PTS Update 33 - Feedback Thread for Account Wide Achievements

alberichtano

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

I feel a smarter way of doing this would have been to create a quest that said something like "obtain all skyshards in x zone" or say x to n npc for y story state" so that interactions and other functions are tied to questing function results and not achievements.

In essence it would mean creating a new form of database, which would by necessity take roughly as much space as the old character achievement system, and would therefor invalidate the "gains" with the AwA, whatever they are.

Jaraal

Interesting that we are being redirected to the PTS, after this has gone live.

EngineeringElf

I feel that this change has limited the enjoyability for me while leveling up an alt. I used to enjoy completing old Delvs but since awa, I hardly ever see a delv boss anymore. Unfortunately I must agree that awa killed the fun of playing alts.... and I'm an alt-a-holic, or at least I was before this last patch.

Necrotech_Master

Jaraal wrote: »

Interesting that we are being redirected to the PTS, after this has gone live.

i also find that funny, im honestly suprised they havent made a specific feedback for AWA on the general forum, and zos wondering why the ascending tide feedback thread is like 90% AWA comments lol

Wolfkeks

Wolfkeks wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Million dollar question:

Has there been a noticeable improvement in performance, especially in Cyrodiil?

I don't think this change will affect perfomance in PvP or Trials a lot tbh.

During MYM on the live server Cyrodiil magically works, the new campaigns have less lag, less desyncs and less crashes and that is with the character based achievement system. So they showed us that they can make it work even if all my characters I drag into the campaign have different achievements.

Also they stated that it will take the whole year to fix the perfomance issues in PvP and Trials with a large test coming to PTS so I guess they didn't mean the AwA system.

ZOS_MattFiror wrote: »

We’ve been planning this for the last quarter and we’re starting work on it right now. But, as you can imagine, changing the fundamentals of a huge live game such as ESO is a delicate and multi-stepped process, so expect this to take up much of 2022. Much of the early work is going to happen behind the scenes and we are definitely not going to rush it. A re-architecture of this magnitude will require the entire game to be re-tested and evaluated, as this particular code is the foundation on which the game is built. It will take tons of QA and testing time as well, and I’m sure that when the time comes, we’ll do as large a test as we can on the PTS.

I think they mentioned in the Q&A that this had to do with the data in the database. I'm not a programmer so I don't know if upgrading the database would also solve the issues they mentioned though.

[Edited for Typos]

I wanted to give a small follow up to my earlier comment about the performance regarding AwA.

AwA was (partly) introduced to help performance and we had this discussion going on whether or not it would help with pvp (especially in Cyrodiil) and in Trials.

For me it actually feels like performance got worse in Cyrodiil (we actually encountered more desync bugs on the PC EU server and are still fighting skill delays, crashes etc). In Trials it seemed to be around the same though. As I don't play often on the PC NA server I can't say if this is just an EU issue again (like the ones we had in the past) but I've seen lots of comments from the NA crowd about performance issues in the forums as well.

While the faster loading times are nice it does not feel like AwA did a lot performance wise. At least on my end.

Would love if people could share if performance got better for them or not, because this could well be just an PC EU issue and I don't want to assume that the update did nothing if it helped with performance for everyone else.

Cheers!

LalMirchi

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Interesting that we are being redirected to the PTS, after this has gone live.

i also find that funny, im honestly suprised they havent made a specific feedback for AWA on the general forum, and zos wondering why the ascending tide feedback thread is like 90% AWA comments lol

I suggest that they move this thread to the general forum as that is possible with the forum software as I assume that "feedback is indeed important to them".

_Zathras_

LalMirchi wrote: »

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Interesting that we are being redirected to the PTS, after this has gone live.

i also find that funny, im honestly suprised they havent made a specific feedback for AWA on the general forum, and zos wondering why the ascending tide feedback thread is like 90% AWA comments lol

.. as I assume that "feedback is indeed important to them".

*spits coffee across my desk*

Actually they did make a sticky thread in General, which seems to be filling up with a lot of feedback.

I'm guessing that a new thread is easier to pick out issues, rather than wading through 94+ pages.

ArchangelIsraphel

Jaraal wrote: »

Interesting that we are being redirected to the PTS, after this has gone live.

