What's going on with ESO's Development?

Stamicka

I think it would be helpful to the community if ZOS was a little more transparent about where development time is going. There is no doubt that less content is being including with each chapter release. The Patch Notes for High Isle felt especially lackluster and empty. This is something that confuses me quite a bit. It is unclear whether the devs are crunched for time or if the lack of content release is intentional. For some additional context, here are the Patch Notes for Morrowind in case you weren't around:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/345258/pc-mac-patch-notes-v3-0-5-morrowind-amp-update-14#latest

Morrowind had a tremendous amount of content in retrospect. CP got a minor rework, BGs were added, a new zone and trial were added, a new class was added, there were massive combat changes, many bug fixes, and that's only part of it. Morrowind set the bar very high for what I've come to expect from chapter releases. High isle/ Update 34 looks more like a minor DLC by comparison. So I have to ask, what's going on?

I would like to quote a post from the Update 34 Combat Preview thread:

ZOS_Gilliam wrote: »

Greetings! It’s about that time of year where the latest Chapter is coming up soon. The Combat Team would like to talk about some of the changes coming in Update 34 and provide some insight on where we’re coming from. We’d like to say now that since this is the big Chapter of the year, we’re continuing with last year’s approach where we slow down on the large-scale combat changes since there’s already a lot of new systems and features to take in. That being said, we still have quite a few smaller adjustments coming, focusing on the usual bug fixing and hitting outliers that are problematic for the game.

The way that this is worded makes it sound like slowing down on combat changes was intentional. This is bizarre, especially considering that there aren't really new features or systems to take in (I mean do I really need time to process the addition of a card game?). Why were Morrowind, Summerset, and Elesweyr all able to have both major combat updates as well as new features? It seems like the bar is being set way too low for the newer Chapter releases. I also doubt that bug fixes are taking up all of the development time since the previous chapters also had many bug fixes. If we are being honest, the game is only getting more buggy.

I understand that adding new classes or skill lines is currently not a possibility, however, this doesn't excuse the lack of change to existing content. So what's going on? Why are the new chapters so small and empty? Where is development time going? If the focus is performance, why are we not seeing any improvements? Please be more transparent about this sort of stuff.

NettleCarrier

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

ADarklore

I think when he said "large-scale" I think he meant making a lot of BIG changes. After hybridization, I think there needs to be time for the dust to settle before they can really determine what combat changes are needed next. With so many options now on the table, it will be hard to crunch numbers with so many players utilizing new builds at this time.

I also think a big reason for these smaller Chapters lately has been due to COVID restrictions and people working from home. As Matt stated in an interview, those 'water cooler conversations' can be huge in development- so without having a full team gathered together and able to collaborate as easily... I think it was harder for them to implement on a larger scale. When you try to compare that to Morrowind, which was NOT done during COVID restrictions, I think you can see the difference... even Summerset I thought was good. I think perhaps Morrowind set the bar a bit too high, same with Wrothgar, and we haven't really seen anything on that scale since.

I think there is a lot behind the scenes that we are not aware of and they probably don't want us to know about. I'm also sure, just like everywhere else, they're having problems with finding employees who want to work. So if you're down to a small team who cannot even collaborate directly in person, I'm sure it makes trying to develop a LARGE slab of content with tons of features impossible. They won't say that, however, they don't want to be negative and want to give the impression that 'all is perfect' behind the scenes... when I think we can all see that they're not.

Stamicka

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

To be honest, remote work shouldn't have this big of an impact on the chapter releases. Many jobs in the software engineering field were remote before the pandemic even started. It's one of those fields where work from home doesn't really have a huge impact if it has an impact at all. I'm sure this changes from company to company, so this is a big generalization.

What I can say for sure is that Greymoor was also a lackluster chapter. It became available for testing in April of 2020 which means it would have been in development before the pandemic. This makes me think that it is not a remote work problem at all.

NettleCarrier

Stamicka wrote: »

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

To be honest, remote work shouldn't have this big of an impact on the chapter releases. Many jobs in the software engineering field were remote before the pandemic even started. It's one of those fields where work from home doesn't really have a huge impact if it has an impact at all. I'm sure this changes from company to company, so this is a big generalization.

What I can say for sure is that Greymoor was also a lackluster chapter. It became available for testing in April of 2020 which means it would have been in development before the pandemic. This makes me think that it is not a remote work problem at all.

