ZOS: Please Comment on Quality of Life Features!

FlopsyPrince

@ZOS_Kevin or others, could we please get some official comments on quality of life concerns in the game?

I know some will oppose any QoL change suggestion here, often claiming they love it the way it is, but many small things could be changed (at least chipped away at) over time to make tedious things less annoying.

I would really like to see official comments on these. Perhaps even a curated list of changes many of us desire (several threads regularly address these desires) along with a reason to not do it or at least some kind of "perhaps some time" note?

One example would be survey collection simplification. I am clearing out a bunch in Coldhardbour now and it is taking far too much of my play time. I do it because I can use the mats and they are legitimate rewards for slogging through so many crafting dailies, but I would really like to see this simplified.

An official comment about this would help a lot, even if I didn't like the answer. Having some just post "that was the desire" without any official word is very counterproductive.

Most companies have a suggestions board and something like a Kanban board to note the status of things that may get worked on or that are getting worked on.

Even something like the "Harder Overland" pinned thread would be helpful for this many small irritants!

joerginger

As I have said on plenty of occasions in the last couple of years - please change this and just multiply the materials we harvest by the amount of surveys our character carries. This is something that really should happen.

Perhaps having less surveys in player banks or character inventories to keep track of would even improve server performance.

Lannharr

+1 I made many suggestions like this but, of course, went unanswered.

Staking numbers, new inventory and bank management, more filters, ect. ect.

ESO plus won't help much so we stick on buying coffers with limited slots with some items that won't stack either.

Jaimeh

Tbh I don't think they should make it easier to collect surveys, because they are meant to take effort, since they provide a lot of mats, and are part of the whole crafting writ system of making gold, which is a powerful machine as it is. However, I would like to see other QoL stuff like for eg., having a sorting filter in the traders for unknown motifs/recipes, so when buying you can sort for the things you haven't collected. Also, have more things become stackable, like treasure maps and siege tools.

redlink1979

I've writting about simple things soo many times...

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_RichLambert
I'd like not to have to fillet 2 stacks of fish by clicking a button/key 400 times.

Bigmatt2

Jaimeh wrote: »

Tbh I don't think they should make it easier to collect surveys, because they are meant to take effort, since they provide a lot of mats, and are part of the whole crafting writ system of making gold, which is a powerful machine as it is. However, I would like to see other QoL stuff like for eg., having a sorting filter in the traders for unknown motifs/recipes, so when buying you can sort for the things you haven't collected. Also, have more things become stackable, like treasure maps and siege tools.

Yes, this right here!!! We need this filter.

As for OP's issue with survey writs. It would be nice if we could just sell them in the guild traders. I personally don't even do them anymore, but I also don't do crafting writs on multiple toons, so I don't get that many anymore.
If we can't sell them in guild traders, then perhaps we could just have an NPC we can sell them to for:
1. A set amount of gold
2. A fraction of the material we would have gotten if we did the survey ourselves

For my own QoL thought. I think the "Ring of Mara" should expand it's benefit to allow users to trade "Bound Gear".

kind_hero

Right now I have thousands of crown tri-stat potions and poisons. So many that I have a whole storage box full of them and a third of my inventory is taken by potions. I could delete some, true, but having larger stacks for items (not only potions) would be a great and effective QoL improvement.

Many people said about surveys. Please consider it. Also, the daily hireling mails should be consolidated somehow. Why log on on multiple chars to get those mails, if I don't really need/want to play those chars? A single mail with a hireling bag should be enough, and would save a lot of time.

Regarding houses: players should be able to pin at the top of the list their favorite houses, so I don't need to go through the list every time I want to visit The Rosy Lion Inn. This is such a basic UI improvement.

Guilds should be able to set a house as the primary house for the guild. Right now there is no way for a new member to visit the default guild house, which by default should be the primary house of the guild leader (but, as I said, the guild leader should be able to set a different house for this purpose).