I feel like it was done to reduce visibility of the subject in all honesty. Less players come here especially after things have gone live.

KMarble

Wolfkeks wrote: »

Would love if people could share if performance got better for them or not, because this could well be just an PC EU issue and I don't want to assume that the update did nothing if it helped with performance for everyone else.

Cheers!

I'm on PC/NA and haven't seen any improvement on loading screens or performance. That said, this week has been an absolute mess for NA players - long loading screens, DC'ing, problems with groups, group finder not working...

If there was any improvement to performance, it was negated by the general state of the game after the patch on PC/NA. Since some EU players are saying they haven't faced the same problems, I'm inclined to believe it's something to do with the NA servers and not the software (the game) itself.

peacenote

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

Interesting that we are being redirected to the PTS, after this has gone live.

I feel like it was done to reduce visibility of the subject in all honesty. Less players come here especially after things have gone live.

Yep. It's upsetting. And I have noticed that the people who are getting their topics closed are not migrating over here either.

Plus, now that the features are live, it isn't all one "AwA" topic anymore. There should be different threads about titles, navigating through the world, NPC reactions, etc. These are now all different problems in the game. The fact that they could have all been avoided by the refinement of a single feature is irrelevant at this point.

SilverBride

KMarble wrote: »

Since some EU players are saying they haven't faced the same problems, I'm inclined to believe it's something to do with the NA servers and not the software (the game) itself.

The NA servers didn't have these issues until this update. I don't know why EU isn't having these issues or why the EU server historically has more problems than NA. But something is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

proprio.meb16_ESO

Its a total disgrace people criticizing Awa are sent here to pts forum when their threads are closed.

As update 33 is live, pts discussion about it should be no more used to gather consideration about the trainwreck that has been brought live.

This is just ridiculous and add insult to injury. "Yeah put these lamentations here where no one cares (and which we have ignored all the time)"...

Hope all those directed here will want to post their thoughts also on the "Ascending Tide Feedback Thread" in general forum: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/599867/ascending-tide-feedback-thread#latest

Ugh_Tech

SilverBride wrote: »

KMarble wrote: »

Since some EU players are saying they haven't faced the same problems, I'm inclined to believe it's something to do with the NA servers and not the software (the game) itself.

The NA servers didn't have these issues until this update. I don't know why EU isn't having these issues or why the EU server historically has more problems than NA. But something is wrong and it needs to be fixed.

One reason might be, that the whole EU is located in three time zones (with the biggest part in UTC+1) while the US has five.
Another thing might be player's distribution over the platforms. If you have a perfect split over PC, PS and XBox load-related issues should be less likely to appear as if there are 50% of all players using one platform.
That beeing said I have to admit that the PC EU server was running fine the last months, at least when I was online. It has been much worse in the past.

ArchangelIsraphel

*tinfoil hat on* So, cold storage is being rolled out very closely after the release of AWA. Now, we already knew that cold storage was coming. But I have the unpleasant suspicion that AWA is directly related to cold storage, because they decided they wanted to store less data, and that the real "performance improvements" were not for players actually playing on a daily basis, but instead, were so that they could pull data from storage faster in the event someone decides to return. When they say "faster load screens" it doesn't nesscarily mean for a consistent player >_> <_< >_> *tinfoil hat off*

tmbrinks

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

*tinfoil hat on* So, cold storage is being rolled out very closely after the release of AWA. Now, we already knew that cold storage was coming. But I have the unpleasant suspicion that AWA is directly related to cold storage, because they decided they wanted to store less data, and that the real "performance improvements" were not for players actually playing on a daily basis, but instead, were so that they could pull data from storage faster in the event someone decides to return. When they say "faster load screens" it doesn't nesscarily mean for a consistent player >_> <_< >_> *tinfoil hat off*

I wish...

The COMBINED data storage needed for the achievements across all servers, even assuming all 20 million accounts have 18 characters is less than 10 TB of data.

Now, as a database that has to be accessed, that does have some size to it. But as static data for cold storage, it's literally nothing today.

As far as threads being sent here, I messaged Kevin about it, and got a "we'll bring it to the team", and threads are still being redirected here. So it appears they've made up their minds to sweep this under the rug and hope that we just shut up about it.