Yeah that's why I limited it to "some effect" because I don't buy into it much. I just know that if ZOS were to respond then they'd probably say something similar.

Marto

Stamicka wrote: »

The way that this is worded makes it sound like slowing down on combat changes was intentional. This is bizarre, especially considering that there aren't really new features or systems to take in (I mean do I really need time to process the addition of a card game?). Why were Morrowind, Summerset, and Elesweyr all able to have both major combat updates as well as new features? It seems like the bar is being set way too low for the newer Chapter releases. I also doubt that bug fixes are taking up all of the development time since the previous chapters also had many bug fixes. If we are being honest, the game is only getting more buggy.

Q1 and Q3 tend to have bigger, more widespred balance changes. This has been the case for... the last 4 years or so? Arguably longer.

I'd say Morrowind was the last chapter to have huge balance changes happening at the same time. Ever since, Q1, Q2 and sometimes Q4 have the biggest balance changes.

Furthermore...

More changes =/= Better
More changes =/= More effort

What I'm seeing in 8.0 is a massive amount of bigfixes to old content. NPCs and interactable items moved to better locations, assets being changed to be more accurate, objects clipping into the environment shifted and adjusted. I'm always happy to see fixes like that.

Ratzkifal

Slowing down the combat changes is intentional, yes. That's ZOS' way of listening to feedback.
Unfortunately ZOS is going about it the wrong way, as usual.

The issue when it comes to combat and balance is that ZOS always tried to do ten things at once during updates. They only get 4 major updates per year, so everything they wanna do needs to happen in those updates. The only issue is that combat is an ecosystem. Every change affects everything else, so making 10 changes at once completely breaks the entire ecosystem and by the time everything has normalized again, the three months are over and the next earth shattering bundle of balance changes arrives. So now they are slowing down balance changes so it's easier to adjust from one patch to the next.

But ideally instead of balancing everything at once ZOS would change things one at a time every two weeks. If for example healing is overperforming, you don't nerf healing, nerf the sustain, buff defile and increase burst damage in the same patch - you only try one of these things and look how that changes the situation. If that doesn't work you revert the change and try something else until you find something that does work. That is how things should be.

Uvi_AUT

When where the last big combat changes? I think it was the one where they changed the way buffs work? It feels like forever ago.
Did we ever get a new weapon? Or a skill-line that impacted combat in a meaningful way?
They dont need to slow down, they need to speed up. ESO is the slowest mmo when it comes to combatchanges I have ever played.

Gaeliannas

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

Well ZOS is an outlier if their folks got less productive working from home. Everyone I know got more productive, especially coders who now get to work in peace after attending their daily scrum.

tsaescishoeshiner

While skill hybridization isn't a new system per se, it is a major new paradigm. I'm happy we're not seeing big swings in skill adjustment like during the Elsweyr year, where DoTs were majorly buffed and then drastically nerfed from one patch to the next. People complained a LOT about major system-wide changes, and constantly talked about "build fatigue" because of having to change their build constantly. Slower changes sounds like the dev response to that. I don't care about more patch notes, just better combat.

They stated their combat goal for High Isle is to balance underperforming skill morphs, which is a good change and makes a lot of sense right after hybridization.

I agree that I would love an update about combat and where it's going. Two-three years ago, they began skill standardization, and we haven't gotten new combat skills lines since. Presumably so that they could overhaul the system first and make it easier to balance. An update on the roadmap would be great.

Has anyone tried the changes on PTS?

Jaraal

Gaeliannas wrote: »

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

Well ZOS is an outlier if their folks got less productive working from home. Everyone I know got more productive, especially coders who now get to work in peace after attending their daily scrum.

I believe you are correct. But the studio director specifically stated that work from home contributed to the problems.

It certainly makes one wonder, doesn’t it?

Gaeliannas

Jaraal wrote: »

Gaeliannas wrote: »

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

Well ZOS is an outlier if their folks got less productive working from home. Everyone I know got more productive, especially coders who now get to work in peace after attending their daily scrum.

I believe you are correct. But the studio director specifically stated that work from home contributed to the problems.

It certainly makes one wonder, doesn’t it?

Yes, it does. I inexplicably feel like a mushroom every time I read one of those posts.

katanagirl1

So, I have to ask...are they ever going back to the office? I mean, it’s been more than two years now.

