So whatever happened to that Q&A?

Tandor

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I think they canceled it and aren't telling us because they don't see a point in it.

Well if they don't see a point in developing trust or the value of honesty and following through on your word, then it's not a good sign for the future of the game.

What if I told you I was going to do something for you, but then never did and never gave you a reason why? Would your opinion of me get better, or worse? And what if I told 10,000,000 people I was going to do something for them, but failed to deliver? Should I expect my reputation to get better, or worse?

I don't think their reputation is gonna get much lower, when the perception is already that they never communicate.

Elsonso wrote: »

Yes, I think a lot of people do have a "they didn't say what I wanted to hear" perception, but then ZOS didn't really communicate very well, either. They talk about it a lot more than they act on it.

If that is how they roll, that is how they roll, but that doesn't make it right, nor does it make it the fault of the players.

I mean, AWA's communication was pretty thorough. Until this Q&A fell through, so was Update 35. We know why they made the changes they made, what they hoped to accomplish, why it failed (conflicting goals during development), etc. Many of the most controversial changes like the jabs change had extensive communication as to what they wanted to do, like we know they changed the animation to match the changes they made to the skill to make the skill easier to weave with.

Silence isn't a healthy response. But they are also human beings.

I can't agree with that. I won't go into detail as it's off-topic here, but there contributions to an 80+page thread on the PTS forum most certainly did not constitute "pretty thorough communication"!

KlauthWarthog

Well, I will take the radio silence on this subject as a confirmation that they do not have a reasonable explanation on why their stated goals and their achieved results are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

spartaxoxo

Tandor wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I think they canceled it and aren't telling us because they don't see a point in it.

Well if they don't see a point in developing trust or the value of honesty and following through on your word, then it's not a good sign for the future of the game.

What if I told you I was going to do something for you, but then never did and never gave you a reason why? Would your opinion of me get better, or worse? And what if I told 10,000,000 people I was going to do something for them, but failed to deliver? Should I expect my reputation to get better, or worse?

I don't think their reputation is gonna get much lower, when the perception is already that they never communicate.

Elsonso wrote: »

Yes, I think a lot of people do have a "they didn't say what I wanted to hear" perception, but then ZOS didn't really communicate very well, either. They talk about it a lot more than they act on it.

If that is how they roll, that is how they roll, but that doesn't make it right, nor does it make it the fault of the players.

I mean, AWA's communication was pretty thorough. Until this Q&A fell through, so was Update 35. We know why they made the changes they made, what they hoped to accomplish, why it failed (conflicting goals during development), etc. Many of the most controversial changes like the jabs change had extensive communication as to what they wanted to do, like we know they changed the animation to match the changes they made to the skill to make the skill easier to weave with.

Silence isn't a healthy response. But they are also human beings.

I can't agree with that. I won't go into detail as it's off-topic here, but there contributions to an 80+page thread on the PTS forum most certainly did not constitute "pretty thorough communication"!

That thread got to 80 pages because a lot of the same feedback kept being shared over and over, by different people. They read the thread and answered pretty much all of the most common questions and points in the Q&A. Which is pretty par for the course for developer feedback. I would consider that pretty thorough. I think that's what they initially planned to do with the Q&A this time, but then they didn't for whatever reason.

Elsonso

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I mean, AWA's communication was pretty thorough.

I respectfully disagree. Not even close.

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I mean, AWA's communication was pretty thorough.

I respectfully disagree. Not even close.

I mean, instead of just saying "no" you could actually articulate something they didn't say that you feel they should have. It would give a better understanding of what types of communication you'd like to see.

VaranisArano

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

There was no meaningful communication on AwA, there won't be on this.

They did explain why AWA happened, and why they weren't going to make it optional. And their Q&A actually addressed some common feedback.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598865/account-wide-achievements-q-a

Meanwhile, there has actually been very little meaningful communication about the Update 35 Q&A. Because the most important information (whether it's canceled, and if isn't a ballpark on when it will happen) was never told to us. My guess is because they don't see the point when people aren't going to like what they hear. The playerbase isn't actually going to give them credit for communicating bad news, so why bother.

I don't believe this Q&A is ever gonna happen at this point. And I don't believe they are going to announce the cancellation. And after I saw so many posts claiming AWA and Update 35 did not have communication, just because the community didn't like the answers they were given, I no longer blame them. I used to think it was better to communicate bad news than silence because I've seen it work in the past, but with this game, I actually understand the desire to let people just get the negativity out their system without constant bad news updates.

I honestly thought that U35 was one of the best jobs the team has done regarding communication. We were kept informed about PTS details in a timely manner. Yes, it was a lot of news the playerbase didn't want to hear, and no, the team didn't get the credit for it that they should have because players were angry with the content of the communications. That's not a knock on what the team did to keep us informed.