Regarding crafting: people are asking for a way to have multiple attuned crafting stations. Crafters don't bother to go to the Earth Forge for a simple writ, since there are attunable stations made to avoid this hassle. But with each DLC there are more and more sets, so there will be a moment when there won't be enough slots to have a "house" full of crafting stations. There should be a super crafting station for each craft, with a search dialog, to use the desired set.

There still is no tab to see the special and collectible furnishings in a house. This is annoying at times when we reach that limit and need to reevaluate which of those special items we keep. Speaking of these limits, I think it is time to reconsider other values, because in several years the number of these types of collectibles has increased a lot. I am not talking only about practical collectibles, such banker or merchant, but paintings as well. Some of these are rewards for us being loyal subscribers, and I don't see why there should be a penalty for displaying these in our houses! There is no such issue with trophies!

Adding a wayshrine furnishing for houses would save some time and gold for porting out or looking for a guild mate to teleport to.

All of these should be easy enough to include for the next update. Aside for the super-crafting station, these are quick and simple QoL improvements.

TheGreatBlackBear

For me the most frustrating thing is that while the devs drag their feet and console players suffer pc players can just run an add on to circumvent every lazy, silly, half-baked and poorly implemented design decision in the game. For free.

AcadianPaladin

I've joined others in asking for some qol things for a long time. The only ones I'll mention are those for which I've never heard another player object to -

- Fix the full service guild hall endless sea of tables with some form of master attunable table for each profession with a drop down menu.
- Give companions a small 'inventory' in which they can carry some alternate companion gear to facilitate changing roles.
- More optional skins for warden bears to join the existing lonely gray one.
- Fix the butt area on the Timbercrow Wanderer costume - this sounds like a small thing but, given the cost (in blood or treasure) to obtain this costume there is no excuse for it being so faulty.
- Hide shoulders option.

FlopsyPrince

TheGreatBlackBear wrote: »

For me the most frustrating thing is that while the devs drag their feet and console players suffer pc players can just run an add on to circumvent every lazy, silly, half-baked and poorly implemented design decision in the game. For free.

All the problems do not go away on the PC. Though I switched (and left a lot behind on the PS4) because of addons.

Note I am asking for an official response, not just more comments of why it is not needed (surveys) or more lists of things I am sure I would value.

I will note that some may claim "surveys are not meant to be easy", but that same argument could apply to crafting, yet we got multi-crafting a while back, so an official word on surveys on the topic is appropriate, not just restating that it is proper as it is.

I would expect devs would want people to enjoy their playtime more. That would keep us playing longer. I am not ready to quit yet, but many things do chip away at things and make me almost ready to bail, especially if I found another game that would likely be around for a long time that I would enjoy that had the QoL items I want and didn't jail things between servers and platforms. (Both NA vs. EU and PS4/PS5 vs XBOX vs PC)

This should be a high priority in my view, but I have not seen a single official comment on any of these things so far.

Wolfpaw

QoL feature...for the luv of everything good, a hide tabard option.

Seriously why is this not a thing by now!?

Amottica

Zenimax tends to comment on our requests only when they have something to say. They tend not to repeat themselves every time someone asks about the same thing. Case in point, they did reply to requests for a furnishing bag and explained why they are not adding one (at this time at least) and how it created a much greater load on the servers than the crafting bag.

For most QoL issues, they have no reason to reply if they have no interest in considering it at the moment since that would serve no real benefit and is more likely to create strife. I expect some players would take offense if Zenimax replied and said they are not planning on doing anything to change surveys because they feel that many of them have created their own issues.

As for Zenimax keeping a curated list of QoL requests, they do not even keep a curated list of known issues, which is significantly more critical. Player lists tend to get lost and die off.

barney2525

kind_hero wrote: »

Right now I have thousands of crown tri-stat potions and poisons. So many that I have a whole storage box full of them and a third of my inventory is taken by potions. I could delete some, true, but having larger stacks for items (not only potions) would be a great and effective QoL improvement.

