So whatever happened to that Q&A?

Elsonso

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Thanks for the update, @ZOS_Kevin. Even if it's not quite the Q&A we originally expected, I appreciate that the focus shifted over time and so this is the equivalent presentation.

I'm delighted to see that the team followed through. As with many areas of communication, it may not be the answers we wanted to hear, but its meaningful to hear from the developers anyway.

And personally, I love the Deep Dives the team have done so far. This one reminded me a lot of the Class Identity one with its emphasis on defining how the Devs think, their goals for balance, and the broad strokes of how they envision ESO gameplay.

It was nowhere near what was needed.

To each their own. I have unanswered questions about U35 (like whether or not it achieved what it meant to), but I can accept and appreciate the Deep Dive for what it is.

That's not to say there's not reason for criticism. But in light of the recent conversation here, I'm reminded that ZOS gets a lot of criticism when they don't communicate at all AND when they communicate what players didn't want to hear.

They get points for effort, and just coming out and saying something. It isn't bad information, and will serve as a reference going forward. However, it missed the target. As I said elsewhere, the community is so desperate for communication from ZOS, people would have cheered if they had posted Wheeler's grocery list for the week.

Maythor

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Thanks for the update, @ZOS_Kevin. Even if it's not quite the Q&A we originally expected, I appreciate that the focus shifted over time and so this is the equivalent presentation.

I'm delighted to see that the team followed through. As with many areas of communication, it may not be the answers we wanted to hear, but its meaningful to hear from the developers anyway.

And personally, I love the Deep Dives the team have done so far. This one reminded me a lot of the Class Identity one with its emphasis on defining how the Devs think, their goals for balance, and the broad strokes of how they envision ESO gameplay.

It was nowhere near what was needed.

To each their own. I have unanswered questions about U35 (like whether or not it achieved what it meant to), but I can accept and appreciate the Deep Dive for what it is.

That's not to say there's not reason for criticism. But in light of the recent conversation here, I'm reminded that ZOS gets a lot of criticism when they don't communicate at all AND when they communicate what players didn't want to hear.

Its okay to be disappointed when what we got. It's clear that the scope of the Q&A drifted substantially over the months since U35. We got what the Devs wanted to give us, not necessarily what we expected or wanted (for a given value of "we" - even our small numbers here were fairly divided on what we wanted.)

But overall, I'd rather we got more of these Deep Dives, and hopefully more substantial and regular ones as time goes on.

And in light of the recent conversation about why ZOS doesn't do regular updates as often as I'd like, I should point out that this dynamic is totally repeating itself. Perhaps not undeservedly in this case, but constant negative feedback is not exactly conducive to creating more communication. Imagine some people yelling "Do it!" And other people yelling "Not like that!

Yeah, but they are a business being paid for a service about which some of their customers are not happy. ZOS is not my friend group and not my "family", they don't give me any particular considerations when it comes to asking for certain things, so why should we pander to some imagined corporate emotional trauma they might get from being told that they have a product that has problems that they have failed multiple times to fix.

I'm sure they are big boys/girls and they are getting paid to do their jobs, I don't get a free from jail card when I mess up at work just because I might get upset about getting too much criticism. They way to avoid criticism is to stop messing up. And frankly unless their own bosses are chastising them for failures, a bit of forum chat is not really much at all (which seems apparent since they don't really seem to change their behaviours in regards to some bugs or communications historically .. of course if some bugs they are just unable to fix, then they should admit that).

And if they do deliberately withold communication because they are "hurt" or emotionally upset by people calling them out, then I don't know what to think of that corporate structure.

VaranisArano

Maythor wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Thanks for the update, @ZOS_Kevin. Even if it's not quite the Q&A we originally expected, I appreciate that the focus shifted over time and so this is the equivalent presentation.

I'm delighted to see that the team followed through. As with many areas of communication, it may not be the answers we wanted to hear, but its meaningful to hear from the developers anyway.

