12 person group limit? Whaaaaaat?

etchedpixels

Aluna wrote: »

RedMuse wrote: »

Voice chat isn't a substitute for group text chat. Deaf people, HoH people and people with audio processing issues play this game and an in-game text channel through which things can be communicated and through which you can socialize is essential. The lack of custom chat channels is bad enough as it is, but with this change people who aren't 100% abled is even more alienated than they already are.

Thank you for pointing that out! People tend to forget that disabled people exist. We have a deaf, a mute and a HoH person actively participating in our guild who obviously rely on text chats.

ESO is already *dismal* for all kinds disabilities with everything from bright white flashing screens to zero text to speech support. Making it worse is not what people need. Nor being driven onto discord as a workaround, because discord ain't exactly a pillar of accessibility for text, and a lot of people simply can't rely on voice chat because there are other people around, children sleeping in the next room and so on.

Vaoh

Yeah this is a weird change.

From a purely PvP angle I can understand why it might be a good thing... but everywhere else? This is going to be terrible for social guilds in PvE doing any of their big group activities.

linlilia

As a former guild officer (taking a break due to outside life for a while) even 24 man groups was limiting for many guild events. Any thing that has to do with the guild is so disjointed already for large scale events. Going down to 12 man will make doing guild events extremely difficult and while I know people will say that you can have a 2nd officer help or a 3rd or 4th in some cases, that is not always possible due to people having outside life schedules and situations.

It is already difficult when you have to cut off an event to 24 people because of group limits for things like follow the leader or group world boss hunting events (all 24 will get xp if in the same group close enough but harder when you have a 2nd group).

The lag and such I have seen has not been bad for a 24 man group, only when you have 3 or 4 full 24 people groups which
happens around World Bosses and World events happens intentionally or unintentionally whether grouped or ungrouped.

This is a terrible idea and hope that it is undone.

zaria

beadabow wrote: »

I read about the group size limit reduction in the change notes and immediately thought: "There goes the guild meetings and dueling tournaments in player homes". I think the only work around is making multiple smaller groups - which doesn't work well for discord users. Is it really going to improve performance? I appreciate the effort, but this is not a good sacrifice. Find performance somewhere else.

Server performance is not an issue overland,
See this as an because 12 is limit in trials and also in Cyrodil but it did not helped performance there but we keep it because.

Mansions has an pop limit of 24 and some are probably so large say don't cover it. Zone include the zone its in.
Well can we get our crowns back

JoeCapricorn

I think the group limit should be restored to 24 in Cyrodiil, personally.

Jaraal

Morriel wrote: »

Keep the 12 player limit to trials and Cyrodiil only please. This will hurt the game.

There's no reason to have 12 player group limits in Cyrodiil or trials, either. Cross group healing and buffing negates any perceived performance benefits. All it does is make communication and congregation more difficult, as well as taking away from the fun of the multi-player experience.

observertim

Unfortunately we are operating in a vacuum here. I would really love it if @ZOS_GinaBruno could provide or arrange for provision of the reasoning behind the change. It's probably something the Devs see a need for, but it would be far easier to swallow if we knew why.

Anonx31st

I just don't see this affecting the majority of ESO players?

stefj68

i do miss 72 man raid in EverQuest

Coorbin

Anonx31st wrote: »

I just don't see this affecting the majority of ESO players?

No one ever suggested that it affects the majority of players. Does something have to affect the majority before we do anything about it?

• The majority of people are not disabled, yet we have laws to make buildings accessible to disabled people.
• The majority of people don't have a baby or young kid, yet every shopping cart I've ever used has a child seat.
• The majority of people learn at an average rate, yet schools still have both Special Education for those minorities who need a little extra help, and Advanced Placement / Honors for those who excel.
• The majority of people will never crash a car, yet we still have mandatory seat belts.
• The majority of people don't live at a low enough elevation to be seriously impacted by global warming in the near to medium term, yet we still put a lot of effort into that.
• The majority of people in the U.S. don't own a gun (a recent Gallup poll says about 32%), yet there is extremely strong support from people all over the political spectrum in support of maintaining the Second Amendment, the right to bear arms, even though removing it would only affect a minority of the people. And only an extreme minority of the people who own a gun will ever need to use that gun for its intended purpose (self-defense).