Many people said about surveys. Please consider it. Also, the daily hireling mails should be consolidated somehow. Why log on on multiple chars to get those mails, if I don't really need/want to play those chars? A single mail with a hireling bag should be enough, and would save a lot of time.

Regarding houses: players should be able to pin at the top of the list their favorite houses, so I don't need to go through the list every time I want to visit The Rosy Lion Inn. This is such a basic UI improvement.

Guilds should be able to set a house as the primary house for the guild. Right now there is no way for a new member to visit the default guild house, which by default should be the primary house of the guild leader (but, as I said, the guild leader should be able to set a different house for this purpose).

Regarding crafting: people are asking for a way to have multiple attuned crafting stations. Crafters don't bother to go to the Earth Forge for a simple writ, since there are attunable stations made to avoid this hassle. But with each DLC there are more and more sets, so there will be a moment when there won't be enough slots to have a "house" full of crafting stations. There should be a super crafting station for each craft, with a search dialog, to use the desired set.

There still is no tab to see the special and collectible furnishings in a house. This is annoying at times when we reach that limit and need to reevaluate which of those special items we keep. Speaking of these limits, I think it is time to reconsider other values, because in several years the number of these types of collectibles has increased a lot. I am not talking only about practical collectibles, such banker or merchant, but paintings as well. Some of these are rewards for us being loyal subscribers, and I don't see why there should be a penalty for displaying these in our houses! There is no such issue with trophies!

Adding a wayshrine furnishing for houses would save some time and gold for porting out or looking for a guild mate to teleport to.

All of these should be easy enough to include for the next update. Aside for the super-crafting station, these are quick and simple QoL improvements.

Why would hold onto so much stuff that you know you will never use? With the possible exception of mats to craft 50/160 gear, why would you keep more than 1000 of anything? When I get a few stacks of 1000 I delete the excess. Mark em as Junk and kiss em goodbye.

Every Guild I have been in, you check the Guild front page and it says who has the Guildhouse. Click the next icon, put in that name, right click to visit primary residence. Sometimes (as with one of my current Guilds) it is Not held by the Guild leader. But if not, they will tell you who does hold it.

I don't know why a house would need a wayshrine. The owner can already pop in, anytime, at 0 cost. I know that there is a way to allow other players to visit your house. I've never had anything to show off, so I dont know the specific procedure.

blackpool9

barney2525 wrote: »

kind_hero wrote: »

Right now I have thousands of crown tri-stat potions and poisons. So many that I have a whole storage box full of them and a third of my inventory is taken by potions. I could delete some, true, but having larger stacks for items (not only potions) would be a great and effective QoL improvement.

...

I don't know why a house would need a wayshrine. The owner can already pop in, anytime, at 0 cost. I know that there is a way to allow other players to visit your house. I've never had anything to show off, so I dont know the specific procedure.

The wayshrine isn't to get in to a house. It's to facilitate exiting a house. Hall of Lunar Champion is my primary residence. When I hop in there to drop things into a storage chest or use my crafting tables, if I want to leave I either have to walk out the door and run to the wayshrine or port to the outside of another house or a guild member and then port again to the specific shrine I'm trying to get to.

spartaxoxo

There's a button in your housing editor that takes you to your front door, if you're the home owner. Guests also have a command they can use to return to entrance, but they don't need to access the housing editor to use it. If you want to port to a specific place outside the house, that's a convenience that earns a fee.

Durnik

Companions doing the surveys! Skyrim had it (sort of). Maybe even a working companion that just does the treasure maps and surveys but gets a cut of it. That adds a companion, new RP for those who like it, and helps clear up banks. I have soo many now I'll never get them done at this point.

FlopsyPrince

Any official comment from ZOS on this?