And personally, I love the Deep Dives the team have done so far. This one reminded me a lot of the Class Identity one with its emphasis on defining how the Devs think, their goals for balance, and the broad strokes of how they envision ESO gameplay.

It was nowhere near what was needed.

To each their own. I have unanswered questions about U35 (like whether or not it achieved what it meant to), but I can accept and appreciate the Deep Dive for what it is.

That's not to say there's not reason for criticism. But in light of the recent conversation here, I'm reminded that ZOS gets a lot of criticism when they don't communicate at all AND when they communicate what players didn't want to hear.

Its okay to be disappointed when what we got. It's clear that the scope of the Q&A drifted substantially over the months since U35. We got what the Devs wanted to give us, not necessarily what we expected or wanted (for a given value of "we" - even our small numbers here were fairly divided on what we wanted.)

But overall, I'd rather we got more of these Deep Dives, and hopefully more substantial and regular ones as time goes on.

And in light of the recent conversation about why ZOS doesn't do regular updates as often as I'd like, I should point out that this dynamic is totally repeating itself. Perhaps not undeservedly in this case, but constant negative feedback is not exactly conducive to creating more communication. Imagine some people yelling "Do it!" And other people yelling "Not like that!

Yeah, but they are a business being paid for a service about which some of their customers are not happy. ZOS is not my friend group and not my "family", they don't give me any particular considerations when it comes to asking for certain things, so why should we pander to some imagined corporate emotional trauma they might get from being told that they have a product that has problems that they have failed multiple times to fix.

I'm sure they are big boys/girls and they are getting paid to do their jobs, I don't get a free from jail card when I mess up at work just because I might get upset about getting too much criticism. They way to avoid criticism is to stop messing up. And frankly unless their own bosses are chastising them for failures, a bit of forum chat is not really much at all (which seems apparent since they don't really seem to change their behaviours in regards to some bugs or communications historically .. of course if some bugs they are just unable to fix, then they should admit that).

And if they do deliberately withold communication because they are "hurt" or emotionally upset by people calling them out, then I don't know what to think of that corporate structure.

I think you've missed the mark a bit with the last.

Past experience suggests that ZOS steers away from regular communication because they know it results in frustrated and dissatisfied players - see
the recent conversation upthread where I posted Gina Bruno's explanation why they stopped doing regular updates on the performance road map like they did from 2019-2020.

ZOS has already seen that regular, but lackluster updates resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players. The result: we get periodic, but irregular updates about performance now. The silence obviously frustrates other players, but it's worth noting ZOS can't satisfy everyone, and they've chosen not to regularly rub salt in the wounds of frustrated players, as it were.

See also: the regular updates during U35 PTS which resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players who weren't getting the changes they wanted, followed by silence broken by periodic, but irregular updates on the Q&A culminating in this Deep Dive that didn't really address U35.

So I guess I'm looking at that pattern repeat itself and thinking, "You know, I'm sure dissatisfied players venting their frustration at a lackluster Deep Dive will result in more, regular, deep communication from the Devs, right?"

I'm pretty sure it won't, but I'd be happy to be wrong. I'd like more, regular, and deeper Deep Dives.

Maythor

Yeah I think we'll have to agree to disagree about how we presume they are thinking :P

VaranisArano

Maythor wrote: »

Yeah I think we'll have to agree to disagree about how we presume they are thinking :P

Fair enough!

fizzylu

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I wouldn't go this far, but I did feel like it didn't give much in the way of new insight. I also felt like my biggest question "Did this actually meet your goal of increasing accessibility?" was not satisfied by the combat changes. About the only thing I learned is that consider light attack weaving as a core part of their design now, and that they make changes specifically to protect it. I have long assumed that, but it's nice to see it confirmed. I hope this puts the final nail in the coffin in the always been bad argument that weaving is a "bug.". It also fits into their explanation they have already provided us about the jabs change.