And for ESO:

• The majority of the people are either free-to-play or only pay a little into the Crown Store, yet the developers put in tremendous amounts of effort to build housing and character customization options that only a small percentage of the players will ever buy or use. Since >50% of the people never buy those expensive houses and costumes, should they just not bother making them in the first place?
• The majority of the people don't download or use addons because they either don't know about them or don't want to learn how to use them, yet they coded an elaborate and highly useful addon system for PC and Mac players (which, even if you put all PC and Mac players together, would still constitute a minority compared to the console players). Should ESO just ignore PC players entirely and stop supporting that platform because >50% of the player base plays on a console?
• The majority of the people have a fast enough Internet connection that ESO's previously bloated patching system doesn't bother them much, yet the devs went to a lot of trouble to make patches markedly smaller in a recent update. Should they have not have bothered?

I hope I've made my point. Just because something doesn't affect the majority of the people doesn't mean that it should be ignored. Minority opinions matter; minority needs matter; minority use cases of an MMORPG matter. Roleplayers are paying customers too, and to be honest, many/most roleplayers I know pay a lot more into the game than most typical content runners anyway, because we put a lot of effort into our characters' appearances and housing items.

So if ZOS is a for-profit company that caters to its paying users, and if they sorted their users by amount paid vs. category of player, I would confidently wager that roleplayers make up a larger per capita piece of ZOS's revenue than the quantity of roleplayers would suggest.

So yes, I'm happy to concede your point that this doesn't affect the majority of the people, but that doesn't weaken the argument in favor of maintaining 24-player groups, or introducing a viable compromise like Social Groups.

Ryath_Waylander

A 12 person limit is a TERRIBLE idea. It will kill our Guild WB/Skyshard/Public Dungeon social runs. Not to mention the fact that some of those runs are streamed but they are all for FUN! Please don't take away fun things

Olauron

Anonx31st wrote: »

I just don't see this affecting the majority of ESO players?

Removing trials from the game will not affect the majority of ESO players. I am pretty sure that it will affect less players than the group size reduction.

jssriot

Other than trials that were designed for 12-person groups, I really think this is a bad change, for Cyro or for non-trial PVE. It's bad for social events and it's bad for group leading/management.

Please don't do this, ZOS.

observertim wrote: »

Unfortunately we are operating in a vacuum here. I would really love it if @ZOS_GinaBruno could provide or arrange for provision of the reasoning behind the change. It's probably something the Devs see a need for, but it would be far easier to swallow if we knew why.

Or not. ZOS' general lack of transparency aside, changes like this are usually because of other upcoming changes, and if they aren't telling us, it's likely either because those upcoming changes are not finalized (and thus may never happen) or won't be popular, understood or well-received. But between ZOS aggressively trying to grow the playerbase, plus companions and other features that will really change the game performance-wise, and the megaserver hardware upgrade (probably) later this year (if it happens), I suspect they are trying to reduce things that tax performance at cost of what we current players expect from the game.

anvilbert

Yep yep gotta give everyone and everything a good nerfing!! Can’t address the real problem on yet another performance issue, the servers. It is past time to upgrade the servers. But oh I’ m beating a dead horse here.

ZOS_GregoryV

Greetings all,

After removing a few posts, we would like to remind everyone that all posts should be kept civil, constructive, and within the Community Guidelines. If there may be any questions in regards rules, please feel free to take a few moments to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

JoeCapricorn

Given that guild's social events may be slashed in half with absolutely no explanation or apparent reason (as of yet), civil is the best we can strive for.

skyrimfantasy

Or not. ZOS' general lack of transparency aside, changes like this are usually because of other upcoming changes, and if they aren't telling us, it's likely either because those upcoming changes are not finalized (and thus may never happen) or won't be popular, understood or well-received. But between ZOS aggressively trying to grow the playerbase, plus companions and other features that will really change the game performance-wise, and the megaserver hardware upgrade (probably) later this year (if it happens), I suspect they are trying to reduce things that tax performance at cost of what we current players expect from the game.

This, but the lack of transparency is the issue. They can decide to make these changes for whatever reason, we don't have to like it. But just telling us it's going to happen without explanation is what is upsetting. We don't need a detailed explanation, even a simple "we will explain further soon" would help. But not being told any reason why, and then being ignored, is what is frustrating.

JoeCapricorn

The developers are busy with working from home. So don't expect a response for a while. I hope to see one soon, considering how many pages this discussion has got already.

JoeCapricorn

Still no acknowledgement of the huge mistake that is potentially limiting groups to only 12 players and thus hurting social activities of a wide range of guilds?

tyran404_ESO

Going to suggest feedbacking this as a terrible idea on the PTS every day at this rate.