Other than just a movement notice of course!

joerginger

I'd prefer they don't comment on, but rather implement quality of life fixes. The lucky people on PC can at least get some things through addons, but no such luck for people on consoles.

kind_hero

barney2525 wrote: »

I don't know why a house would need a wayshrine. The owner can already pop in, anytime, at 0 cost. I know that there is a way to allow other players to visit your house. I've never had anything to show off, so I dont know the specific procedure.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

There's a button in your housing editor that takes you to your front door, if you're the home owner. Guests also have a command they can use to return to entrance, but they don't need to access the housing editor to use it. If you want to port to a specific place outside the house, that's a convenience that earns a fee.

The wayshrine furnishing would be to exit your house from whatever place you want to place your wayshrine. Most houses are far away from wayshrines.
If you do not do housing then it's of no consequence for you. But it would be a nice QoL feature for those into housing, that would replace porting to an other place for gold or looking for a guild mate in the area you want to go to, and that time spent in the UI. That's why it's a QoL feature, to make some thing easier.

I have also suggested in-house portals or teleports to various places in the house (useful for large houses), but that's a topic for the housing forum.

spartaxoxo

Right, what I meant is not only is that is a convenience you pay for, but one you should have to pay for. It's not different than leaving a delve or a public dungeon. Houses already act as additional wayshrines to areas since they added port outside home, I don't think they should also allow you to port anywhere you want at no gold cost.

FlopsyPrince

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Right, what I meant is not only is that is a convenience you pay for, but one you should have to pay for. It's not different than leaving a delve or a public dungeon. Houses already act as additional wayshrines to areas since they added port outside home, I don't think they should also allow you to port anywhere you want at no gold cost.

Why should you HAVE to pay for it?

Seems like a reasonable QoL thing to add for housing to me.

spartaxoxo

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Right, what I meant is not only is that is a convenience you pay for, but one you should have to pay for. It's not different than leaving a delve or a public dungeon. Houses already act as additional wayshrines to areas since they added port outside home, I don't think they should also allow you to port anywhere you want at no gold cost.

Why should you HAVE to pay for it?

Seems like a reasonable QoL thing to add for housing to me.

Because teleporting from anywhere to a specific wayshrine is a reasonable gold sink that they've added to the game, and it would be consistent with how that feature functions in general. You leave an instance to a specific wayshrine of your choice, you get charged. Or you just exit normally, you get sent where the game wants to send you (where you were last standing in the case of trials/group dungeons, outside the exit in the case of delves/public dungeons/houses).

Arthur_Spoonfondle

The same as it always is in threads like this, lazy people want things made easy. It's the kind of attitude that has ruined WoW.

spartaxoxo

Arthur_Spoonfondle wrote: »

The same as it always is in threads like this, lazy people want things made easy. It's the kind of attitude that has ruined WoW.

So go play WoW classic? Honestly, there's a difference between stuff being hard because it adds a challenge to engage with and overcome like VMA, and stuff that's a total waste of player time because the "difficulty" comes from time-wasting design. It's not hard to run up a hill and down a hill to refresh a survey spot. The "challenge" is in finding it, but once you've found it, it's stupid easy. Running back and forth only wastes time. If anything, these kind of QOL changes can even sometimes makes the game harder for the players that seek challenges because they spend more time doing actually challenging content instead of running back and forth to pick a flower.

FlopsyPrince

spartaxoxo wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Right, what I meant is not only is that is a convenience you pay for, but one you should have to pay for. It's not different than leaving a delve or a public dungeon. Houses already act as additional wayshrines to areas since they added port outside home, I don't think they should also allow you to port anywhere you want at no gold cost.

Why should you HAVE to pay for it?

Seems like a reasonable QoL thing to add for housing to me.

Because teleporting from anywhere to a specific wayshrine is a reasonable gold sink that they've added to the game, and it would be consistent with how that feature functions in general. You leave an instance to a specific wayshrine of your choice, you get charged. Or you just exit normally, you get sent where the game wants to send you (where you were last standing in the case of trials/group dungeons, outside the exit in the case of delves/public dungeons/houses).

