Can We Be Better, Please?

p00tx

I've played this game for a really long time, across two platforms, on NA and EU across these platforms. I've extensively played PvP, gotten every trifecta in the game except the newest one so far, and completed Cadwell's Gold more times than I'm comfortable admitting. I love this stupid game, and it shows. I've dedicated a lot of time to so many aspects of it, mastering it, giving time and energy and money to the game so that my efforts will be rewarded with enjoyment and a sense of accomplishment when I complete or master another portion of the game. It's how I choose to spend my free time, so my reactions to the destruction of this game are my own, and I reserve the right to be visibly upset by changes which negatively impact the game, and I think my years of experience across so much of the game gives me enough credentials to know when something is bad.

Is screaming at the devs or calling for firing them helpful? Probably not. Do I blame people for reacting that way? Not even a little. We're being met with the same nasty energy from multiple devs on Twitter right now in a super unprofessional display of hostility. They made a mistake with this patch. It happens. No one is perfect and we all get a mulligan. No big deal right? Egos are involved now though, and they're doubling down on their very clear hostility toward a part of the community and their insistence that these are good changes, and it's absolutely NOT OKAY, under any circumstances.

I've seen enough of these patches to know where this is leading if we don't take drastic action and make a lot of noise. While some of us are being constructive and taking to the PTS to get some real data to show them, we still need people making noise and keeping their attention so they don't pat themselves on the back for a job well done and go ahead with this monstrosity. I'm not going to have a meltdown or make threats or insult people, because that would be petty and childish (I'm looking at you, Twitter Kings), but I'm also not going to fault the rest of the paying community for doing what I'm not willing to do. Keep it up guys. You might be what saves this community in the end.

etchedpixels

starkerealm wrote: »

The customer is entitled to a product. If that product does not meet their expectations, they are not obligated to continue paying.

It's not an product it's an online service. Read the small print. Online services in the US (and in general in the EU) are almost completely unregulated. They can if they wish get up tomorrow morning, turn it off and go home and there is nothing you could do about it.

Mr_Stach

Attacking, provoking, or just being unpleasant to Zos Employees isn't needed. But they need to know where people stand and that can be done constructively.

I've done my feedback, I openly disagree with Zos' Design Philosophy for Combat Balance. I think the game is headed in the wrong direction and due to that direction, people will stop playing, this is not due to the game being too difficult or the community being toxic, it falls to the Community not feeling heard and the game heading in a direction that is Boring.

Light Attack Weaving being unimportant, 20s DoT's and AoEs, if Zos is going to design combat around these concepts, it will be boring and people will leave, that's my critique. And if it's not, then people will not be able to beat it due to being severely weaker than they were a patch ago.

starkerealm

etchedpixels wrote: »

starkerealm wrote: »

The customer is entitled to a product. If that product does not meet their expectations, they are not obligated to continue paying.

It's not an product it's an online service. Read the small print. Online services in the US (and in general in the EU) are almost completely unregulated. They can if they wish get up tomorrow morning, turn it off and go home and there is nothing you could do about it.

Okay.

See if this makes sense.

If you are paying for a service, you are entitled to receive that service. If the company providing that service degrades the quality of that service, you are under no obligation to continue paying them for that service, and you are entitled to tell them that you are discontinuing that service because they are no longer providing the service you were willing to pay for.

Do you understand that?

It doesn't matter if you call it a service or a product. If you're paying for something, you are entitled to whatever you agreed to purchase, be that a service or a product.

Deter1UK

Don't panic - It's written on my towel!

I wached a streamer last night take a group through several DLC vet dungeons on the PTS, it seemed fine to me and they seemed to manage with their usual aplomb.

Riptide

I tell ya, as having ran a software services company and sitting on the board of one, I seriously chuckle out loud at what would have happened or would happen if the face of the company made multiple public gaffes and we fundamentally changed those services once a year.

I swear we chose the wrong industry

starkerealm

Deter1UK wrote: »

Don't panic - It's written on my towel!

I wached a streamer last night take a group through several DLC vet dungeons on the PTS, it seemed fine to me and they seemed to manage with their usual aplomb.