TwinLamps

Well, they are adding new language.
Guess no more what if Soy Milk is just a regular one jokes in zone chat

Soldier224

ZOS has a problem of stagnation and servers. When the server would be fixed, i will forgive the stagnation for this year. But next year i want to see more. Already alone with Microsoft/Xbox as Publisher are my expectations bigger than before.

Wolfpaw

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

I don't understand this working remotely still, thing...I get up and go to work everyday.

A deadline for this remote working?

Charon_on_Vacation

budget is lower than it was before, and the company realized, they can have a niche as a playable cash shop and casual content mmo.
minimal investment for a good return.
of course they are trying to fix things and improve the game, but there just isn't enough manpower and money to do it properly.

SkaraMinoc

Wolfpaw wrote: »

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

I don't understand this working remotely still, thing...I get up and go to work everyday.

A deadline for this remote working?

Remote workers get up and go to work every day too.

Marto

Gaeliannas wrote: »

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

Well ZOS is an outlier if their folks got less productive working from home. Everyone I know got more productive, especially coders who now get to work in peace after attending their daily scrum.

Creative work is different.

If your job involves receiving emails and working on your own, then yeah, you can be more productive by working from home.

But if your work is to discuss creative ideas in a round table, spending half the day meeting different people, surrounded by whiteboards and drafts... a laggy zoom call is a poor replacement.

Wolfpaw

"One of the things you talked about in your High Isle presentation was the pandemic's impact on your team, especially for the Greymoor Chapter launch. Can you speak a bit about how the team is structured now? Are you still working from home, or is it a hybrid situation?

We're in a really good place now. This is essentially our third Chapter working from home, so we've learned a lot over that period and learned how to be collaborative. But also, some of us have started returning to the office. We're doing a very flexible, hybrid-type system with the team. Some people are in the office, some people are still at home, and it's working really well for us.

That's great. Would you say that productivity has gone back to normal pre-pandemic levels?

It's certainly better than when we were still in full lockdown. There's still things that we can improve on to get back to where we were beforehand, but we've learned to mitigate a lot of those things.

It's always an interesting topic to discuss in the post-pandemic world.

Yeah, it's such an interesting thing. When you look at it, you take for granted just how many game development problems get solved by the one-off ad hoc water cooler conversations. And when you can't do those because you're all at home and you're all far away from each other, it makes it really, really hard, and you don't realize just how important those conversations were."

https://wccftech.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-high-isle-preview-qa-fsr-1-0-support-card-game-and-much-more/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Celephantsylvius_Bornasfinmo

I think the game is winding down, it's been a while.
It's been over 10-12 years for some of the people working on this game. That's half your career time for some depending on age.

The crownshop, the sale of the company, the phrases that were used 'As long as people still play I guess we'll keep bringing stuff out'. I think this is the max we will get out of our 2014 game and other projects are lining up in the background.

Just my opinion.

Gaeliannas

Wolfpaw wrote: »

"One of the things you talked about in your High Isle presentation was the pandemic's impact on your team, especially for the Greymoor Chapter launch. Can you speak a bit about how the team is structured now? Are you still working from home, or is it a hybrid situation?

We're in a really good place now. This is essentially our third Chapter working from home, so we've learned a lot over that period and learned how to be collaborative. But also, some of us have started returning to the office. We're doing a very flexible, hybrid-type system with the team. Some people are in the office, some people are still at home, and it's working really well for us.

That's great. Would you say that productivity has gone back to normal pre-pandemic levels?

It's certainly better than when we were still in full lockdown. There's still things that we can improve on to get back to where we were beforehand, but we've learned to mitigate a lot of those things.

It's always an interesting topic to discuss in the post-pandemic world.

Yeah, it's such an interesting thing. When you look at it, you take for granted just how many game development problems get solved by the one-off ad hoc water cooler conversations. And when you can't do those because you're all at home and you're all far away from each other, it makes it really, really hard, and you don't realize just how important those conversations were."

https://wccftech.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-high-isle-preview-qa-fsr-1-0-support-card-game-and-much-more/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

Guess he is really dating himself there and it is quite telling of a lot of things if that is how they still conduct business. Problems haven't been solved at the water cooler for a very long time. Problems get solved in brainstorming sessions by getting the right people together to figure it out. Most creative companies had small meeting rooms or areas specifically for this purpose. All of which can also be done long distance in a Teams (or whatever) meeting, with virtual whiteboards and everything.

VaranisArano

Over the last several Combat Previews, ZOS has increasingly acknowledge the cost of "change fatigue" where players have to spend time and effort to adapt their builds to disruptive changes.