That's the thing; we know it didn't reach their goal.... the numbers and player feedback already proved that even before they officially released the patch on live. They also have already considered light attack weaving to be apart of the game once they admitted they couldn't "fix" it with the way the games combat works.... so it wasn't as much of a bug, it was an oversight in the combat system because of the way the game functions and they chose to just "embrace" it. And if anything.... I think the biggest question people had in regard to light attack weaving and U35 was more based around Zenimax's questionable logic behind not having light attack damage scale off stats, claiming it would make light attack weaving not matter as much.... which again, was already proven to be false before the patch went live. It instead created a bigger gap.
Like seriously, all they did was just consolidate all the basics most people already know about ESO combat into a little list on this "deep dive". All it has shown me is that ZOS will never admit they kind of messed things up by sticking to their guns and ignoring the playerbase.

xthrshx

lol this didn’t answer anyone’s questions…

G0K4R

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi everyone. We know everyone has been asking about the Q&A related to combat. After internal conversations with the team, we have decided to shift from a Q&A. Instead, we've gone through the questions many have been asking and taken those back to the combat team to address the core themes we saw asked across the community. With that, the combat team has drafted an ESO Combat Vision statement, designed to give the community a clearer picture around the goals the combat team has always strived for and will continue to strive for. You can find the statement here for the forum discussion link. While we know the Q&A was initially proposed, we hope the statement helps to clarify some questions around the vision for ESO combat. Thanks for your patience around this topic.

Damn it. Confess, you just postet this to ruin this lovely advent calendar of @Wolfkeks

But well played - even tho' this deep dive was more like a jump into a paddling pool to be honest...

Hotdog_23

It’s not what was wanted or needed, but I didn’t really expect anything different, to be honest it’s a nice PR letter.  Feel this was more about damage control for the bad PR recently and awesome memes being shared, and not to answer any question at the same time. Instead, trying to shift our focus off their blunder of an update 35 was in hopes we will just go away and shut up. 

Hey, at least they did answer one question and that we are not getting a Q&A anymore and not just more head in the sand silence. Maybe they will get a Christmas miracle after all.

Stay safe

ForumBully

VaranisArano wrote: »

Maythor wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Thanks for the update, @ZOS_Kevin. Even if it's not quite the Q&A we originally expected, I appreciate that the focus shifted over time and so this is the equivalent presentation.

I'm delighted to see that the team followed through. As with many areas of communication, it may not be the answers we wanted to hear, but its meaningful to hear from the developers anyway.

And personally, I love the Deep Dives the team have done so far. This one reminded me a lot of the Class Identity one with its emphasis on defining how the Devs think, their goals for balance, and the broad strokes of how they envision ESO gameplay.

It was nowhere near what was needed.

To each their own. I have unanswered questions about U35 (like whether or not it achieved what it meant to), but I can accept and appreciate the Deep Dive for what it is.

That's not to say there's not reason for criticism. But in light of the recent conversation here, I'm reminded that ZOS gets a lot of criticism when they don't communicate at all AND when they communicate what players didn't want to hear.

Its okay to be disappointed when what we got. It's clear that the scope of the Q&A drifted substantially over the months since U35. We got what the Devs wanted to give us, not necessarily what we expected or wanted (for a given value of "we" - even our small numbers here were fairly divided on what we wanted.)

But overall, I'd rather we got more of these Deep Dives, and hopefully more substantial and regular ones as time goes on.

And in light of the recent conversation about why ZOS doesn't do regular updates as often as I'd like, I should point out that this dynamic is totally repeating itself. Perhaps not undeservedly in this case, but constant negative feedback is not exactly conducive to creating more communication. Imagine some people yelling "Do it!" And other people yelling "Not like that!

Yeah, but they are a business being paid for a service about which some of their customers are not happy. ZOS is not my friend group and not my "family", they don't give me any particular considerations when it comes to asking for certain things, so why should we pander to some imagined corporate emotional trauma they might get from being told that they have a product that has problems that they have failed multiple times to fix.

