Is anyone actually going to take accountability for this?

CameraBeardThePirate

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

xSkullfox

edward_frigidhands

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

VaranisArano

I'm sure we'll eventually get an after-action analysis/apology letter once the Update goes Live and ZOS has a feel for how it's been received by the general playerbase as opposed to just the players who pay attention to the PTS.

merpins

shadyjane62

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

Already there, having a blast. Started there 17 years stayed for ten and came to ESO. It is the way of things. Devs ruin one game you take your money somewhere else.

edward_frigidhands

shadyjane62 wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

Already there, having a blast. Started there 17 years stayed for ten and came to ESO. It is the way of things. Devs ruin one game you take your money somewhere else.

I remember back in 2010, when Blizzard recorded 12.5 million active subscriptions for World of Warcraft.

At that time, they too decided they had a "vision" for how they wanted to change everything entirely. Because it had all been working so well.

Few years down the line they stopped reporting their subscription numbers because their vision caused those numbers to plummet.

Right now, addons tracking endgame activity put their active characters at around 1 million (so not accounting for alts).

I have been through this entire song and dance with an entirely different company running a different game.

shadyjane62

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

Already there, having a blast. Started there 17 years stayed for ten and came to ESO. It is the way of things. Devs ruin one game you take your money somewhere else.

I remember back in 2010, when Blizzard recorded 12.5 million active subscriptions for World of Warcraft.

At that time, they too decided they had a "vision" for how they wanted to change everything entirely. Because it had all been working so well.

Few years down the line they stopped reporting their subscription numbers because their vision caused those numbers to plummet.

Right now, addons tracking endgame activity put their active characters at around 1 million (so not accounting for alts).

I have been through this entire song and dance with an entirely different company running a different game.

I understand what's happened to WoW. But I don't care. My husband and I started there 17 years ago and it's just a nostalgia trip for us. Low level chars supported by my Vanilla Field Marshal who still had a lot of gold.

I am having fun. No pressure. No upset. Just fun. It's all I ask of a game.


ESO no longer any fun.

MashmalloMan

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

shadyjane62 wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

Already there, having a blast. Started there 17 years stayed for ten and came to ESO. It is the way of things. Devs ruin one game you take your money somewhere else.

I remember back in 2010, when Blizzard recorded 12.5 million active subscriptions for World of Warcraft.

At that time, they too decided they had a "vision" for how they wanted to change everything entirely. Because it had all been working so well.

Few years down the line they stopped reporting their subscription numbers because their vision caused those numbers to plummet.

Right now, addons tracking endgame activity put their active characters at around 1 million (so not accounting for alts).

I have been through this entire song and dance with an entirely different company running a different game.

Whats funny is ZOS has never reported active players, they only tell the public the number of individual accounts created which is rather meaningless and a way to inflate statistics. It's a pretty bad sign they don't feel the need to brag about how many people are actually playing their game on average.

Cyber10

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

100% agree with this! I am done with ZOS and all of their crap! They did not listen to any of the feedback and do not seem to care about how this will affect they game. All they do care about is making smart-ass comments on twitter and in their updates.

pklemming

No, there will be no accountability, there has not been before, there will be none for this.

Despite the fact a lot of very experienced players (paying players), said this patch was incredibly bad, they ignored it and went ahead anyway. Everyone knows this is a mistake, a massive mistake, but they like to 'double down' on stuff, so here we are.

Those waiting on the fence for something to change have had their mind made up now. There will be no incentive to come back. Why would they? So, they can be ignored again, so they can have massive swings in combat every 3 months? The precious little trust and good will ZOS had has been lost.

They promised to help new players, they didn't. Providing a HA Resto Meta is not helping new players. It is providing an immensely boring, unfulfilling gameplay, not suited to upper end content. It will put off new players, more than attract them.

They introduced animations which were pretty much panned as being incomplete and poor quality, but refused to back down on those animation changes. Animations that were good enough for the game for how many years?

They managed to give us dots/specials now covering 3 to 32 seconds. That is NOT helping people avoid focusing on their skill bar.

Accessibility is a joke and a nice sounding sound-bite, but then followed up by nerfing the one item in the game that offered good accessibility for disabled players. WTG. Nothing like saying to the disabled and older community you don't care.

This is an awful, awful change. I hope this is reflected in reviews and incoming funds. If they don't listen to us, maybe MS will be more concerned by the sudden drop in income due to a stubborn combat team that don't understand mid to high end PVE.

It should have been stopped, reverted and then re-thought, but apparently that is too much for them.

I am equally disappointed and disgusted.

pklemming

VaranisArano wrote: »

I'm sure we'll eventually get an after-action analysis/apology letter once the Update goes Live and ZOS has a feel for how it's been received by the general playerbase as opposed to just the players who pay attention to the PTS.