From the Update 32 Combat Preview, "In the last Update, we tried to keep things simpler with the number of changes to help combat the change fatigue many have reported, but progress cannot sleep for long as we march ever forward to improving the game."

It's a balancing act. ZOS always has stuff to change, but they have to respect that constant, disruptive meta shifts are fatiguing to players.

kwinter

I am glad they aren’t making big changes to combat. My hope going forward is they stick to small changes. Nice to have an update we’re you are not worried about the nerfs that force you to change everything about build

DagenHawk

Stamicka wrote: »

NettleCarrier wrote: »

I don't disagree, but I believe they are all still working remotely which does have some effect on the scale of chapters. I do think more time should have been put in and delayed accordingly but I guess they don't want to mess up their yearly release schedule.

To be honest, remote work shouldn't have this big of an impact on the chapter releases. Many jobs in the software engineering field were remote before the pandemic even started. It's one of those fields where work from home doesn't really have a huge impact if it has an impact at all. I'm sure this changes from company to company, so this is a big generalization.

Giant Huge Massive Gargantuan generalization...

xXSilverDragonXx

ESO is basically a cash cow at this point. I don't think they have any intention of making large changes to anything or even to care about smaller bugs that people can live with. And I don't think we will see more classes. Maybe we might get one more. Possibly two. But if you look at the design on the character creator, the six fit nicely. Almost as if that was their intended stopping point. I think if people keep pressing and sales drop they might add another class. I just don't think the game is going to get the TLC we would hope for.

VaranisArano

As for other Development issues:

In the background, ZOS is rearchitecting their code and refreshing the server. This is invisible work that we players won't see until it can be tested Live.

ZOS has mentioned that they are limited by older consoles. Here's a segment from a recent interview by Rich Lambert.
Q: Just to see if we can dispel one of the myths running within The Elder Scrolls Online community, is it true that you'd have problems introducing any additional skill trees due to the limited memory of old-generation consoles (PlayStation 4, Xbox One)?

A: "Nothing is impossible. I mean, we do have to be careful. There's only so much memory on those consoles for sure and we have to be smart about what we do. We do have a focus on performance and making the game run really well. So there's a balance."
https://wccftech.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-high-isle-preview-qa-fsr-1-0-support-card-game-and-much-more/


Finally, I think I'm noticing a trend where ZOS is starting to treat add-ons to previous systems as "value added" to Chapters. Antiquities and new Companions are both evergreen content that ZOS is adding on as value to High Isle.

Marketing Department: "Hey, look, you get two new Companions with High Isle! Totally worth paying the same $40 you did for Blackwood, and we'll even throw in a new card game!"

For some players, that's sufficient value added. For some players (like me), a reskinned Companion with different quirks is not a new feature so it doesn't add value to the Chapter. (I feel like the French Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail. "We've already got one.")

Tales of Tribute seems set up as the same type of evergreen content where new cards get added to future content.

Tales of Tribute might be successful, in which case it'll probably be like Antiquities where the cards are added to new content as value added. Buy this DLC and you get powerful new gear sparkly new cards!

If it's not successful, I suspect it might follow the same path as Battlegrounds which was made a base game feature due to the lack of a competitive population.


So between the technical limitations from consoles, the ongoing behind the scenes work on the code, and ZOS' new emphasis on Chapter features that can have evergreen content added to increase the value of future DLC and Chapters, I'm not sure I'm expecting to see many more "one purchase and done" features like new classes.

ADarklore

VaranisArano wrote: »

As for other Development issues:

In the background, ZOS is rearchitecting their code and refreshing the server. This is invisible work that we players won't see until it can be tested Live.

ZOS has mentioned that they are limited by older consoles. Here's a segment from a recent interview by Rich Lambert.
Q: Just to see if we can dispel one of the myths running within The Elder Scrolls Online community, is it true that you'd have problems introducing any additional skill trees due to the limited memory of old-generation consoles (PlayStation 4, Xbox One)?

A: "Nothing is impossible. I mean, we do have to be careful. There's only so much memory on those consoles for sure and we have to be smart about what we do. We do have a focus on performance and making the game run really well. So there's a balance."
https://wccftech.com/the-elder-scrolls-online-high-isle-preview-qa-fsr-1-0-support-card-game-and-much-more/


Finally, I think I'm noticing a trend where ZOS is starting to treat add-ons to previous systems as "value added" to Chapters. Antiquities and new Companions are both evergreen content that ZOS is adding on as value to High Isle.

