Dear ZOS, Please Don't Ruin The Game For Roleplayers With 12 Person Group Limit

Sheezabeast

^ I would also like to add that emoting in zone is considered rude and bad RP etiquette and is why people moved to group chat and rping in homes, and why only 1 or 2 main cities have active open rp, because of how people grief them or consider it rude to rp in the open.

So saying to rp out in the open is still not really an option....it will be a forced option sure...but not for people who don't want to be griefed...

jssriot

BlazingDynamo wrote: »

Oh nooooo not the roleplayers

I'm not a RP'er but I think they deserve more respect than this. So please leave this sort of attitude at the door. They are part of the community and I dare say, one of the better parts of that community. ZOS wants this game to have active group activity and guilds and RP'ers do that, as much if not more than a lot of other players. They engage with the lore and content of the game a lot more than most and you'd think with how much ZOS put into creating this game, that would matter. And yet ZOS continually is screwing them over and frankly I'm sick of and I hate this for the RP community. I'm just so sick of ZOS' lack of imagination and preference to just take shortcuts to solve real problems so I completely support RP'ers here.

VaranisArano

Mahabahabtha wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Anonx31st wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Anonx31st wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

hexnotic wrote: »

maybe zos could add some kind of qol chat option where a person can open up a private chatbox and invite all of the people who are involved in the event? there could be a chat page for that group that shows the location of players etc. i’m probably making too much of a reach here but there’s gotta be some kind of further chatbox implementation that could remedy this?

That would help RP guilds, I suppose. But keeping track of everyone during a wb run would still be an issue, as would quest sharing.

It just means that better coordination is needed between two or more group leaders. I don't see this being a problem for players i.e. guilds with Discord voice chat.

Keeping track of everyone is already like hearding kittens. And not everyone feels comfortable talking on discord. So why make things harder on guilds events?

No this is just an awful and unneeded change.

Oh that was just an example. In-game text or just following crown has always worked before.

Only group members can see the Crown or read the group chat. So now, that's a max of 12 people, where before, it was 24 people.

So, yes, that's exactly the problem facing guilds now!

And Guild Chat ???

Using the Guild text chat is a problem, both ways.

1. It's the same problem, for the people who were running multi-guild events. We've heard from several guild officers who run those events on the various threads concerning this topic. At least on PC, it's pretty common to have "sister guilds" run by the same group of officers for when the original guild filled up with 500 people and more people wanted to join. People in other guilds can't read the guild chat. That's where Group Chat was really helpful.

2. It's the opposite problem, for the people in the guild, but not doing the event. The activity chat is now being broadcast to everyone in the guild. This makes a lot of sense for some guilds events, like Auctions or Trivia Nights. For stuff like scavenger hunts or World Boss runs? Or for roleplay events? Eh, that's less likely to be to the taste of guildies who aren't involved, and it really shuts down the use of guild chat for everyone not involved in the actitivty. Again, that's where Group Chat was really helpful.

BlueRaven

Mahabahabtha wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Anonx31st wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

Anonx31st wrote: »

BlueRaven wrote: »

hexnotic wrote: »

maybe zos could add some kind of qol chat option where a person can open up a private chatbox and invite all of the people who are involved in the event? there could be a chat page for that group that shows the location of players etc. i’m probably making too much of a reach here but there’s gotta be some kind of further chatbox implementation that could remedy this?

That would help RP guilds, I suppose. But keeping track of everyone during a wb run would still be an issue, as would quest sharing.

It just means that better coordination is needed between two or more group leaders. I don't see this being a problem for players i.e. guilds with Discord voice chat.

Keeping track of everyone is already like hearding kittens. And not everyone feels comfortable talking on discord. So why make things harder on guilds events?

No this is just an awful and unneeded change.

Oh that was just an example. In-game text or just following crown has always worked before.

Only group members can see the Crown or read the group chat. So now, that's a max of 12 people, where before, it was 24 people.

So, yes, that's exactly the problem facing guilds now!

And Guild Chat ???

Only works if everyone is in the same guild. And if guild chat is not being used for something else at that time.