I'm sure they are big boys/girls and they are getting paid to do their jobs, I don't get a free from jail card when I mess up at work just because I might get upset about getting too much criticism. They way to avoid criticism is to stop messing up. And frankly unless their own bosses are chastising them for failures, a bit of forum chat is not really much at all (which seems apparent since they don't really seem to change their behaviours in regards to some bugs or communications historically .. of course if some bugs they are just unable to fix, then they should admit that).

And if they do deliberately withold communication because they are "hurt" or emotionally upset by people calling them out, then I don't know what to think of that corporate structure.

I think you've missed the mark a bit with the last.

Past experience suggests that ZOS steers away from regular communication because they know it results in frustrated and dissatisfied players - see
the recent conversation upthread where I posted Gina Bruno's explanation why they stopped doing regular updates on the performance road map like they did from 2019-2020.

ZOS has already seen that regular, but lackluster updates resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players. The result: we get periodic, but irregular updates about performance now. The silence obviously frustrates other players, but it's worth noting ZOS can't satisfy everyone, and they've chosen not to regularly rub salt in the wounds of frustrated players, as it were.

See also: the regular updates during U35 PTS which resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players who weren't getting the changes they wanted, followed by silence broken by periodic, but irregular updates on the Q&A culminating in this Deep Dive that didn't really address U35.

So I guess I'm looking at that pattern repeat itself and thinking, "You know, I'm sure dissatisfied players venting their frustration at a lackluster Deep Dive will result in more, regular, deep communication from the Devs, right?"

I'm pretty sure it won't, but I'd be happy to be wrong. I'd like more, regular, and deeper Deep Dives.

Seems like you're saying ZOS opts for irregular, infrequent and uninformative updates to avoid frustrating people with regular, frequent and uninformative updates. I guess that's one take, but those aren't the only options.
I'm happy someone has dug up a silver lining here, but I'm not kissing feet every time they drag out a pointless press release and call it communication.

Elsonso

VaranisArano wrote: »

So I guess I'm looking at that pattern repeat itself and thinking, "You know, I'm sure dissatisfied players venting their frustration at a lackluster Deep Dive will result in more, regular, deep communication from the Devs, right?"

I'm pretty sure it won't, but I'd be happy to be wrong. I'd like more, regular, and deeper Deep Dives.

If history can be used as a guide for the future, they are already turtled up in prep for next year. The question is what comes out in January when they do the combat preview. They mentioned it, but then they also talked about a Q&A for U35, before canceling it.

Traditionally, the combat preview comes out just before PTS, but I know that one streamer suggested they stop doing that before PTS. It will be interesting to see if they cancel the combat preview for 1Q DLC and do something like announce that it will be annual only, for the Chapters.

Destai

VaranisArano wrote: »

Maythor wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Thanks for the update, @ZOS_Kevin. Even if it's not quite the Q&A we originally expected, I appreciate that the focus shifted over time and so this is the equivalent presentation.

I'm delighted to see that the team followed through. As with many areas of communication, it may not be the answers we wanted to hear, but its meaningful to hear from the developers anyway.

And personally, I love the Deep Dives the team have done so far. This one reminded me a lot of the Class Identity one with its emphasis on defining how the Devs think, their goals for balance, and the broad strokes of how they envision ESO gameplay.

It was nowhere near what was needed.

To each their own. I have unanswered questions about U35 (like whether or not it achieved what it meant to), but I can accept and appreciate the Deep Dive for what it is.

That's not to say there's not reason for criticism. But in light of the recent conversation here, I'm reminded that ZOS gets a lot of criticism when they don't communicate at all AND when they communicate what players didn't want to hear.

Its okay to be disappointed when what we got. It's clear that the scope of the Q&A drifted substantially over the months since U35. We got what the Devs wanted to give us, not necessarily what we expected or wanted (for a given value of "we" - even our small numbers here were fairly divided on what we wanted.)