I'll admit I was expecting a Q&A around the PC launch that wouldn't do much to change the community opinion, but it would be interesting to read. But it didn't come. So I thought, "Maybe they are waiting for Console launch?" But that's passed, and U36 is out on PTS, and the only update on the Q&A is basically, "Yeah, we'll let you know if there's any additional information." Which, considering that we weren't even given that much until someone directly asked on an unrelated thread promoting the U36 promo event, is not very promising. (Not judging ZOS_Kevin for answering it there when he was asked, just noting that players sometimes act like a squeaky wheel demanding grease on unrelated threads in part because they sometimes get answers there rather than on the on-topic threads.)

So speaking for myself as someone who thinks they did a good job communicating about U35 before launch, I will be disappointed if the team chooses to let this promised Q&A silently lapse or just runs the clock out.

No, they were never going to make players happy with the Q&A, but they can at least keep their word or have the integrity to say they've changed their mind. After all, they've talked about how they stopped doing the road map because it wasn't helpful and only frustrated players, so they shouldn't be adverse to just saying something like that for the Q&A if that's what they think is going to happen. So if that's what they think, then rip off the bandaid, say it, and move on. Don't leave the possibility of the Q&A open hoping that the clock runs out and unhappy players forget that the team didn't deliver.

Ultimately, a single Q&A released, officially canceled, or just quietly abandoned seems like a small thing, but trust isn't regained in a day or even a single update.

Jaimeh

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Well, I will take the radio silence on this subject as a confirmation that they do not have a reasonable explanation on why their stated goals and their achieved results are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

When you think ZOS can't disappoint you any further... Regardless of the validity of their explanation, we were promised a Q&A a couple of months ago, and not only have they not delivered, but they have been ignoring any requests to get a definitive answers on whether it will even happen or not. If this doesn't speak volumes how little they think of their community, then I don't know what does.

spartaxoxo

VaranisArano wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

There was no meaningful communication on AwA, there won't be on this.

They did explain why AWA happened, and why they weren't going to make it optional. And their Q&A actually addressed some common feedback.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/598865/account-wide-achievements-q-a

Meanwhile, there has actually been very little meaningful communication about the Update 35 Q&A. Because the most important information (whether it's canceled, and if isn't a ballpark on when it will happen) was never told to us. My guess is because they don't see the point when people aren't going to like what they hear. The playerbase isn't actually going to give them credit for communicating bad news, so why bother.

I don't believe this Q&A is ever gonna happen at this point. And I don't believe they are going to announce the cancellation. And after I saw so many posts claiming AWA and Update 35 did not have communication, just because the community didn't like the answers they were given, I no longer blame them. I used to think it was better to communicate bad news than silence because I've seen it work in the past, but with this game, I actually understand the desire to let people just get the negativity out their system without constant bad news updates.

I honestly thought that U35 was one of the best jobs the team has done regarding communication. We were kept informed about PTS details in a timely manner. Yes, it was a lot of news the playerbase didn't want to hear, and no, the team didn't get the credit for it that they should have because players were angry with the content of the communications. That's not a knock on what the team did to keep us informed.

I'll admit I was expecting a Q&A around the PC launch that wouldn't do much to change the community opinion, but it would be interesting to read. But it didn't come. So I thought, "Maybe they are waiting for Console launch?" But that's passed, and U36 is out on PTS, and the only update on the Q&A is basically, "Yeah, we'll let you know if there's any update on it happening." Which, considering that we weren't even given that much until someone directly asked on an unrelated thread promoting the U36 promo event, is not very promising.

So speaking for myself as someone who thinks they did a good job communicating about U35 before launch, I will be disappointed if the team chooses to let this promised Q&A silently lapse or just runs the clock out.

No, they were never going to make players happy with the Q&A, but they can at least keep their word or have the integrity to say they've changed their mind. After all, they've talked about how they stopped doing the road map because it wasn't helpful and only frustrated players, so they shouldn't be adverse to just saying something like that for the Q&A if that's what they think is going to happen. So if that's what they think, then rip off the bandaid, say it, and move on. Don't leave the possibility of the Q&A open hoping that the clock runs out and unhappy players forget that the team didn't deliver.

Ultimately, a single Q&A released, officially canceled, or just quietly abandoned seems like a small thing, but trust isn't regained in a day or even a single update.

I actually feel the same way. I'm understanding of why they might feel it's pointless, but I still think they should do it. I was actually impressed with the level of communication they were giving us with U35 (even though I also hated it because I hate most of the U35 changes)....and then it just grinded it to a halt. I do feel like part of that was the numerous threads claiming they weren't saying anything, players comparing themselves to screaming in deserts and the like. It must have felt like a slap in the face to make so much effort into increasing communication, only for it to be completely disregarded. But, some of us absolutely did notice. And giving players ammo to say "see they aren't saying anything, they won't even tell us the q&a was canceled" isn't going to help anything or rebuild any trust.