Every thread closed on it, every day we go without even a single word from anybody about this is just reducing the chances I ever give money to this game (and company) ever again. It's already moved from maybe... to doubtful... and is quickly coming up on a firm "no"

The problem, is that I have fun playing with the friends I've made in this game. I enjoy spending time with them. I don't want to give that up... and maybe that's what they're hoping for, we'll just "look past" this and still give them money. And sadly, I think most will for those reasons, so ZoS has just made a calculated risk and their MO is to keep quiet, because they know any official word is actually going to inflame things further

Jaraal

tmbrinks wrote: »

... and maybe that's what they're hoping for, we'll just "look past" this and still give them money. And sadly, I think most will for those reasons, so ZoS has just made a calculated risk and their MO is to keep quiet, because they know any official word is actually going to inflame things further

That's exactly how it works. But I no longer trust them with my money. They've proven that they have no qualms about revoking what you've already paid for (in this case, the ability to play the game from scratch on a new character). So why would I assume that they won't take away something else I paid for? That money is better invested on companies that value the integrity of your playing experience, and who look to add to their games, rather than taking away (including hardware to stay relevant with the changing times).

ArchangelIsraphel

Yeah, for all the reasons tmbrinks stated, I still don't believe this was ever truly about performance.... and if it actually is, it's sad that they can't get it together. I just don't trust anything they say any more. The game should have been upgraded long ago if this was really a problem.

At this rate I think the price of character slots should be lower for anyone who is still willing to even consider spending money on the game after this. The botched experience isn't worth 1,500 crowns >_>

Hymzir

I know that ZOS, as a corporate entity, is slow to respond. Anything official has to go through so many levels, and needs okays from so many people. So some "lag" in communication is inevitable and unavoidable - and even acceptable. It's just the nature of the beast.

However, the fact that they were happy to close the week without even a comment on this issue, not even a "we hear you and are assessing the situation", is not encouraging though.

If we don't get anything from them tomorrow, at the start of a new week, then it's going to be alarming.

Couple that with how threads about the issues are being closed, and all "discussion" (i.e. player base shouting into the void) is redirected to a PTS thread, does smack of a concentrated effort to sweep this under the rug.

ESO development has been notorious about its "devs know best and disregard the consequences" mentality for years now. All signs point to the fact that this is a done deal, and that ZOS is shifting attention to the upcoming chapter, and that the current strategy is to just ignore this debacle until it quiets down.

I guess we'll know next week. I'm willing to give them till the end of the month to explain what their plan is, but in my mind, I've already started to move on.

_Zathras_

tmbrinks wrote: »

As far as threads being sent here, I messaged Kevin about it, and got a "we'll bring it to the team", and threads are still being redirected here. So it appears they've made up their minds to sweep this under the rug and hope that we just shut up about it.

Every thread closed on it, every day we go without even a single word from anybody about this is just reducing the chances I ever give money to this game (and company) ever again. It's already moved from maybe... to doubtful... and is quickly coming up on a firm "no"

^^^

Sadly, the community put in every effort to communicate over ..what is it, almost 2 months now?.. and the contemptuous attitude towards their customer base remains.

They really are doing it to themselves.

KMarble

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Yeah, for all the reasons tmbrinks stated, I still don't believe this was ever truly about performance.... and if it actually is, it's sad that they can't get it together. I just don't trust anything they say any more. The game should have been upgraded long ago if this was really a problem.

At this rate I think the price of character slots should be lower for anyone who is still willing to even consider spending money on the game after this. The botched experience isn't worth 1,500 crowns >_>

(sarcasm on, big time) I guess they read your post because extra char slots are on sale right now.(/sarcasm)

Ngl, I laughed when I saw someone had tweeted about it. Seeing character slots go on sale after the mess with AWA was the icing on the cake, but the cherry on top? It's a very limited time, let's hope FOMO goes into hyperdrive, 3 day sale.

I cancelled my sub during the second week of PTS. I'll be honest, I wanted ZOS to do or say anything that would make me re-sub. Their actions (and lack of communication) so far tell me I made the right choice.

wolfgirlb14_ESO

Unfortunately, I already maxed out the character slots long before AWA was announced. Can't help but think maybe I wasted that money.

