe there's a third option, and I'm just being a jerk... BUT, if that is the case, why didn't they tell us THAT? At the very least, the communication on ZOS' process is leaving a lot to be desired.

regime211

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best decision ZOS took in a long time.

let's talk about your response come September, i said this during when people kept crying about proc sets, now look what happened, watch when if the player base starts going down and you can barely find a fight, and the funny part is i see so many streamers who ride around for hours looking for a fight, you reap what you sow, when you wish for things such as this, i hope you dont find yourself having to que for BG's or IC due to complete garbage performance this game continues to provide the playbase.

starkerealm

merevie wrote: »

I'm not familiar with American advertising laws lol.

They've never advertised the sets as a major draw to the game. Read the promotional material, and realize that if they literally scrapped all gear sets from the game, almost all of that information would still be 100% accurate.

Also, all of those sets still (technically) work in PvE.

starkerealm

merevie wrote: »

1. You did not ask us if we 'liked' this. There was no poll. There was no survey.
Where did you get this data from?[snip]

Probably from the overall PvP population being up. "It's more popular, because more people are playing it."

YandereGirlfriend

starkerealm wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

1. You did not ask us if we 'liked' this. There was no poll. There was no survey.
Where did you get this data from? [snip]

Probably from the overall PvP population being up. "It's more popular, because more people are playing it."

Let's see what happens to population when there isn't a double AP event going on.

I'm open to being wrong but I doubt that it stays this high.

merevie

At the least, they need a disclaimer on their products from this point on.

starkerealm

YandereGirlfriend wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

1. You did not ask us if we 'liked' this. There was no poll. There was no survey.
Where did you get this data from? [snip]

Probably from the overall PvP population being up. "It's more popular, because more people are playing it."

Let's see what happens to population when there isn't a double AP event going on.

I'm open to being wrong but I doubt that it stays this high.

Yeah, I'm expecting a drop off. Though, that's going to correspond with new content, and the CP overhaul (which will lead some to start grinding their way towards a burnout.) So, it's not really conclusive either way.

virtus753

merevie wrote: »

What are our legal rights to content we've purchased but is being withheld?
Is this accurate?

'The Consumer Rights Act says goods must be:

Satisfactory quality.
Fit for purpose.
As described.
The rules for digital content are slightly different to those for physical goods. The Consumer Rights Act defines digital content as "data which are produced and supplied in digital form". Just like physical goods, digital content must be of satisfactory quality, fit for a particular purpose, and as described by the seller'.

And are they allowed to just say, oh we'll refund you, while refusing 90% of gear sets to the entire base of customers?
I'm not familiar with American advertising laws lol.

Who would we contact? The legal Dept at Microsoft?

You'd probably have much better luck arguing that the performance in game is of unsatisfactory quality than that they have violated your consumer rights by deactivating certain set bonuses in one specific environment. The Terms of Service give them the right to change things like set bonuses and to implement various rulesets as they see fit. They do not sell individual sets with their individual bonuses, as starkerealm pointed out, and they are not denying you the use of those sets or bonuses in the game full stop. They sold you a game or a DLC, the details of which they have the right to change, and they are choosing to change the details by limiting one context in which certain line items are operational. Even in Cyro you still benefit from any non-proc line items, traits, enchantments, and resists. Honestly, you might as well try to fight them on denying you the ability to use CP in Battlegrounds.

merevie wrote: »

At the least, they need a disclaimer on their products from this point on.

The Terms of Service cover this. Game devs have very wide latitude in what changes they can make to the details of the game. Just because those changes might be widespread in their impact (though this one is not nearly as widespread as race or set changes that apply to the whole game) and just because people may vehemently dislike them doesn't make them illegal.

gatekeeper13

merevie wrote: »

Why is that, Gate?

Do think 'we heard some players liked it' is an acceptable reason for a company to make 90% of its set content unavailable to players overnight?

Sets players have bought DLC packs for, farmed for and invested in?

That's all cool?

It's not that "some players liked it". It is actually the majority of players who liked it, according to what I ve read in chat zones. The players who got really annoyed are those who used those sets to pose as unkillable, or players with little skill that wanted to do 1 LA or use Stampede/Critical Rush to proc Venomous, Scales, Unleashed and all other broken sets to kill their enemies. It was Players vs Sets, not PVP anymore. I dont want to mention usernames because it's against the rules, but players who were unkillable before test, players who could take on insane dmg and still see their health at 90% and at the same time have infinite resources AND spell/weapon dmg to counter-attack and 1-shot you, simply do not exist anymore. Unkillable ball groups with infinite res are history too, 90% of them wipe few minutes after they enter a keep. That's a healthy step imho.

I admit you have a point and agree that it is unfair to disable sets that people worked pretty hard for to collect and improve. Personally, I will see my Warden's NMA, Alchemist, Malacath, Jugger wasted, which cost me more than 500k total (golden weapons, armor pieces etc). I will see 80% of my bow NB's sets wasted, which I spent hundreds of thousands of AP or Gold to collect. I will see all my magsorc sets wasted (Bright-Throat golden jewelry and weapons). And my trolling tank's Thews too, which cost a fortune to get. But that wont change the fact that ZOS had no control on PVP balance anymore. They kept adding sets that were not tested and let the space for builds to be created that had both infinite resources, high health, dmg mitigation and dmg output.

Imho, I think ZOS should add separate campaigns for people who want to play without proc-sets, so that everyone is satisfied.

regime211 wrote: »

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

Best decision ZOS took in a long time.

let's talk about your response come September, i said this during when people kept crying about proc sets, now look what happened, watch when if the player base starts going down and you can barely find a fight, and the funny part is i see so many streamers who ride around for hours looking for a fight, you reap what you sow, when you wish for things such as this, i hope you dont find yourself having to que for BG's or IC due to complete garbage performance this game continues to provide the playbase.

Cyro is still full of people having fun. Peak hours still have pop-lock. IC was always dead and still will be dead because no one wants to lose his Tel-Var when someone ganks him. Garbage performance is not because proc sets got disabled ofc. It has existed for the last 3-4 years.

Scardan

starkerealm wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

I'm not familiar with American advertising laws lol.

They've never advertised the sets as a major draw to the game. Read the promotional material, and realize that if they literally scrapped all gear sets from the game, almost all of that information would still be 100% accurate.

Also, all of those sets still (technically) work in PvE.

Plus PvP is not only Cyro, many complaining people just ignore that fact completely in their posts. Proc sets still work in IC and BG. It is not correct to say that proc sets are not working in PvP. They do. BG and IC.

Katheriah

gatekeeper13 wrote: »

merevie wrote: »

Why is that, Gate?

Do think 'we heard some players liked it' is an acceptable reason for a company to make 90% of its set content unavailable to players overnight?

Sets players have bought DLC packs for, farmed for and invested in?

That's all cool?

It's not that "some players liked it". It is actually the majority of players who liked it, according to what I ve read in chat zones.

I'm one of the players that didn't like it, but because it was only 3 weeks I decided after day 1 to shut my mouth for once and wait for the 'Okay, this isn't working we're giving you guys the other hundreds of sets back' message. We just logged off and played another game for a couple of weeks.

If we knew this would be a result, we wouldn't have been quiet.

Also, I'm pretty sure when double AP is gone people will go back to do other stuff. But please, prove me wrong.

NeillMcAttack

Expecting ZOS to be up front about decisions is more naïve than thinking that Cyro will ever return to it's former glory.

TwinLamps

they sold ton of greymore just for malacath
also, malacath is useless in pve
so what is the point?

ZOS_ConnorG

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