Does Zos listen to its player base?

Roztlin45

No they do not listen at all

I don't remember anyone asking for companions. It's a new world out there..

Amottica

Yes they do listen all the time

I think players get disappointed that their thoughts were not incorporated into the changes or that the developers need to make more changes based on input. That does not mean they do not listen as the developers see a bigger picture, which we cannot see as players, and have to work within a vision.

JJOtterBear

Depends on who the "playerbase" is in this context. Just pvp'ers? Just veterans? Or all of us?

Ratzkifal

Yes they do listen all the time

They listen, but they don't always understand.

kargen27

Yes they do listen all the time

Roztlin45 wrote: »

I don't remember anyone asking for companions. It's a new world out there..

Took about a minute to find a poll about how companions should be put into the game that was done in 2015. People have been asking for companions almost from day one.

WeerW3ir

They do not listen. Never did. They more likely consider it. Consider it how it would be good for Both side. (hahaha, no)

Beside the companions in eso is a literal castrated out version of any companion from other mmos. Currently they are not even good enough to be a decent cannon fodder. The rapport system is a joke, you not reach anything with it. Hell. They wont even say different lines if you have higher rapport or maximum rapport. Just the same "im very confident on your side line"
But thats it. Nothing more. Not sharing stories, not sweettalking you. Not even can count on them with hey. Grab this or what do you think about our current situation. Cuz yes. Adding comments on your current quest. Even if just main quest. Would add a lot. 4 topic overall on them. No comment

ADarklore

No they do not listen at all

I remember laughing when I saw a Youtube interview with Brian and him saying that they 'listen to our players'... when anyone who participates on the PTS KNOWS that they do not!! Only when it's a "bug" do they listen... but if it's pointing out over-nerfing or over-buffing, or how certain changes will cause issues if it goes LIVE... they do not listen, period. PTS is solely for finding bugs, not for people to input their experience with the changes or pointing out how the changes are bad.

ZOS seems to make a decision and moves full steam ahead... and many times I've seen the completely reverse course a couple months later- due to the exact things that were pointed out by players on PTS. So perhaps it my behoove ZOS to take those players input into consideration before allowing bad decisions to reach LIVE.

Tommy_The_Gun

It seems to be at random or it is mere coincidence if they do.

I mean there are some good examples of ZOS listening to player feedback, but for 1 thing that they changed due to player feedback, there 10 things that they did because... why not ?


Edit: maybe it is because ZOS does not know what feedback is a "good" feedback and what is simply a "nerf demand" disguised as feedback (example nerf WW sorc nb etc.)

JJOtterBear

You also have to consider that listening to players does not equal doing anything players demand.

WeerW3ir

JJOtterBear wrote: »

You also have to consider that listening to players does not equal doing anything players demand.

Yeah. That would make sense. But do you remember the mael arena weapons fiasco?
The entire community was enraged, they wanted zos to do it properly. What we got? Nothing. They did not listen at all. What we got is a short answer from B.W. and that was it.

So yeah. As i said earlier they only consider it but never do it. Its basicly the usual we do that what we and that 1% percent of player base who we "support" think is good. Its always like this.

On the rest 99% they only listen to the bug reports and not the game building l.

kojou

Yes they do listen all the time

They listen, but it is a bit like wishing for something with a cursed monkey paw.

Shantu

No they do not listen at all

I suspect the more accurate answer to the question is more nuanced than the binary option provided. Who knows? But given their communication and behavior, apart from the moderators, it sure feels to me like they don't pay much heed to anything that goes on here.

francesinhalover

Togal wrote: »

Just wondering how much zos listens to its players, please use the poll!

where's the "sometimes" option?

tomofhyrule

"ZOS listens to players" =/= "ZOS does everything the forums suggest"

Some of the things the players ask for are easy and it's completely bizarre that they haven't done it yet since it would make people incredibly happy and is mostly cosmetic. "Please release NPC hairstyles!" "Please give us the hide shoulder option that's in the dev kit!" "Please make more available in the store!"

Some of the things the players ask for aren't trivial and there's a lot of stuff they need to do behind the scenes to get them to work, probably because of spaghetti code. "Please release class change tokens!" "Please release the group mount!"

And then there are the complaints that players think is for the good of the game, when it's really only good for a specific subset of players and will end up disenfranchising others. "Please give us non-DLC random queue!" "Please make everything harder!" "Please nerf this specific class that killed me in PvP!"

ZOS has listened before, but this is not a community-run game. There are some changes they've made for the community though, and there are other changes that they won't do for a reason that we don't know. While it may help if they came down and said why they won't, it won't stop people from claiming "ZOS isn't giving me what I want so they never listen to their playerbase!"

...but if anyone from ZOS is listening, you should totally do the stuff in that first category. I need more cosmetics plz.

grizzledcroc

Roztlin45 wrote: »

I don't remember anyone asking for companions. It's a new world out there..

Games been out 6 years, its shown up here and there with people saying its not possible lol

daim

NO - they don't listen enough when we are reporting bugs, especially about the ones that have plagued the game for years.
YES - they listen too closely to the people whining about class X skill Y being overpowered. It's a never ending process.

peacenote

Yes they do listen all the time

Ratzkifal wrote: »

They listen, but they don't always understand.