KMarble

wolfgirlb14_ESO wrote: »

Unfortunately, I already maxed out the character slots long before AWA was announced. Can't help but think maybe I wasted that money.

You're not the only one. I was trying to explain to a friend who doesn't really pay attention to things what AWA would entail and at some point he stopped me and said: "what's the point of having 18 chars, then?". Mind you, he still doesn't fully understand all the consequences of AWA.

I didn't buy character slots, but I did buy a desktop to be able to play this game better (ESO was the only game I played until 2 weeks into PTS).

I tend to be very careful about how I spend money - I started playing in 2018 and only bought SS after I was sure this was something I'd stick to. Every year since then I'd bought the year's chapter before release and had an ongoing sub since late 2018.

IF I'm still playing by fall, I'll buy this year's chapter when it goes on sale. As far as subs go, I might get one month during the anniversary event. Right now I don't feel like I got my money's worth.

Necrotech_Master

KMarble wrote: »

ArchangelIsraphel wrote: »

Yeah, for all the reasons tmbrinks stated, I still don't believe this was ever truly about performance.... and if it actually is, it's sad that they can't get it together. I just don't trust anything they say any more. The game should have been upgraded long ago if this was really a problem.

At this rate I think the price of character slots should be lower for anyone who is still willing to even consider spending money on the game after this. The botched experience isn't worth 1,500 crowns >_>

(sarcasm on, big time) I guess they read your post because extra char slots are on sale right now.(/sarcasm)

Ngl, I laughed when I saw someone had tweeted about it. Seeing character slots go on sale after the mess with AWA was the icing on the cake, but the cherry on top? It's a very limited time, let's hope FOMO goes into hyperdrive, 3 day sale.

I cancelled my sub during the second week of PTS. I'll be honest, I wanted ZOS to do or say anything that would make me re-sub. Their actions (and lack of communication) so far tell me I made the right choice.

the timing sure is weird, but ive always been on the fence about buying more slots because i felt they were kind of overpriced (like most things in the crown store) which is why i stopped at 10 (its probably related to try to appease the playerbase due to all the server issues the past week, unrelated to the AWA impressions)

but having the characters i do with specialized builds is nice to help work on the achievements

the one system i personally dont understand is the armory, i cant see myself changing my toons builds, going from a stam dk tank to a mag dk dps on the same character for example would just confuse the hell out of me (different skills on each bar and/or skills in different slots)

KMarble

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

the timing sure is weird, but ive always been on the fence about buying more slots because i felt they were kind of overpriced (like most things in the crown store) which is why i stopped at 10 (its probably related to try to appease the playerbase due to all the server issues the past week, unrelated to the AWA impressions)

but having the characters i do with specialized builds is nice to help work on the achievements

the one system i personally dont understand is the armory, i cant see myself changing my toons builds, going from a stam dk tank to a mag dk dps on the same character for example would just confuse the hell out of me (different skills on each bar and/or skills in different slots)

The timing showcases, at the very least, how tone death they are.

I never bought any extra slot because I saw no need for them. 8 are enough for me to try different classes and still have 2 slots empty.

I like the armory system. I have 2 sorcs - my main and one that I was hoping to make into a tank. The armory system allows me to set up my main (who has plenty of left-over skill points) as a tank and not have to go through the arduous process of leveling one from the ground up.

You can always slot the same skill on the same slot, independent of build (I do that for a few skills my different chars have in common). As for having different skills, it isn't that different than playing a different character. (and yes, I have a hard time remembering what each skill on each char does).

Kesstryl

Again, I'm begging you ZOS, please find some way to fix the remaining things AwA broke with alts and immersion. I know you have tight schedules and deadlines (seriously, you really need to rethink this story of the year thing and how it impacts the quality of your content and if you are biting off more than you can chew at this point). Budget for a couple more programmers, get some interns, heck, I'm sure there are software engineers among your players that might donate time to help with fixing bugs - please, anything, just please fix the bugs that AwA caused.