We don't want an apology 3 months from now. It will mean precisely nothing. It wil mean they feel the need to issue an apology because their numbers are down, not due to any kind of regret. They had the time and opportunity to listen to us now. We will have zero faith in them to perform any changes in future.

FrankonPC

pklemming wrote: »

No, there will be no accountability, there has not been before, there will be none for this.
...

I agree with all of this well said.

I was talking to my buddy a few days ago and we were talking about how much fun ascending tide was and how it was nice to have good performance again. So many of my friends were looking into coming back, and then oakensoul happened followed by THIS pts cycle and they all quit again and probably for good.

Zenimax will still make their money off new players, but I think they burnt so much good will with the players and they won't realize it until it's too late.

CameraBeardThePirate

FrankonPC wrote: »

pklemming wrote: »

No, there will be no accountability, there has not been before, there will be none for this.
...

I agree with all of this well said.

I was talking to my buddy a few days ago and we were talking about how much fun ascending tide was and how it was nice to have good performance again. So many of my friends were looking into coming back, and then oakensoul happened followed by THIS pts cycle and they all quit again and probably for good.

Zenimax will still make their money off new players, but I think they burnt so much good will with the players and they won't realize it until it's too late.

This entirely. In a PvP guild with a lot of vet PvPers and they were all so shocked and happy about performance being improved.

Now there's even more people gone or not playing than there were before the performance improvements.

MashmalloMan

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

FrankonPC wrote: »

pklemming wrote: »

No, there will be no accountability, there has not been before, there will be none for this.
...

I agree with all of this well said.

I was talking to my buddy a few days ago and we were talking about how much fun ascending tide was and how it was nice to have good performance again. So many of my friends were looking into coming back, and then oakensoul happened followed by THIS pts cycle and they all quit again and probably for good.

Zenimax will still make their money off new players, but I think they burnt so much good will with the players and they won't realize it until it's too late.

This entirely. In a PvP guild with a lot of vet PvPers and they were all so shocked and happy about performance being improved.

Now there's even more people gone or not playing than there were before the performance improvements.

This. Guild is silent most times I log in now. Patch hasn't even dropped.

UntilValhalla13

There won't be any; at least not until the almighty spreadsheet shows the game hemorrhaging players. Then it will be too late. They always get these weird changes in their sights and, 90% of the time, they always get stubbornly railroaded through.
They're so out of touch with the people that play their game.

Jaimeh

VaranisArano wrote: »

I'm sure we'll eventually get an after-action analysis/apology letter once the Update goes Live and ZOS has a feel for how it's been received by the general playerbase as opposed to just the players who pay attention to the PTS.

it's not like they didn't see it coming, there's nothing but outcry the past four weeks, it completely boggles my mind that they rather dig themselves deeper that revert some of the changes. They've messed up all the classes now, it's hard to think someone would intentionally troll their own product but there's no other reasoning as to why they are still going through with this. I don't have eso+ anymore so at least I'm not paying as I watch this mess unfold, but it still pains me that the devs are so out of touch they might as well be in a different planet.

KrawatteKamm961

ZOS will probably just blame the playerbase and dish out more nerfs in three months, all to please their pride.

Vahndamme

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

I already went back to WoW as my main game. Deactivated my ESO+ after 1,5 years or so. Hadn't touched WoW in same time period. But well, these changes every 3 months is just enough for me. All was fine till Templar became what is is now on PTS.

boi_anachronism_

Testing was basically passed on to the community and then mostly ignored. They don't know how to balance. Crystal weapons needed a little nerf- nerfed to the ground. Warden, especially mag based needed help- nerfed into the ground. Animation changes that weren't needed, meta shifts that were useless and only add to player fatigue.... On and on. Maybe they could have, you know, SEPARATED PVP & PVE SO WE DONT HAVE THESE CONSTANT, WEIRD BALANCING ISSUES. Hot take, I know.

Ratzkifal

Must be knee-jerk reactions. The devs are innocent of this crime.

shadyjane62

Vahndamme wrote: »

edward_frigidhands wrote: »

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

Seriously ZOS I'm not sure what else there is to say. The most heavily disliked changes, with tons and tons of data, both qualitative and quantitative, on why these changes are bad for the game, and you guys are still chugging right along? Without even a mention, a letter, or a reason given as to why the feedback (that you request time and time again) is being ignored? Where's the accountability? Where's the communication? Player numbers will drop. They already have been across my guilds. I hope you guys are happy with your vision.

With little to no communication, discussion or feedback regarding most of these changes their "vision" seems a bit blurry.

Might finally be time to access my WoW account again.

I already went back to WoW as my main game. Deactivated my ESO+ after 1,5 years or so. Hadn't touched WoW in same time period. But well, these changes every 3 months is just enough for me. All was fine till Templar became what is is now on PTS.