LadySinflower

My guild likes to organize games in one of the members' homes, like a treasure hunt, trivia night, parcor challenge, etc. We've had people wanting to attend but could not due to the 24-person group filling up quickly. With this change we will be further limited in our group activities. Bad decision, ZOS.

NyassaV

Oh *** I didn't even think of this. Mostly cuz RP in ESO has sucked since housing came out.

Angelisaur

Maybe this has been suggested, but...I wonder if a possible solution to this would be to give us some sort of group linking ability, "squadrons" could be a name for it (I think GW2 does this?), which would be initiated and confirmed by the leader of each respective group. The groups would be displayed as separate clusters of names in the squad UI. There would be no mass XP gain or whatever the hell Zeni is worried about from the 24+man squadron, but it would open up a hypothetical "/sq" or "squadron" channel that everyone could chat in. Could even go so far as to make /gr1, /gr2 etc channels for the separate sub-groups.

Again, XP gain/buffs/whatever would be limited to the separate subsets of 12. If you're in group 1 of the squad, you get only group 1's bonuses. Squadrons would be purely an organizational and chat-restructuring tool. This way RPers and dolmen runners and the like get to keep the utility of large groups, and XP/buffs/etc gains are nerfed. Heck, the ability to chat in separate sub-groups would give us even more utility than we have now. Food for thought I guess.

Agalloch

Angelisaur wrote: »

Maybe this has been suggested, but...I wonder if a possible solution to this would be to do give us some sort of group linking ability, "squadrons" could be a possible name for it (I think GW2 does this?), which would be initiated and confirmed by the leader of each respective group. The groups be displayed as separate clusters of names in the squad UI. There would be no mass XP gain or whatever the hell Zeni is worried about from the 24+man squadron, but it would open up a hypothetical "/sq" or "squadron" channel that everyone could chat in. Could even go so far as to make /gr1, /gr2 etc channels for the separate sub-groups.

Again, XP gain/buffs/whatever would be limited to the separate subsets of 12. If you're in group 1 of the squad, you get only group 1's bonuses. Squadrons would be purely an organizational and chat-restructuring tool. This way RPers and dolmen runners and the like get to keep the utility of large groups, and XP/buffs/etc gains are nerfed. Heck, the ability to chat in separate sub-groups would give us even more utility than we have now. Food for thought I guess.

No!

ZOS must keep the current limit of 24 in PVE and also revert to 24 in Cyrodiil.

Squads could be nice if ZOS increase the limit to 48 ( 24 players and 24 companions as example)

Amottica

renne wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

renne wrote: »

I don't know how chat works in PC (if at all) but on console guilds have 4 channels that people can use to chat to each other within the guild without being grouped together. Guild chat is an existing thing. I don't know if it has a max number of ppl on it though.

And you can keep people together by travelling to a player via guild roster. So you could have multiple groups of 12 and still chat to each other and travel to each other. Yeah, it's an absolute pain in the rear but it's not like it's entirely stopped you from having over 12 people RP together.

Best case, they don't change it and it stays at 24. Worst case, there's easy enough work arounds.

On PC there is one guild chat for everyone in the guild. For open areas, there is Zone, Say, Yell, and Emote. There is also a zone for specific languages but all of this can be viewed by anyone. They are public channels except for guild which is private for up to 500 people.

The question I have, is there anything in-game to support roleplayers other than grouping?

I meant chat as in a talking channel, not the on screen text box. Hence "on console guilds have 4 channels that people can use to chat to each other within the guild without being grouped together". Channels. Chat channels. To talk to each other. With voices.

I do not think PC has VOIP. At least I have not seen the settings or heard others directly through the game. Then again I have very new to ESO.

zaria

I don't see the purpose of it. It has some purpose in Cyrodil, it spread groups out much more, an guild simply run two groups, but independent groups will often have other objectives. Them they made the hammer who bring people together.

However this is not an issue in PvE as its no performance issues overland.

peacenote

I disliked the change in Cyro and I hate even more what's being proposed now. Anything that makes grouping and collaboration harder in an MMO is a mistake. The groups don't hurt the solo players but this nerf sure hurts the casual groups as well as all the organized events being discussed. Just.... why???