This. They don't always listen to the right people, or understand what truly causes the behaviors they are trying to change, and often it seems one department doesn't communicate with another. Most of all they seem to often have blinders on, and implement solutions that try to address specific comments without understanding unintended consequences. And THEN sometimes the player base can see it but they can't reverse course, and then it looks like they don't listen. **cough PTS Cycles cough**

But they definitely listen and try to act on feedback. Everything from player housing to the reversal of the proposed LA/HA changes shows this.

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

No they do not listen at all

They listen to the marketing department I believe.
'So when do you need this DLC update?'
'In a month!'
'Oh sheesh'

Artim_X

They listen some of the time, but mostly to their numbers and significant player backlash.

Destai

Yes they do listen all the time

They're a data-driven company like many modern corporations. Those metrics guide a lot of their decisions, especially in the Crown Store. And even recently, I think it was Rich Lambert saying how they look at add-ons for inspiration.

Beyond those, they do listen many of our wants and demands, albeit often in a very delayed fashion. The best example of this is One Tamriel. People were quite vocal early on that this needed a more open experience, with a bigger focus on PVE. Then the game didn't perform well, and then the game changed direction as needed.

Now we have PTS forums here. The impression myself and many others have is that PTS feedback is inconsistently implemented. There's countless examples from Wayshrine placement to the new tutorial. The same feedback then carries on for years, foments here as frustration.

I don't think any reasonable person expects every request here to be honored, but there's a lot of preventable frustration if they'd just recognize pain points earlier rather than sticking to their guns against our wishes.

Eevee_42

No they do not listen at all

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect devs to be able to listen to every single request and desire from players. The issue for me is the total lack of communication on highly requested and discussed topics. If there’s a large scale issue for the playerbase, we might get a vague response about it in 6 months (and even that hardly happens). It makes us feel like we aren’t even worth the amount of time it would take them to write a 5 minute explanation. At the end of the day, they mostly care about their small clique of streamer buddies and any outside opinion is ignored. The only thing most of us are to ZOS are dollar signs and statistics.

Side note, I seriously want to know who asked for companions to be the “system” for Blackwood? Anybody?

cyberjanet

No they do not listen at all

"They listen occasionally after being endless harangued" should have been an option.

They did introduce houseguests, which was something people were asking for on the forums.
They did introduce jewellery grains into writ rewards to make them more available, though it hasn't helped the pricing much.
The drop rate for housing materials seems to have improved somewhat, though I would still like recipes for those, converting all my ta runestones into mundane runes, for example.

But they've never fixed the spelling of Hors d'oeuvre (that's the correct spelling, the one they use is so bizarre I have no way to remember it).
And they still insist that everything should be RNG dependent.

Tandor

Yes they do listen all the time

Yes they always listen to the forum, and I'm happy with that. No, they don't always follow the forum and I'm happy with that too.

A lot of good ideas have been picked up off the forum, and a lot of bad ones have been ignored. However, that's just my subjective opinion based on my preferred playstyle and I'd far rather they weren't unduly influenced by subjective opinions from a particular viewpoint but combined their vision for the game with a balanced perspective from the players here and elsewhere including ingame metrics.

A_Silverius

No they do not listen at all

Not even sure if they listen to themselves tbh.

Rasande_Robin

Yes they do listen all the time

They listen to much I'm afraid.

coop500

Yes they do listen all the time

Needs a third option, they listen SOMETIMES and admittedly it's a combo of, they listen too much to the PVP cries and not enough to the PVE cries. (With some exceptions on both sides, performance for PVP, some other stuff for PVE)

kargen27

Yes they do listen all the time

WeerW3ir wrote: »

JJOtterBear wrote: »

You also have to consider that listening to players does not equal doing anything players demand.

Yeah. That would make sense. But do you remember the mael arena weapons fiasco?
The entire community was enraged, they wanted zos to do it properly. What we got? Nothing. They did not listen at all. What we got is a short answer from B.W. and that was it.

So yeah. As i said earlier they only consider it but never do it. Its basicly the usual we do that what we and that 1% percent of player base who we "support" think is good. Its always like this.

On the rest 99% they only listen to the bug reports and not the game building l.

That short answer is proof they listen. It wasn't the answer you wanted but it was an answer.

Biro123

The player base never speaks with one voice, one viewpoint.

If they asked us what shade of red the sunset should be, the answer would include all shades of red, green and purple, some stripes, checks, the odd polka-dots and a fish.

No matter what colour they eventually use, the majority of the player base would probably think they weren't listened to.

Sylvermynx

Biro123 wrote: »

The player base never speaks with one voice, one viewpoint.

If they asked us what shade of red the sunset should be, the answer would include all shades of red, green and purple, some stripes, checks, the odd polka-dots and a fish.

No matter what colour they eventually use, the majority of the player base would probably think they weren't listened to.

You got an awesome for that - gave me a real chuckle, it did! Entirely true too.

vgabor

Other: they kinda do, or at least try to, just many times don't manage to understand the most important parts, and most time the actual change implementation is either not enough or goes way overboard...