How many people pay to port from inside a house? I doubt that is even a blip in the wayshrine gold cost.

Arthur_Spoonfondle wrote: »

The same as it always is in threads like this, lazy people want things made easy. It's the kind of attitude that has ruined WoW.

That is a silly statement at best. I want to enjoy and simplify my play time. Doing Quality of Life features did not kill anything.

WoW killed itself for many other reasons. I quit when I got tired of the grind (with many alts) during Mists. It was not the factor you claim. Tedious running simulators are not attractive to most.

FlopsyPrince

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Arthur_Spoonfondle wrote: »

The same as it always is in threads like this, lazy people want things made easy. It's the kind of attitude that has ruined WoW.

So go play WoW classic? Honestly, there's a difference between stuff being hard because it adds a challenge to engage with and overcome like VMA, and stuff that's a total waste of player time because the "difficulty" comes from time-wasting design. It's not hard to run up a hill and down a hill to refresh a survey spot. The "challenge" is in finding it, but once you've found it, it's stupid easy. Running back and forth only wastes time. If anything, these kind of QOL changes can even sometimes makes the game harder for the players that seek challenges because they spend more time doing actually challenging content instead of running back and forth to pick a flower.

Exactly! Almost every quality of life change I want (like survey simplification) is because it wastes so much time from the valuable content.

spartaxoxo

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

How many people pay to port from inside a house? I doubt that is even a blip in the wayshrine gold cost.

Probably most everyone who enters a house. I know whenever I see people exit my homes or one of my guilds, it's hardly ever through the door. They port to where they wanted to go next. The fee is small for individual players but adds up across the playerbase. I also don't think it's just a time saver like the other suggestions here, as it's generally faster to just open your map and port right away. It's primarily to save a cost.

FlopsyPrince

spartaxoxo wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

How many people pay to port from inside a house? I doubt that is even a blip in the wayshrine gold cost.

Probably most everyone who enters a house. I know whenever I see people exit my homes or one of my guilds, it's hardly ever through the door. They port to where they wanted to go next. The fee is small for individual players but adds up across the playerbase. I also don't think it's just a time saver like the other suggestions here, as it's generally faster to just open your map and port right away. It's primarily to save a cost.

How do you know that? I use the BeamMeUp addon now, so I do ultimately beam some place most times (though one of my own many houses can be a target as well) but that is free since it is to a guildmate. I rarely go to a wayshrine I pay for from a house. I did pay to beam twice recently, at the minimum price because it was convenient and too few were on PC EU at the time (late night in Texas), but that was the rare exception these days.

I doubt it was as common as you think.

I did also have the Snow Globe home on both PS4 NA and PS4 EU for that kind of thing, since the wayshrine is close, but that is not as valuable on the PC. I could also go to one of the guild houses in the past, but exiting while in their often doesn't help now since I go back to my own house then.

Suffice it to say that while I might not be everyone, you need some data to back up your everyone claim to dispute that.

spartaxoxo

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

How many people pay to port from inside a house? I doubt that is even a blip in the wayshrine gold cost.

Probably most everyone who enters a house. I know whenever I see people exit my homes or one of my guilds, it's hardly ever through the door. They port to where they wanted to go next. The fee is small for individual players but adds up across the playerbase. I also don't think it's just a time saver like the other suggestions here, as it's generally faster to just open your map and port right away. It's primarily to save a cost.

How do you know that? I use the BeamMeUp addon now, so I do ultimately beam some place most times (though one of my own many houses can be a target as well) but that is free since it is to a guildmate. I rarely go to a wayshrine I pay for from a house. I did pay to beam twice recently, at the minimum price because it was convenient and too few were on PC EU at the time (late night in Texas), but that was the rare exception these days.

I doubt it was as common as you think.