But overall, I'd rather we got more of these Deep Dives, and hopefully more substantial and regular ones as time goes on.

And in light of the recent conversation about why ZOS doesn't do regular updates as often as I'd like, I should point out that this dynamic is totally repeating itself. Perhaps not undeservedly in this case, but constant negative feedback is not exactly conducive to creating more communication. Imagine some people yelling "Do it!" And other people yelling "Not like that!

Yeah, but they are a business being paid for a service about which some of their customers are not happy. ZOS is not my friend group and not my "family", they don't give me any particular considerations when it comes to asking for certain things, so why should we pander to some imagined corporate emotional trauma they might get from being told that they have a product that has problems that they have failed multiple times to fix.

I'm sure they are big boys/girls and they are getting paid to do their jobs, I don't get a free from jail card when I mess up at work just because I might get upset about getting too much criticism. They way to avoid criticism is to stop messing up. And frankly unless their own bosses are chastising them for failures, a bit of forum chat is not really much at all (which seems apparent since they don't really seem to change their behaviours in regards to some bugs or communications historically .. of course if some bugs they are just unable to fix, then they should admit that).

And if they do deliberately withold communication because they are "hurt" or emotionally upset by people calling them out, then I don't know what to think of that corporate structure.

I think you've missed the mark a bit with the last.

Past experience suggests that ZOS steers away from regular communication because they know it results in frustrated and dissatisfied players - see
the recent conversation upthread where I posted Gina Bruno's explanation why they stopped doing regular updates on the performance road map like they did from 2019-2020.

ZOS has already seen that regular, but lackluster updates resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players. The result: we get periodic, but irregular updates about performance now. The silence obviously frustrates other players, but it's worth noting ZOS can't satisfy everyone, and they've chosen not to regularly rub salt in the wounds of frustrated players, as it were.

See also: the regular updates during U35 PTS which resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players who weren't getting the changes they wanted, followed by silence broken by periodic, but irregular updates on the Q&A culminating in this Deep Dive that didn't really address U35.

So I guess I'm looking at that pattern repeat itself and thinking, "You know, I'm sure dissatisfied players venting their frustration at a lackluster Deep Dive will result in more, regular, deep communication from the Devs, right?"

I'm pretty sure it won't, but I'd be happy to be wrong. I'd like more, regular, and deeper Deep Dives.

I can only speak for myself, but I would never be frustrated with regular communication and engagement. I get frustrated when we get official posts and all of ZOS disappear from those threads moments after posting them. They should know people will have questions and be prepared to engage us. They can't be surprised that people get frustrated when they don't. All too often, we get one-liners, and then players are understandably upset, and rather than working through it, they close off and stop communicating. There has to be an awareness on their part there's more options than throwing us vague updates and turtling up. If they're doing something, then there's something to share. The code rearch and server upgrades are a great example - no updates doesn't imply it's still WIP, it implies it's not being worked on.

I feel like if developers talked here, and CMs gave us a better framework, a lot of people's frustration would be abated. Gina could very easily spend ONE day here, open a thread, and source ideas. Kevin could create focused threads the moment a hot button issue is identified. We've gotten some really good engagement from Kevin - at times - particularly around some of the events and their feedback. I don't see why the same effort and direction isn't applied to the issues that cause them the most tension with the community.

Am I mad at Brian for what he posted? No, but I'm sure going to pick it apart and compare it against what I need to know to continue spending $1000s on this game annually. It doesn't line up for me because a vision statement isn't where we should be at 8-ish years into this game's lifecycle. Asking for a more concrete roadmap, what goals and milestones there, and what challenges/successes have been had really isn't a tall order. Carefully rehearsed statements aren't really of any value to me.