Daraklus

RogueShark wrote: »

Group chat for rp = being able to DM/post for people potentially out of range without having to be disruptive and use /yell. It's very useful.

Lots of social, non-rp guilds use larger than 12 groups as well. Skyshard groups, wb killing, lots of other activities to help out newbies or finish achieves.

I don't understand this reasoning. You say it would be disruptive to use /yell, but how often do you see people typing in that channel, or how would it be disruptive in the first place?

In regards to the group size nerf? Well, can't say I agree with it, even as someone who has stopped Roleplaying ages ago.

Chrisbar

PS4 player here.
Speaking from the non-RP side of PVE: I'm Hunt Leader for World Boss hunts in my main guild and this limit will be detrimental to those events. Similar events impacted would be Skyshard or Lorebook hunts for example.

Leaving the group chat completely aside (though it's important!) We need to group everyone who wants to join in order to make sure everyone can 1) follow Crown on the map and 2) stay in the same instance when we use wayshrines.

In PVP, it's less important because the entire campaign is one instance but for PVE it's very easy to get disconnected from friends if you port somewhere while not grouped.

Reading this change was a big WTF moment for me and the other activities folks in the guild. I hope ZOS reconsiders.

Earthewen

Coorbin wrote: »

Hello ZOS,

Please understand that those of us who play this game to roleplay are going to have a very difficult time and will be hugely impacted in a negative way by your reduction of the group size limit from 24 to 12.

When we first read this patch note in the PTS server, we couldn't believe it. We thought it was a late April Fools' joke. Several of us suspected we were misunderstanding the patch note and there was no problem.

But upon closer inspection, it seems our worst fears are true. In every RP guild I've ever been a part of, we usually self-organize into RP groups for the purpose of maintaining easy location via the map for folks who are just joining or get disconnected, etc., and for OOC chat in group. This is true of both guild RP as well as open world RP.

When I find myself in RP groups, I'd say about 60% of the time the group has more than 12 people in it. Getting more than 24 in a group is very rare though, because that many people in a single RP setting becomes difficult to manage. But we do just fine with 12 or 15 or 18 people most of the time, especially when we establish some sort of social organization so folks don't just do their own thing.

This has worked very well for us for years, and many/most of us (I am part of a community with hundreds of players) have ESO Plus and pay a lot of money for housing, costumes, motifs, etc. so we can further immerse ourselves into the RP setting.

By reducing group size from 24 to 12, you will be hugely hindering the RP community, by requiring us to organize our OOC chat across multiple groups, making it harder for us to find the group leader, etc. It will just add a huge administrative burden to those who go to the effort to coordinate these RP groups.

I personally have over 5100 hours in ESO (per Steam) and have definitely felt the wallet impact of the crowns, etc. I've bought in this game. ZOS, we are many, and we pay a lot of money to your company because your game is a very good roleplaying setting for our community, and we care very much about maintaining that community for the long haul.

This will have an enormous impact on our ability to enjoy the game, and may result in the shrinkage of our community and the reduction of profits for ZOS. I strongly urge that you reconsider your decision before this patch leaves PTS.

I would rather have no new features and no companions than to see this change come to pass.

If you must implement this, give us a tool for organizing unrestricted custom chat channels with no player limit, or better yet, some sort of large group system that does not share XP or loot but does provide map markers and easy "taxi" TP functionality. Don't ask us to use /guild, please; we can have many separate RPs going on in the same guild at the same time, and that would be chaotic.

Thank you on behalf of the whole ESO RP community.

~Coorbin

Thank you for this thread. I must agree with you, but honestly, I never considered the impact on role playing when this changed for pvp. As a PvP player, I see the negative impact this has had on Cyrodiil in my opinion. When we could run 24-man raids, we could carry a few new players with us to help them along in their pvp game. With only 12 in group? Well, carrying a few new pvp players has become almost nonexistent. We still try, but it usually has negative effects on the group.

I'm still confused as to why this was done in the first place. No server improvement could be seen, and it forced people to zerg even more than in previous patches. Making this move to pve is just .... well ... why? It negates everything that this game was presented as at launch.