At this point I've already grieved and let go of my individual character achievements, but asking me to also play in a game world where the remaining immersion bugs affect my alts just rubs salt, alcohol, and acid into the wound. I just want to have the game world respond to my alts individually like it did before. While it does for the most part, the things that are bugged are too much to make me want to continue playing anymore. I haven't logged in on live for two weeks, and I don't have the heart to. I want my NPCs to have the correct reactions and chatter for each alt. All that takes is decoupling them from achievements and moving them to completed quests. Dungeon quests, skill line quests, story quests, all of it! I want Papa Ravenwatch to be there to speak to my alts one last time each play through of Greymoor and Markarth. I want Count Verandis and all the other locked out NPCs that only appear based on achievements to be moved to a quest, or even just a simple yes or no check in the database. Heck, just move them all back to individual characters and I'd happily do their quests all over again. Please give us our beloved NPCs back! You got what you wanted and deleted our data, just give us the same game world we once had so we can just move on!

Elsonso

This conversation is still going on?

In related news, since Update 33 drops on Console next week, I have completed deleting my alternates and am down to my main character and a red shirt on XBox.

Hymzir

Elsonso wrote: »

This conversation is still going on?

In related news, since Update 33 drops on Console next week, I have completed deleting my alternates and am down to my main character and a red shirt on XBox.

It's still ongoing, but it's not really a conversation.

Players have been testing things on their own, discovering what things are broken and which bits still work accordingly. Good news is, that it's not as bad as was feared, the bad news is that there is broken stuff and ZOS has not even acknowledged there being an issue at all.

The map is wonky and makes no sense, and once again, ZOS has not given any indications that it considers these issues as problems. Add-on creators have made things that fix the map for the most part, and provide means for individual character progress tracking, though those are of no help to console players.

And anyone who cared about achievements on an individual character basis, is just so outta luck. That just isn't a feature in the game any more.

So yeah, there is no real discussion going on, just people relating stories on how they are coping with the changes, or explaining why they've walked away from the game. That's where we at.

Merrypaws

This topic has pretty much been chewed to the bone, but I feel the need to add my voice to the choir.

I feel like this update is just making things more difficult for me.
I used to be able to just look at the map to figure out what quests I still need to do or what skyshards to collect in order to complete a map. Now, all the delves are already marked as completed, so I have to go diving into the lists of the individual skyshards or other data to see what I still haven't done with any new character.

Please fix this. There really should be achievements, such as the delves, which are character specific.

MrBunnyRampage

I enjoy the fact that one of my created toons was done by my daughter. Once in a blue moon she gets on and like to play. So she does her thing never really cared much about what she did bc it was all separate. But thanks to this update. I get to miss out on quite a few areas i have never been to. I have no clue what happen in thoes areas bc i didnt do it she did. I was a day 1 player on xbox. Played for about a year and took a break. I have sence been back for about 3 months. But ive only been able to actually play for maybe 30 days of the time total (i work alot). But thanks to awa. Im just [snip] (apparently saying the s word here is bad) out of luck when it comes to the things my daughter accomplished. Had i known 2 or 3 years ago what she was doing actually would of effect my account. Maybe i wouldn't have let her play. But bc she played when it wasn't a issue i have no issue. But now my only option is to delete my childs toon or let her login its a pretty messed up situation[snip] . Thanks for this wonderful feature ZOS

Ps if you are going to edit what i write dont change the tone of the post please.

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

wenchmore420b14_ESO

MrBunnyRampage wrote: »

I enjoy the fact that one of my created toons was done by my daughter. Once in a blue moon she gets on and like to play. So she does her thing never really cared .uch about what she did bc it was all separate. But thanks to this update. I get to miss out on quite a few areas i have never been to. I have no clue what happen in thoes areas bc i didnt do it she did. I was a day 1 player on xbox. Played for about a year and took a break. I have sence been back for about 3 months. But ive only been able to actually play for maybe 30 days of the time total (i work alot). But thanks to awa. Im just [snip] (apparently saying the s word here is bad) out of luck when it comes to the things my daughter accomplished. Had i known 2 or 3 years ago what she was doing actually would of effect my account. Maybe i wouldn't have let her play. But bc she played when it wasn't a issue i have no issue. But now my only option is to delete my childs toon or let her login its a pretty messed up situation[snip] . Thanks for this wonderful feature ZOS

Ps if you are going to edit what i write dont change the tone of the post please.

[Edited for Censor Bypass]

I really hate to be the bearer of bad news, but those things she did are account wide now and even deleting her toon won't reset it. Welcome to ESO Once... Sad....