Ragnarok0130

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi everyone. We know everyone has been asking about the Q&A related to combat. After internal conversations with the team, we have decided to shift from a Q&A. Instead, we've gone through the questions many have been asking and taken those back to the combat team to address the core themes we saw asked across the community. With that, the combat team has drafted an ESO Combat Vision statement, designed to give the community a clearer picture around the goals the combat team has always strived for and will continue to strive for. You can find the statement here for the forum discussion link. While we know the Q&A was initially proposed, we hope the statement helps to clarify some questions around the vision for ESO combat. Thanks for your patience around this topic.

@ZOS_Kevin and @ZOS_BrianWheeler this is unacceptable and does not fulfill the purpose of the U35 Q&A. The linked letter covers none of the U35 concerns from the player base, it covers none the "whys" promised to be explained in the U35 Q&A regarding the rationale for the U35 changes despite the changes being almost universally panned by the player base and workable solutions provided by the end game community in the PTS forums, it provides no road map to correct or even mitigate the U35 changes that destroyed the ESO end game community and sewed distrust of the combat team among the players even worse than the Morrowind patch did, and frankly didn't even cover the community sentiment that you moved the goalpost to in the autumn. Oddly enough the vision isn't even clear in this letter since it's just a lot of vaporous marketing speak instead of a solid vision that we can understand and support.

My trial guilds have become ghost towns and friends simply not logging in since U35, it's difficult even to find DPS fills for veteran trials in Craglorn whereas before U35 you could fill DPS slots in a matter of seconds in zone chat with extras to spare. The numerous recurring block bugs make it hard to find tanks for group content while derailing or retarding progression group progress in trials since this core pillar of combat has been borked for an unacceptable amount of time while the Crown Store is always fixed instantaneously. This letter said nothing that any player who has played ESO for 30 days didn't already intuitively know so how does it fill the need for the U35 Q&A that ZoS promised the community? At this point I don't care about the U37 developer update, I want to know why and how U35 was allowed to happen as a paying customer and how you plan to correct the situation driving so many players away from ESO. If ZoS doesn't follow through on a promise that they came up with and made to the community regarding the Q&A how can we ever trust anything you say in future statements and developer posts?

Thank you for your understanding.

Elsonso

Destai wrote: »

I'm sure going to pick it apart and compare it against what I need to know to continue spending $1000s on this game annually. It doesn't line up for me because a vision statement isn't where we should be at 8-ish years into this game's lifecycle. Asking for a more concrete roadmap, what goals and milestones there, and what challenges/successes have been had really isn't a tall order. Carefully rehearsed statements aren't really of any value to me.

Yes, it is a vision statement. Not what was promised, or asked for, but what we got. Didn't address very many questions, and barely touched on player sentiment about U35, as far as I can tell. It was not a document targeted at the people in this thread, that is clear.

So, we have a vision statement. As a vision statement, it is about 1000 words too long but that's OK. I have yet to meet a vision statement that wasn't widely accepted, and that is generally the intent of one. A vision statement needs to be general enough to not restrict the company from doing what they want, yet be specific enough that the reader feels that it has weight and importance. I think that this one does a decent job. Not much meat on the bones, but also nothing that will spoil over time.

The words they use in these statements matter, and words they don't use matter more. It is important to recognize the words they are not using as much as it is to read the ones they do. It is the words they don't include that define what they will be doing as much as the words they do use.

In January, they do their 2023 reveal, and then the 1Q Dungeon DLC hits PTS. When that happens, we will be able to compare with Firor's marketing message and Wheeler's combat vision. That is when we find out how much of it is just what they want people to think while they go off and do what they really intended, but did not articulate very well. We discover some of the missing words.

As for your $1000/yr spending... I recommend that people who are trying to decide about $$$ should wait until the last part of January before spending too much money on this game for 2023.

Arunei

I wonder if there's an imminent thread closure coming now that we've been given our ""QA"" that doesn't answer or address any of the questions or concerns that people had about u35. It still boggles my mind that they claimed they were going to give us logic and insight on their decisions, but then turn around and say the "deep dive" is intended to do that when it does nothing of the sort. Literally nothing in the "deep dive" has any parallels to what we saw in the update. How does "mastery" or "play the way you want" fit in or have anything to do with having DPS/healing nerfed? How does them wanting to stay true to TES as a franchise have anything to do with the way they addressed power creep? There's nothing in that letter that relates to the issues of u35.