Tandor

Mahabahabtha wrote: »

So ZOS is doing now everything possible to make ESO a single Player Game....HOORAY maybe with Update 33 we all will get Elder Scrolls 6 on PTS .....

So reducing groups from 24 to 12 is making it a single player game? Really?

I wish people would make their minds up. First they complain because they can solo things like dolmens and world bosses in one shot and now they're complaining because they need another 23 players to do it !

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

It's the same old confusion.
Non PvP players are subject to group size changes and they aren't happy about it, I get it.

Talk about making a divide in the community....

Soldier224

I don´t know what it brings when Groups are smaller than 13 persons. More Performance? I don´t believe it. We Roleplayer need bigger Groups for organisation and privacy.

Coorbin

Tandor wrote: »

So reducing groups from 24 to 12 is making it a single player game? Really?

The single player game comments were hyperbole for us to make jokes with each other because we are so upset about this change. Also because we knew it was a strawman that people like you were going to attack even if we didn't bring it up.

Tandor wrote: »

I wish people would make their minds up. First they complain because they can solo things like dolmens and world bosses in one shot and now they're complaining because they need another 23 players to do it !

Other people may have argued in the past that people shouldn't be able to solo things, but that's never been my position, so don't ascribe a position onto me that I don't hold. Besides, my primary objection to reducing group size has absolutely nothing to do with game mechanics, and everything to do with social and roleplay activities. If you can't understand why someone would want to do those things, then you shouldn't be commenting in this thread to begin with, because you have no frame of reference to understand the reasoning behind the complaints here.

I have mentioned on more than one occasion that we would be fine with this change happening eventually if they provide an adequate replacement for the organization capabilities this feature gives us today. A simple example would be a sort of "social group" that is only used for chat and map marker purposes but with no impact on gameplay (no loot/XP sharing, etc.) We would gladly accept social groups with a 24 person limit as a substitute for 24 person groups as they exist today, but we would prefer if they leave groups at 24 people until they add in the replacement feature, so we aren't left out in the cold for an indefinite period of time.

Tandor

Coorbin wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

So reducing groups from 24 to 12 is making it a single player game? Really?

The single player game comments were hyperbole for us to make jokes with each other because we are so upset about this change. Also because we knew it was a strawman that people like you were going to attack even if we didn't bring it up.

Tandor wrote: »

I wish people would make their minds up. First they complain because they can solo things like dolmens and world bosses in one shot and now they're complaining because they need another 23 players to do it !

Other people may have argued in the past that people shouldn't be able to solo things, but that's never been my position, so don't ascribe a position onto me that I don't hold. Besides, my primary objection to reducing group size has absolutely nothing to do with game mechanics, and everything to do with social and roleplay activities. If you can't understand why someone would want to do those things, then you shouldn't be commenting in this thread to begin with, because you have no frame of reference to understand the reasoning behind the complaints here.

I have mentioned on more than one occasion that we would be fine with this change happening eventually if they provide an adequate replacement for the organization capabilities this feature gives us today. A simple example would be a sort of "social group" that is only used for chat and map marker purposes but with no impact on gameplay (no loot/XP sharing, etc.) We would gladly accept social groups with a 24 person limit as a substitute for 24 person groups as they exist today, but we would prefer if they leave groups at 24 people until they add in the replacement feature, so we aren't left out in the cold for an indefinite period of time.

I suggest firstly that you note the smile at the end of my comment about people making their minds up, and secondly that you then read my earlier comment which for convenience I quote:-

Tandor wrote: »

I can well understand (and totally support) the case put by role-players, but the argument put forward by others that they need groups larger than 12 in order to help new players with e.g. skyshards, dolmens, world bosses and achievements etc sounds like complete nonsense to me.

Coorbin

Tandor wrote: »

I suggest firstly that you note the smile at the end of my comment about people making their minds up, and secondly that you then read my earlier comment which for convenience I quote:-

My bad! It's difficult to understand sarcasm in these sorts of settings. There have been a lot of unkind posts so far with no regard for, or even active disdain for RP and RPers in this thread and a few others on the same topic, so I hope you'll forgive me getting a bit defensive.