JoeCapricorn

It's a terrible idea. I hope ZOS is reading this feedback and is planning on at least addressing the reason why they are making this change.

gariondavey

6 pages, 6.5k views, the majority extremely opposed to this change.

Hopefully zos pays attention to its customer base.
@ZOS_GinaBruno

Jazraena

To add my voice to the pool:

I roleplay. Usually, our groups are below 12, yes. Usually. But far from always. Just the other week we came to the end of a major story arc that, for reasons of plot, would have made splitting up not really possible, and we exceeded 12 people. 14 or 15 I believe. And that's just for the events of a reasonably small mercenary group. Actual community events, such as the Night of Lights in Solitude, or the Orsinium Crun Krazak tournament? Always more than 12 except once it's already dying down. More than once, even a size 24 group wasn't enough.

Limiting the size to 12 will just add extra workload to event organizers, slow things down, and require additional manpower for organization and crossposting. If you're going to do such, I strongly suggest to at least consider replacement solutions - social group, custom chat channels people can join - which is long overdue anyway - or similar matters.

Or, you know, don't reduce group size.

JoeCapricorn

Over 70% of players are against this change. Surely that means ZOS will listen and not let this change go live! I hope!

k9mouse

I enjoy playing in large groups -- the social aspect, share loot, and the XP. I hate the 12 person limit. Even the 24 person group limit is to small IMHO.

Jaraal

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

Over 70% of players are against this change. Surely that means ZOS will listen and not let this change go live! I hope!

Yeah they can't even be bothered to tell us why they are doing it..... just some arbitrary quality of life / quantity of fun nerf. And it apparently doesn't matter that most people are against it in Cyrodiil, where it's already implemented.

Just another ham fisted, tone deaf nerf from ZOS. But we should be used to that by now, right?

Sandman929

Jaraal wrote: »

JoeCapricorn wrote: »

Over 70% of players are against this change. Surely that means ZOS will listen and not let this change go live! I hope!

Yeah they can't even be bothered to tell us why they are doing it..... just some arbitrary quality of life / quantity of fun nerf. And it apparently doesn't matter that most people are against it in Cyrodiil, where it's already implemented.

Just another ham fisted, tone deaf nerf from ZOS. But we should be used to that by now, right?

I think it had a lot of support in PvP when healing was limited to group members, but since they reverted that there's no reason to keep the cap at 12.
This looks like ZOS trying to standardize the wrong way. If healing isnt limited to group, just revert the 12 person cap in Cyrodiil

Viana

This is an MMO - massive multiplayer. So if I am not allowed to play with a larger group of other people, why bother and not just play a single player game in the first place?
The opportunity to play in the Elder Scrolls world together with friends and guildmates is what makes this game great. But reducing the group size basically punishes having too many fellow players. Also getting into an existing group as a new player gets significantly harder when they have to worry not to grow their events too large.
The reduced group size complicates events both in guilds and especially between players which are not in the same guild (there are only five guild slots, after all).
Of course, every group activity happening now is still possible - but when things get more complicated there are less people willing to handle the organization. Therefore, this change will significantly impact group activities of all kinds in the long run, and hence prevent players to come together and join in the game.
Since this is what an MMORPG is meant for, I fear this change will diminish the community of active guilds and groups in the game and therefore harm the game itself.

RedMuse

One of my guilds tried doing one of their weekly WB tours on pts this week to see how it worked. Answer, it doesn't. Doing two groups isn't feasible and will be even worse on live. So either my guild can do one group half the size a week, which will destroy the social aspect of it, or just completely cancel the runs until this is changed back.

And that's just a minor thing. Stuff like the RP events are right out the window, they're simply not going to happen from now on if this goes through as holding them will become impossible. Which I fear with destroy a very lively guild as it is rooted in social events like this, and being able to accommodate disabled players with them. I know of no other guild who does this or are willing to go to the length this guild is, so honestly if this space disappears, which it most likely will, that will be a good deal of players leaving because it's the social factor that is keeping us here rather than everywhere else.
With the added hostility of the playing environment that this change introduces there are really nothing keeping most of us here.

A game like ESO survives on its community and social aspect, world and lore building second and everything else is a tertiary concern. That ZOS is willing to nuke the first aspect without even explaining why is worrying in the extreme.

LoneStar2911

Absolutely ridiculous change. I’m livid about it, and mostly because I know how it’ll effect others. This change needs to be reverted ASAP.