I'm not panicked, I'm depressed.

You're talking about Xy? Dude parses over 100k on live. The people that far up the line aren't getting personally crippled by these changes. Also, the dungeons he was running only expect about 20k DPS from the player, more is better, sure, but it's not a line between what you can and can't do. Beyond that, the tank in his team was struggling on vDoM. That's a really rough dungeon to tank, if the damage isn't there.

At the same time, I'm looking at my raid group, most of them are running his builds, we've got two... maybe three, that will still be up to snuff for trials if this hits. You can't run a trial with 3 DPS.

And when you're looking at people getting knocked from the mid 30s down to under 20k, yeah, that is slamming the door on players, and telling them to leave. Unsurprisingly? Many will.

That's the part about this that's depressing. Friends are going to leave this game because Brian just told them to get out. When your friends leave a game, you've got a choice between going with them, or hanging out alone. Thanks to Brian's crusade against the endgame community, I've done the hanging out alone thing more times than I'd like to admit, and it's gotten pretty depressing.

So, I'm not panicked, I'm just depressed, because if Brian gets his way I'm going to be here alone again, asking myself if I really like the remnants of this game enough to stick around grinding out endeavors and hoping things get better someday.

ZOS_Lunar

Hello!

After some review, we would like to remind everyone that all posts should be kept civil, constructive, and within the guidelines of the Community Rules we have in place. It's never appropriate to resort to personal comments or jabs about those participating in the thread discussion, whether they be ZOS staff or your fellow community member. This is neither constructive nor in spirit of our game and community. We encourage you to share feedback, suggestion, and requests with us, but we expect all of our community members to refrain from resorting to demands or threats.

Thanks for your understanding,
Lunar

Agenericname

starkerealm wrote: »

Deter1UK wrote: »

Don't panic - It's written on my towel!

I wached a streamer last night take a group through several DLC vet dungeons on the PTS, it seemed fine to me and they seemed to manage with their usual aplomb.

I'm not panicked, I'm depressed.

So, Marvin?

Sorry, great book.

Sheezabeast

I find this community really silly. When AWA dropped, I said they were making the game simpler across the board, and my ire for AWA grew. People shouted me down and my posts got deleted, because it was offensive to say the game was being made easy.

[snip]

[Edit for minor bait.]

blktauna

Yes Xynode is a secret wizard and what he can do, plebs like me only hope to get to half of. This is the problem. We can't now. I gave a swift test on PTS of PVE & PVP stuff I can do easily on Live and to say the results were startling is an understatement.

And startling in a not good way.

I don't parse, I just played as normal and I was wholly unable to deal with resource bosses in PVP that I could deal with on live. My AOE in PVE was drab and required me to work a lot harder to clear the content although I was actually able to clear it. It was noticable and I didn't enjoy it at all.

If there's an actual roadmap for combat I'd love to see it because their past sets of changes have been little more than doing x, reversing x, trying x+2, reversing x=2 and its tedious and annoying.

I asked several times in stream for the outline of their combat plans and Gina relayed that at least once. That Wheeler guy made a face that pretty much explained his attitude quite clearly.

Dark_Lord_Kuro

Carcamongus wrote: »

Devs are in charge of working on a product for paying customers, so they're valid targets of criticism. On the other hand, they're also human. Players are entitled to be upset when something that's dear to them is undergoing changes they see as detrimental. These fairly obvious statements are a prelude to my point.

When expressing criticism, there's an optimal range between the extremes of rage and apathy in which the odds of your views being taken into consideration are higher. Far from me to tell angry people they shouldn't be angry. What I'm trying to say is if you add too much anger to your statement, your target will get on the defensive and possibly dismiss your views as unreasonable. This isn't about how one should feel, but rather a better way to voice one's dissatisfaction. Several people already wrote posts that fall in that optimal range and more such examples would only strengthen the critics' side.

Of course, it's perfectly possible for the devs to ignore a point no matter how thoughtfully and reasonably it's written. But then that's on them, as the players did their part.