I do apologize. And (RE: your earlier post) while I can't quite understand the use case for >12-person groups for defeating PvE game content either, I support the large contingent of folks who have, in good faith, said they needed it for their guilds.

The skyshards idea is not a new one; when I was a new player to ESO and didn't yet roleplay at that time, I occasionally gathered large skyshard gathering groups with my newbie-friendly social guild. Now that I have >5000 hours in the game, even though most of those were spent RPing, I have most of the skyshards in the game on two different characters (without buying them from the Crown Store) from leading those early skyshard runs. So I can see where they're coming from.

Tandor

Coorbin wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

I suggest firstly that you note the smile at the end of my comment about people making their minds up, and secondly that you then read my earlier comment which for convenience I quote:-

My bad! It's difficult to understand sarcasm in these sorts of settings. There have been a lot of unkind posts so far with no regard for, or even active disdain for RP and RPers in this thread and a few others on the same topic, so I hope you'll forgive me getting a bit defensive.

I do apologize. And (RE: your earlier post) while I can't quite understand the use case for >12-person groups for defeating PvE game content either, I support the large contingent of folks who have, in good faith, said they needed it for their guilds.

The skyshards idea is not a new one; when I was a new player to ESO and didn't yet roleplay at that time, I occasionally gathered large skyshard gathering groups with my newbie-friendly social guild. Now that I have >5000 hours in the game, even though most of those were spent RPing, I have most of the skyshards in the game on two different characters (without buying them from the Crown Store) from leading those early skyshard runs. So I can see where they're coming from.

Thanks, but no need to apologise, I quite understand the strength of feeling on the part of the role-playing minority in MMORPGs. While not actively role-playing, I always play on a RP server if one is available, there's just a greater sense of maturity - not least in the character names!

RogueShark

Daraklus wrote: »

RogueShark wrote: »

Group chat for rp = being able to DM/post for people potentially out of range without having to be disruptive and use /yell. It's very useful.

Lots of social, non-rp guilds use larger than 12 groups as well. Skyshard groups, wb killing, lots of other activities to help out newbies or finish achieves.

I don't understand this reasoning. You say it would be disruptive to use /yell, but how often do you see people typing in that channel, or how would it be disruptive in the first place?

In regards to the group size nerf? Well, can't say I agree with it, even as someone who has stopped Roleplaying ages ago.

It's almost akin to spamming zone: everyone in the area has to sift through yell. DM posts can be several paragraphs long. I've seen DM posts in yell get trolled back with yell. It's just better/easier are courteous to the non-RPers around to use group over yell.

Yell works in housing, not so much open world.

Niblix

Holup! There's more than 12 roleplayers?

PigofSteel

12 is more than enough

Gaebriel0410

There's a great many of us, yes!

In contrast to popular belief, most of us even do PVE and PVP too, imagine that! ^^

BlueRaven

Niblix wrote: »

Holup! There's more than 12 roleplayers?

Going by the way they keep introducing new costumes and the like, I would not be surprised if more people do RP than do hardmode trial encounters.

Amottica

PigofSteel wrote: »

12 is more than enough

This thread is discussing role-playing. Not PvP or raids. While more RP groups are smaller in scale I have seen RP groups larger than 20. There is no reason for a PvE group to be restricted in the manner being tested on the PTS>

RedFireDisco

I feel for you guys because I see you all get trolled HARD when you use public chat for RP.

I think they could've limited the group size to PVP where lag is life

peacenote

Youyouz06 wrote: »

It's the same old confusion.
Non PvP players are subject to group size changes and they aren't happy about it, I get it.

Talk about making a divide in the community....

I am confused about the PvP references in this thread because this has been done in Cyro as one of the tests a while ago. Doesn't that mean this change is specifically addressed at PvE?

Madhojo

Its not just roleplayers either, the guild im in holds nightly events which are an uproariously good time and always has more than 12 people.

Its quite literally the only reason I'm still playing this game even with all of ZOSs spiteful changes. I guess this is ZOSs way of telling me that they dont want me to keep playing (as if 2 days down for PS4 with no ESO Plus compensation wasnt enough of a hint).

I just dont understand how a company can be so anti consumer, only in the gaming world thats for sure.