And the point that was brought up about players being frustrated over whether there's communication or not, you honestly have to take into consideration the context of the communication that's given. In this case many of us are frustrated because the communication we received was NOT what we were told we'd be getting. It was communication to avoid communication. They give us a vague letter that doesn't address ANYTHING people had problems with and then say "well we communicated". But it's not what we were told we'd be getting and it's not touching on any of the problems a lot of people have with the update.

They would have been better off just telling us they weren't going to do it and leave it at that. What they did was worse; it's like leaving a few pennies and dimes as a tip at a restaurant. It feels insulting.

VaranisArano

ForumBully wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Maythor wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Hurbster wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

Thanks for the update, @ZOS_Kevin. Even if it's not quite the Q&A we originally expected, I appreciate that the focus shifted over time and so this is the equivalent presentation.

I'm delighted to see that the team followed through. As with many areas of communication, it may not be the answers we wanted to hear, but its meaningful to hear from the developers anyway.

And personally, I love the Deep Dives the team have done so far. This one reminded me a lot of the Class Identity one with its emphasis on defining how the Devs think, their goals for balance, and the broad strokes of how they envision ESO gameplay.

It was nowhere near what was needed.

To each their own. I have unanswered questions about U35 (like whether or not it achieved what it meant to), but I can accept and appreciate the Deep Dive for what it is.

That's not to say there's not reason for criticism. But in light of the recent conversation here, I'm reminded that ZOS gets a lot of criticism when they don't communicate at all AND when they communicate what players didn't want to hear.

Its okay to be disappointed when what we got. It's clear that the scope of the Q&A drifted substantially over the months since U35. We got what the Devs wanted to give us, not necessarily what we expected or wanted (for a given value of "we" - even our small numbers here were fairly divided on what we wanted.)

But overall, I'd rather we got more of these Deep Dives, and hopefully more substantial and regular ones as time goes on.

And in light of the recent conversation about why ZOS doesn't do regular updates as often as I'd like, I should point out that this dynamic is totally repeating itself. Perhaps not undeservedly in this case, but constant negative feedback is not exactly conducive to creating more communication. Imagine some people yelling "Do it!" And other people yelling "Not like that!

Yeah, but they are a business being paid for a service about which some of their customers are not happy. ZOS is not my friend group and not my "family", they don't give me any particular considerations when it comes to asking for certain things, so why should we pander to some imagined corporate emotional trauma they might get from being told that they have a product that has problems that they have failed multiple times to fix.

I'm sure they are big boys/girls and they are getting paid to do their jobs, I don't get a free from jail card when I mess up at work just because I might get upset about getting too much criticism. They way to avoid criticism is to stop messing up. And frankly unless their own bosses are chastising them for failures, a bit of forum chat is not really much at all (which seems apparent since they don't really seem to change their behaviours in regards to some bugs or communications historically .. of course if some bugs they are just unable to fix, then they should admit that).

And if they do deliberately withold communication because they are "hurt" or emotionally upset by people calling them out, then I don't know what to think of that corporate structure.

I think you've missed the mark a bit with the last.

Past experience suggests that ZOS steers away from regular communication because they know it results in frustrated and dissatisfied players - see
the recent conversation upthread where I posted Gina Bruno's explanation why they stopped doing regular updates on the performance road map like they did from 2019-2020.

ZOS has already seen that regular, but lackluster updates resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players. The result: we get periodic, but irregular updates about performance now. The silence obviously frustrates other players, but it's worth noting ZOS can't satisfy everyone, and they've chosen not to regularly rub salt in the wounds of frustrated players, as it were.

See also: the regular updates during U35 PTS which resulted in frustrated, dissatisfied players who weren't getting the changes they wanted, followed by silence broken by periodic, but irregular updates on the Q&A culminating in this Deep Dive that didn't really address U35.