My husband and I have gone back to WoW too. I am happy there having fun, but I am also mourning the loss of my main here, a Templar.
I just reached Legate and am working hard these last two weeks. 8 Years ago I left WoW a Vanilla Field Marshal as we were there from day one.

I am hoping to make General in my remaining time.

Superdigo

pklemming wrote: »

Despite the fact a lot of very experienced players (paying players), said this patch was incredibly bad, they ignored it and went ahead anyway. Everyone knows this is a mistake, a massive mistake, but they like to 'double down' on stuff, so here we are.

Those waiting on the fence for something to change have had their mind made up now. There will be no incentive to come back. Why would they? So, they can be ignored again, so they can have massive swings in combat every 3 months? The precious little trust and good will ZOS had has been lost.

You are absolutely right. As a sorc main, I was on the fence about whether to continue with ESO+, given their promised magsorc changes. We got no changes of any worth despite the class being terrible now and everyone telling them so. Now, with the most recent patch, they have proven that they really are not listening to us and, further, are too prideful to admit that their changes were bad. I am not only done with ESO+, I am done with the game altogether after seeing the lack of care taken for us, the customers, and seeing my class destroyed. I have spent thousands of hours in the game, and now I wish I hadn't.

Jaraal

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Must be knee-jerk reactions. The devs are innocent of this crime.

But “change is scary!”


No, good change is welcomed. Bad change is scary.

Ratzkifal

Jaraal wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

Must be knee-jerk reactions. The devs are innocent of this crime.

But “change is scary!”


No, good change is welcomed. Bad change is scary.

Not just welcomed, celebrated! The good changes are the ones that get you excited. The changes that immediately get the gears turning because of all the new possibilities. Stuff like the Elfbane buff - suddenly a lot of things are viable that weren't before. The outfit system. The original iteration of update 35 had none of it, because Jabs and Flurry are such utter failures, and even now there is just nothing to look forward to, just things that turned out less bad than we expected.

I don't get the reasoning that these bad changes are necessary either. How are they necessary if you literally have the option to put them on hold, then merge those changes with whatever is coming out in update 36 until we actually reached a point that is playable and fun. The game is not fundamentally broken right now is it? Then I don't see how breaking it now with the intention of fixing it later is a good idea.

Faulgor

Just wait for Update 36 when they inevitably walk the previous update back, like they always do.

gariondavey

Well said, as usual.

Hope @ZOS_GinaBruno and others see this.

ApoAlaia

To me this upcoming patch is a whole lot of steel filings in my gearbox.

Stamplar, which I was using to a modicum of success in vet trials (finally cleared vSS HM), gutted.

Magplar, which I was using to a modicum of success in vet dungeons (cleared the HMs in the new dungeons, was working towards trifecta), gutted.

I understand that in the general scheme of things this means nothing, but for me it felt satisfying, it felt like progress.

I could go on, but the bottom line is, U35 is the way of the devs to tell me: Your past progress has been nothing but an unwanted side effect of our previous balancing mistakes, in actuality you are not good enough for any of this. Go decorate houses or something.

Got the message, loud and clear.

Hotdog_23

Believe I can say with 100% confidence that if ZOS would say “you know what we are just going to release the 2 new dungeons and make no changes at all”. That most people would be happy and move on.

Pride can be a big pill to swallow. When you believe what you are doing is for the greater good but are really doing more harm than good it’s hard to see it yourself and stop. The customer is not always right but neither is the seller.

They ask for trust/faith but it hard to give it to them when we are on a rudderless boat drifting toward the waterfall. All I see is throwing out ideas in hope that it will save the ship. We need a true vision and plan that is reelevated and update at least annually. To keep the ship from crashing and sinking.

ZOS also needs to publish the vision and plan. Open communication is best so everyone knows where we are going and headed, and everyone can help keep the ship from drifting to far from their goal and vision for the future.

Personally, I am going to just keep playing what and how I like. ZOS will do what ZOS will do and I am powerless to stop or help them. As a console player my cry’s and pleas have fallen on deaf ears as I have no hard data to provide not that I believe it would matter even if I did. With the last few updates prior to High Ilse I played less and less but with High Ilse I found my self playing more and having a blast. If the next patch is less fun, I will just play less. Not going to stress about. Gaming is for fun and enjoyment to me.

Going back to proofread what I have wrote it fills me with a twinge of sadness to feel so indifferent about ESO when I love the game.

Stay safe

Mayrael

Meanwhile ZOS:

Firstmep

We essentially went full circle, a patch that's supposed to help accessibility essentially became a mass of disjointed random changes instead.
Big picture, no one is better off, no one is happy.
But they did make changes to, errr make changes? I guess.
At least I hope they can spend the next 2-3 updates untangling this mess, that was needlessly created.