Of course nobody is asking to not give your opinion
Its just never ok to be rude or inulting toward dev o anybody else

starkerealm

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Its just never ok to be rude or inulting toward dev o anybody else

So, it's fine for devs to be rude and insulting towards us, but they enjoy special protections, elevated above the consequences of their actions?

And, just to be clear, I'm usually someone who'd agree with you on this topic.

Riptide

Sheezabeast wrote: »

I find this community really silly. When AWA dropped, I said they were making the game simpler across the board, and my ire for AWA grew. People shouted me down and my posts got deleted, because it was offensive to say the game was being made easy.

Now.....now the same people who were in denial about AWA lowering the skills needed to do things are surprised by ZOS doing this? So rich....so freaking rich. You got what you wanted...you got exactly what you wanted. You just don't like that it's coming for a part of the game you feel passionate about.

Sounds like you got what you wanted

I was on hiatus when AwA dropped, but what does having master angler on your level 5 toon have to do with releasing a broken mythic in its cracked state despite months of warning from the community, and then tuning combat power creep in the most comprehensively byzantine way imaginable? Necessitating rebuilds and wasted resources - right on the heels of an expansion?

I presume there were combat tunings concurrent with AwA?

starkerealm

Riptide wrote: »

I presume there were combat tunings concurrent with AwA?

There were. Ascending Tide saw the introduction of intelligent cross stat scaling for most abilities. Though, identifying that as "AwA" is kinda weird. Like, it was an entire DLC, AWA was a QoL feature, so, equating that specific QoL feature with the combat rebalance is weird.

Riptide

Well cross scaling still seems like a pretty weird to me, but I don’t think any of my titles help my deeps much. I might be tempted to cycle through them soon though

starkerealm

Riptide wrote: »

Well cross scaling still seems like a pretty weird to me, but I don’t think any of my titles help my deeps much. I might be tempted to cycle through them soon though

The cross-scaling did have some detrimental effects. It caused some sets to become more attractive for both stam and mag, leading to a degree of homogenization that didn't used to be there. It also caused some abilities to become the most attractive option for stam and mag. You get the idea.

It did simplify the game, though at the same time, it's not something I'd categorize as a bad thing (overall), because it did help pave over one of the more obtuse elements of the game's design.

This just paves over the players and leaves our damage floor somewhere underground, so I'm not really seeing the comparison there.

Back when AWA was on PTS, there were a lot of people who were really upset about their achievements being account wide (which, fair), but I don't remember seeing much pushback on the scaling changes.

Pevey

OMC, one of the largest endgame carry servers on PCNA, just closed down. Are we really gloom and doomers who are just crying wolf? Or maybe people really, really don't like these changes. Enough that they would rather just go do something else.

Edit: Just to clarify, it may be just that they ended their partnership with another guild due to the lack of players. Not shut down completely. Not yet, at least.

Mr_Stach

Pevey wrote: »

OMC, one of the largest endgame carry servers on PCNA, just closed down. Are we really gloom and doomers who are just crying wolf? Or maybe people really, really don't like these changes. Enough that they would rather just go do something else.

In some circles "Gloom and Doomers" and "Crying Wolf" are the same thing lol

But really for some people the Combat Balance is getting to a Breaking Point, it may bounce back, but hopefully they do some drastic Course Changing Here.

p00tx

Pevey wrote: »

OMC, one of the largest endgame carry servers on PCNA, just closed down. Are we really gloom and doomers who are just crying wolf? Or maybe people really, really don't like these changes. Enough that they would rather just go do something else.

Edit: Just to clarify, it may be just that they ended their partnership with another guild due to the lack of players. Not shut down completely. Not yet, at least.

It closed because many of us have discontinued our subs and closed our accounts down. There aren't enough of us left to run the carries. Lots of raid teams have disbanded as well. This whole thing, and the tacky response to it, have effectively done what the devs wanted. Endgame is looking pretty toast right now. It's not "doom and gloom" anymore. This is just what's happening right now, unfortunately, and I'm not sure there's a way back from it, even if they reverted every last one of the changes. Once you've burned your paying customers like that, companies don't tend to bounce back well unless they go through a rebranding.

starkerealm

p00tx wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

OMC, one of the largest endgame carry servers on PCNA, just closed down. Are we really gloom and doomers who are just crying wolf? Or maybe people really, really don't like these changes. Enough that they would rather just go do something else.