So I guess I'm looking at that pattern repeat itself and thinking, "You know, I'm sure dissatisfied players venting their frustration at a lackluster Deep Dive will result in more, regular, deep communication from the Devs, right?"

I'm pretty sure it won't, but I'd be happy to be wrong. I'd like more, regular, and deeper Deep Dives.

Seems like you're saying ZOS opts for irregular, infrequent and uninformative updates to avoid frustrating people with regular, frequent and uninformative updates. I guess that's one take, but those aren't the only options.

Yep, that's it. You're right that there are other options, but so far ZOS hasn't chosen to go with those options.

Jaraal

It’s like asking your gardener to take care of the overgrown patches of weeds, but instead they just put a little fertilizer around the one remaining flower. And then they say, “But look how well I’ve tended your flower!” and then demand payment in full.

xthrshx

This “vision statement” is so insulting. It’s honestly worse than if they did nothing and simply continued to ignore the customer demand for the promised Q&A. It literally says nothing new or interesting and does not even begin to address any of the issues players (customers) have raised. I knew it was going to be bad, but it’s even worse than I’d have guessed.

Oakenaxe

xthrshx wrote: »

This “vision statement” is so insulting. It’s honestly worse than if they did nothing and simply continued to ignore the customer demand for the promised Q&A. It literally says nothing new or interesting and does not even begin to address any of the issues players (customers) have raised. I knew it was going to be bad, but it’s even worse than I’d have guessed.

I agree, it is embarassing.

ZOS_Lunar

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ForumBully

ZOS_Lunar wrote: »

Hello!

We've removed some posts from this thread as they violated our rules on bashing and inappropriate content.

It’s okay to disagree and debate on the official ESO forums, but we do ask that you keep all disagreements civil, constructive, and on-topic. If a discussion gets heated and turns into a debate, remember that you should stick to debating the post and/or thread topic. It is never appropriate to resort to personal comments or jabs about those participating in the thread discussion. We do not permit the bashing of individuals (including ZeniMax employees), groups, or other companies on our forums.

We understand that everyone has their own opinions they want to express, but we also want the forums to be a constructive platform for ESO and its community. We would specifically like to call out insults directed at individuals, as this is never constructive in a discussion.

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This is every bit as informative as the deep-dive itself.

Onomog

ForumBully wrote: »

This is every bit as informative as the deep-dive itself.

It's also the only form of consistent engagement from ZoS that we should expect

mandricus

So, after the supposed "deep dive" (as deep as a children's pool kind of dive) we are not getting a real q&a on u35 i guess?

Elsonso

mandricus wrote: »

So, after the supposed "deep dive" (as deep as a children's pool kind of dive) we are not getting a real q&a on u35 i guess?

Nope. I expect nothing further on this. No Q&A and no document to address "player sentiment".

colossalvoids

- What's the news from the other provinces?
- They had a q&a session, while our empire is sitting doing nothing yet again.
- I see.
- Nasty creatures.
- Good day.

Jaraal

mandricus wrote: »

So, after the supposed "deep dive" (as deep as a children's pool kind of dive) we are not getting a real q&a on u35 i guess?

Nope, and now we can question the efficacy of any further statements of intention.

Erosion of trust seems counterproductive to establishing a positive reputation for one’s business.

Grega

Yeah I shook my head when I read that deep dive letter.

If I ever feel the need to divorce my husband, I’ll ask them to draft me a letter. With how it’s put together, I think my husband won’t even know we’re getting a divorce.

RMW

U35:
→ Q&A U35
→ Q&A to adress players sentiment
→ 'Deep Dive'
→ Explanantion what ZOS considers combat

U37:

KlauthWarthog

Hey, at least they are consistent... that letter is of as high quality as their bugfixes.

SerasWhip

this Q&A is sort of like the sixth house, ''we don't talk about it''.