Marketing Department: "Hey, look, you get two new Companions with High Isle! Totally worth paying the same $40 you did for Blackwood, and we'll even throw in a new card game!"

For some players, that's sufficient value added. For some players (like me), a reskinned Companion with different quirks is not a new feature so it doesn't add value to the Chapter. (I feel like the French Knight from Monty Python's Holy Grail. "We've already got one.")

Tales of Tribute seems set up as the same type of evergreen content where new cards get added to future content.

Tales of Tribute might be successful, in which case it'll probably be like Antiquities where the cards are added to new content as value added. Buy this DLC and you get powerful new gear sparkly new cards!

If it's not successful, I suspect it might follow the same path as Battlegrounds which was made a base game feature due to the lack of a competitive population.


So between the technical limitations from consoles, the ongoing behind the scenes work on the code, and ZOS' new emphasis on Chapter features that can have evergreen content added to increase the value of future DLC and Chapters, I'm not sure I'm expecting to see many more "one purchase and done" features like new classes.

In regards to BOLDED... I'm glad you aren't the one making decisions for the company. Just because you don't use or appreciate Companions doesn't mean a huge percent of the population doesn't. They are not 'reskinned', they have different voice actors, different skills, different likes/dislikes... that's not a reskin, that's something NEW. Just saying.

Stamicka

VaranisArano wrote: »

Over the last several Combat Previews, ZOS has increasingly acknowledge the cost of "change fatigue" where players have to spend time and effort to adapt their builds to disruptive changes.

From the Update 32 Combat Preview, "In the last Update, we tried to keep things simpler with the number of changes to help combat the change fatigue many have reported, but progress cannot sleep for long as we march ever forward to improving the game."

It's a balancing act. ZOS always has stuff to change, but they have to respect that constant, disruptive meta shifts are fatiguing to players.

Sorry but the "fatiguing to players" excuse does not work. In my opinion, disruptive meta shifts are a product of poor development. ZOS makes combat changes with a huge lack of foresight which means they have to reverse what they do frequently. How did the devs not know that hybridizing would cause a serious healing problem in PvP? Any PvPer could've told you that. So now we need a patch to fix the PvP balance problem that came from hybridizing. The same thing happened when they decided to rework DOTs. They overbuffed the DOTs then the patch after they overnerfed the DOTs. See the pattern? Stuff like this wouldn't have to happen with the proper people in place to prevent the bad combat decisions from being made. The players always warn ZOS about bad combat changes before they're released live, so it's not like foresight is impossible. ZOS needs to put more effort or development time into making sure that their combat changes are beneficial, sustainable, and balanced. Instead they're using "change fatigue" as an excuse to be complacent. The only thing I'm tired of is the combat getting more watered down every single year.

DagenHawk

xXSilverDragonXx wrote: »

ESO is basically a cash cow at this point. I don't think they have any intention of making large changes to anything or even to care about smaller bugs that people can live with. And I don't think we will see more classes. Maybe we might get one more. Possibly two. But if you look at the design on the character creator, the six fit nicely. Almost as if that was their intended stopping point. I think if people keep pressing and sales drop they might add another class. I just don't think the game is going to get the TLC we would hope for.

Not white Knighting here, but...

Every successful MMO is a Cash Cow, also when fans cheer after a dev calls a bug that has been around since beta a "beloved feature" they sorta deserve what they get.

As for TLC I think yearly content (dose anyone else even try that?) may not be TLC but it certainly is more than most MMO's has.

Honestly every other Western MMO with the possible exception of GW2 is either a dumpster fire or dead right now...ESO gets more than most in the way of attention...given the current market it's all we can hope for. I mean sure you can stamp your foot and yell "not good enough" but you would just look silly and nothing will change.

Stamicka

VaranisArano wrote: »

As for other Development issues:

In the background, ZOS is rearchitecting their code and refreshing the server. This is invisible work that we players won't see until it can be tested Live.

Yea they're always doing "invisible/ behind the scenes/ background" work. I would be completely fine if less stuff was being released but the performance was increasing. This isn't happening though. We are getting less content AND the worst performance in the history of the game. In fact, each patch worsens performance. The server performance is not improving and has not improved in 6 years. I would expect to see the fruits of their "invisible" labor.