Edit: Just to clarify, it may be just that they ended their partnership with another guild due to the lack of players. Not shut down completely. Not yet, at least.

It closed because many of us have discontinued our subs and closed our accounts down. There aren't enough of us left to run the carries. Lots of raid teams have disbanded as well. This whole thing, and the tacky response to it, have effectively done what the devs wanted. Endgame is looking pretty toast right now. It's not "doom and gloom" anymore. This is just what's happening right now, unfortunately, and I'm not sure there's a way back from it, even if they reverted every last one of the changes. Once you've burned your paying customers like that, companies don't tend to bounce back well unless they go through a rebranding.

It's even worse with endgame communities in situations like this. There's a serious brain drain effect; people take their knowledge and leave. Combine that with balance changes that are increasingly restrictive, and it's harder for players to follow in their footsteps (especially when the guides left behind are no longer viable.)

It's a bad situation. Now, games can recover their endgame communities over time, ESO's gone through this at leas twice before, but it will be years before it recovers, if it recovers. I mean, if they keep doing this, some day will be the last time.

Pevey

p00tx wrote: »

Pevey wrote: »

OMC, one of the largest endgame carry servers on PCNA, just closed down. Are we really gloom and doomers who are just crying wolf? Or maybe people really, really don't like these changes. Enough that they would rather just go do something else.

Edit: Just to clarify, it may be just that they ended their partnership with another guild due to the lack of players. Not shut down completely. Not yet, at least.

It closed because many of us have discontinued our subs and closed our accounts down. There aren't enough of us left to run the carries. Lots of raid teams have disbanded as well. This whole thing, and the tacky response to it, have effectively done what the devs wanted. Endgame is looking pretty toast right now. It's not "doom and gloom" anymore. This is just what's happening right now, unfortunately, and I'm not sure there's a way back from it, even if they reverted every last one of the changes. Once you've burned your paying customers like that, companies don't tend to bounce back well unless they go through a rebranding.

Wow. Ty for the update. I've seen some teams disband over the last couple of days in my own discords, but so far not an entire server. Probably a sign of what's to come.

Well, this is what ZOS wanted. Wiping out the endgame community is one way to narrow the gap.

I hope any player, from new to endgame, who wanted perfected gear and to learn vet trials in this game already did it, because that door is closing. Those things will no longer be accessible. The irony.

pklemming

1 prog team closed, another struggling. Guild numbers down with us seeing those people in discord in other games.

Yeah, this is fine. Everything is fine.



Love the response from ZoS to mitigate the concerns on the forums... Oh, wait....

They don't seem to get, that if the endgame go, there will be no people replacing it, the game is just not enticing. We don't trust them, and they are doing precious little right now to change that.

Also, most of the streamers and content creators, the people giving free advertising to Zos, are mostly those same endgame people. Their followers will stay with those same people and will also migrate to what their favourite streamer is playing.

With the exception of housing....

Now bringing you: Elder Scrolls Online - The Housing Simulator.

Pevey

pklemming wrote: »

With the exception of housing....

Now bringing you: Elder Scrolls Online - The Housing Simulator.

You may have accidentally revealed the master plan.

Also cards. Don't forget cards.

I feel bad for the encounter team. Not sarcastically. They have been on a roll for the last year or so, doing great stuff. From what I heard (from like one person who saw them), the new dungeons are really cool. But who cares. No one cares. Because of the combat changes. The encounter team's talents are going to be totally wasted on this game going forward.

pklemming

Yeah, I liked both Shipwright's Regret and Coral Aerie in both design and difficulty. vCA HM was awesome,

p00tx

Pevey wrote: »

pklemming wrote: »

With the exception of housing....

Now bringing you: Elder Scrolls Online - The Housing Simulator.