I did also have the Snow Globe home on both PS4 NA and PS4 EU for that kind of thing, since the wayshrine is close, but that is not as valuable on the PC. I could also go to one of the guild houses in the past, but exiting while in their often doesn't help now since I go back to my own house then.

Suffice it to say that while I might not be everyone, you need some data to back up your everyone claim to dispute that.

I said "probably" and made it clear it was based on my own observations, so I don't think I do need one since it's not a claim of fact. Zos doesn't publish that data.

I know they are exiting using the teleport feature because there is an animation that plays when you teleport, that doesn't play when you exit the house through the door. So it's very clear they porting out. They could be porting to outside area where they can then go to a wayshrine, but that seems like such a collosal waste of time that I doubt it. But I forget that PC players have that beam me up thing (edit: and shorter load screens), so it's likely there's more people doing that on PC than console.

FlopsyPrince

spartaxoxo wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

How many people pay to port from inside a house? I doubt that is even a blip in the wayshrine gold cost.

Probably most everyone who enters a house. I know whenever I see people exit my homes or one of my guilds, it's hardly ever through the door. They port to where they wanted to go next. The fee is small for individual players but adds up across the playerbase. I also don't think it's just a time saver like the other suggestions here, as it's generally faster to just open your map and port right away. It's primarily to save a cost.

How do you know that? I use the BeamMeUp addon now, so I do ultimately beam some place most times (though one of my own many houses can be a target as well) but that is free since it is to a guildmate. I rarely go to a wayshrine I pay for from a house. I did pay to beam twice recently, at the minimum price because it was convenient and too few were on PC EU at the time (late night in Texas), but that was the rare exception these days.

I doubt it was as common as you think.

I did also have the Snow Globe home on both PS4 NA and PS4 EU for that kind of thing, since the wayshrine is close, but that is not as valuable on the PC. I could also go to one of the guild houses in the past, but exiting while in their often doesn't help now since I go back to my own house then.

Suffice it to say that while I might not be everyone, you need some data to back up your everyone claim to dispute that.

I said "probably" and made it clear it was based on my own observations, so I don't think I do need one since it's not a claim of fact. Zos doesn't publish that data.

I know they are exiting using the teleport feature because there is an animation that plays when you teleport, that doesn't play when you exit the house through the door. So it's very clear they porting out. They could be porting to outside area where they can then go to a wayshrine, but that seems like such a collosal waste of time that I doubt it. But I forget that PC players have that beam me up thing (edit: and shorter load screens), so it's likely there's more people doing that on PC than console.

It would have to be a very significant number of players to make it a serious gold sync.

Though this is going beyond my point in starting this thread, so you are free to have the final comment if you want (after this).

I would still like to see an official comment on specific Quality of Life issue.

kind_hero

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Right, what I meant is not only is that is a convenience you pay for, but one you should have to pay for. It's not different than leaving a delve or a public dungeon. Houses already act as additional wayshrines to areas since they added port outside home, I don't think they should also allow you to port anywhere you want at no gold cost.

We can already port for free to the outside entrance of the house, so I don't see the problem.

I own the Cyrodiilic Jungle House, which is right next to the Bandaari settlement wayshrine. So, if I want a free wayshrine port, I port to the entrance of the Jungle House. The inn from Rimmen is also placed next to the wayshrine, but one needs to buy the chapter to use it.

So, I can already avoid the cost, but it takes two steps (loading screens) instead of one. That's why this could be a QoL improvement. It makes easier something that you can already do. Like the deconstruction assistant.
And such a wayshrine could be a crown store item, so, people would pay to own it. Or it could be a global achievement reward from exploring, and finding all the wayshrines in the base game.

A wayshrine from the house will speed things a bit, it's more convenient, that's all. I don't see the comparation to WoW, like someone mentioned it, how this will dumb down ESO. I am not sure if I spend 1k gold a day on wayshrine teleporting... so am unsure about how this could impact the economy? Most people aren't even into housing.