You may have accidentally revealed the master plan.

Also cards. Don't forget cards.

I feel bad for the encounter team. Not sarcastically. They have been on a roll for the last year or so, doing great stuff. From what I heard (from like one person who saw them), the new dungeons are really cool. But who cares. No one cares. Because of the combat changes. The encounter team's talents are going to be totally wasted on this game going forward.

I agree with this. One of the coolest parts of this game for me was being able to see some of the boss fights in trials and quest instances, and how the art effects were rendered. They've always done really beautiful, visually stunning work. It's one of the parts of this game that have never once disappointed me.

LordDragonMara

It's not just the endgame, but many new players like me, who wants to play a game where there is clear skill-level, where their actions with mouse and keyboard are important, and they are trying to get better gamers, and better at the game.
Why would i play a game, where my skills as a player/gamer doesn't matter at all, cause this is what they are doing.
They are literally trying to remove any skill that was left in the game.

Making the skill gap pretty much non-existable, lower the skill ceiling of the game(which is something you should absolutely goes for higher, not lower), pretty much make my fast "fingers' for example useless, cause i guy with 90 years old reflexes can do the same, because of their making the game more "accessible".

Back in the day SWTOR have done the same thing with Sentinel, which was the hardest and most rewarding in terms of skill class to play.
There was 2 abilities that was giving you a window for certain seconds, and with high alacrity you were lowering the GCD and if you were fast with fast fingers(same story with the APM, it didn't even require some high APM to be fair) you was able to hit 6 abilities or so.
And as usual some lazy players start crying, and they changed it to fixed ability, with no seconds, literally removed the skill from that class. And that class pretty much died, and huge playerbase left the game.

I'm sorry but if someone want to be perfect/optimal and to fit in certain windows, he should simply practice it and he will get there. Nothing happens overnight.

It's ridiculous to punish players that was learn to micromanagement and have enough APM(quite average to be fair, nothing high, around 150-180 or so) to managed their dots.

So people were wasting their time improving for nothing, cause now even my great-grandmother from the grave can click 5 buttons or so in 20 seconds windows.

ESO is super easy and doesn't require some hardcore training/practicing to get good at the game. Most thing happen naturally and quite fast, if you are willing to learn and improve.

Removing the not so much skills from the game is terrible design, and it was something you were happy to say about your game, that require player-skill. Where that thing goes?

shadyjane62

I'm stuck here because I was stupid enough to buy a year sub. I don't see my char of 8 years surviving the loss of power to Templars.

And since all I have are Templars, I don't know what I'm going to do. The new animation for jabs makes me sick to my stomach when I realize every thing I have worked for was just torched by devs who complain about their feelings.

Who don't even have the courage to come here and diss us to our faces.

I wish there was a way to get a refund but of course the only way to get a refund would be to buy one on the crown store.

MaraxusTheOrc

Feel like the developers are in a no win situation now. The combat changes seem to be universally disliked, but if they do revert them then the toxicity the community has shown will be reinforced. That was essentially the root of my original post. I personally don’t want to be represented by a community that feels toxicity, negativity, and personal attacks is the path to change. We aren’t there yet, but we are close, so that’s where I hope we can look at our community and say,”we should be better.” And no, I don’t care to hear,” but ZOS…”

Pevey

MaraxusTheOrc wrote: »

Feel like the developers are in a no win situation now. The combat changes seem to be universally disliked, but if they do revert them then the toxicity the community has shown will be reinforced. That was essentially the root of my original post. I personally don’t want to be represented by a community that feels toxicity, negativity, and personal attacks is the path to change. We aren’t there yet, but we are close, so that’s where I hope we can look at our community and say,”we should be better.” And no, I don’t care to hear,” but ZOS…”

I don’t see anything toxic about what is going on here. Negative, yes. Toxic, no. Not all negativity is toxic. It’s just good, old-fashioned feedback from unhappy customers. Nothing new.

For sure there is some toxic stuff being said in Discords. People are upset, so it’s not entirely unexpected. But they are keeping that stuff off these forums, as they well should.