I really think they should just admit it's canceled or get on with it, but I can understand how stressful it must be for them right now too.

Jaraal

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Well, I will take the radio silence on this subject as a confirmation that they do not have a reasonable explanation on why their stated goals and their achieved results are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

That is the other possibility. They may have drafted the questions, and then realized there were no good answers. We have a clue in that they mentioned the conflicting goals.

What better opportunity to have a discourse explaining vision fallibility and portraying the human side of game development? Even if only in the form of a one sided Q&A? Definitely a missed learning and teaching opportunity. Instead, we are left with mistrust and the foreboding feeling of what the future will bring to the game we care so much about.

Living_Tribunal

Pretty sure the lack of one is your answer as to when it's happening.

Onomog

Anything they say can, and will, be used against them. Even if it's a status update on whether or not a Q&A is happening. From ZoS's POV, players will still be unhappy with whatever they say, so why say anything; they gain nothing but more turmoil.

I, personally, haven't been thrilled with some of the changes and I have questions about the direction, studio commitment, and over all longevity of the game. I don't expect the company to share much, if any, of that info so I end up having to rely on 2 things: 1) what they actually do that I can see, interpret, and measure; and 2) whether I am still enjoying myself. So far the answer to 2 is giving me the patience to wait and see what 1 brings.

Jammy420

Been playing this game with my wife since launch. I was extremely displeased with the u35, i thought tho they would address some of the concerns of the playerbase with u36, so I didn't bother posting.

However, with the u36 pts notes, I was extremely displeased, and disheartened, no acknowledgment at all of the concerns of the playerbase. It just feels like we are talking to a wall.

Marto

Onomog wrote: »

Anything they say can, and will, be used against them. Even if it's a status update on whether or not a Q&A is happening. From ZoS's POV, players will still be unhappy with whatever they say, so why say anything; they gain nothing but more turmoil.

It's even more sad when you consider that most of the adjustments made during the U35 PTS were suggested by the community.

ZOS absolutely listens to feedback and makes changes based on what the playerbase wants. And that is kind of why the game is in the state it's in. It's why power creep is so rampant, and it's why the playerbase seems unable to tolerate even the most meaningless damage reductions.

ZOS has spent years trying to raise the floor, since that's what the playerbase always says will solve accessibility issues for endgame content. But all that did was create an overworld where enemies melt in a split second, dungeons that get skipped and last less than 10 minutes, players that go 30-0 on battlegrounds, and endgame Trials that are impossible to balance and adjust, since a 2% change means the difference between "this trial is a joke, it's so boring I'm falling asleep" and "my guild is quitting the game after wiping for 4 hours"

ESO is impossible to patch. Impossible to balance. And it's because ZOS listened to the community for too long, and didn't consider the long-term health of the game. Players are not designers. Players very often have a very narrow frame of reference, and fail to consider the repercussion a change will have on anyone that has a different playstyle than them.

U35 is them acknowledging these issues, and working on solutions for the health of the game. And yes, that means damage needs to go down.

Billium813

Marto wrote: »

ZOS absolutely listens to feedback and makes changes based on what the playerbase wants. And that is kind of why the game is in the state it's in. It's why power creep is so rampant, and it's why the playerbase seems unable to tolerate even the most meaningless damage reductions.

Umm, no. Everyone was saying Mara's Balm is busted W1 of the PTS. Everyone hated the arbitrary Templar changes to Jabs. Everyone was complaining about the duration timer changes and massive DPS drop ACROSS THE BOARD, not just off the top. Everyone was complaining about the Empower changes. (by "everyone" I am referring to 90% of all PTS forums posts; literally the place for feedback on PTS changes)

And did they address any of it? To their credit, they walked back the AOE duration changes (keeping some of the damage nerfs...) and kept the sticky DOT durations. That was it.

PTS feedback is only addressed if either 1) a content creator brings it up, or 2) it's a legit bug. Otherwise, we are completely ignored. PTS is an ALPHA test! The first 3-4 weeks after PTS goes Live is a BETA test. That's why people hate it. We don't want to BETA test the game on live every 4 months.

Marto wrote: »

U35 is them acknowledging these issues, and working on solutions for the health of the game. And yes, that means damage needs to go down.

I mean, what was the point of nerfing the damage across the board? We still have 120k DPS builds. We still have META. We still have bugs. We still have missing implementations from old development. Nerfing everyones damage didn't solve anything! Tell me how it solved anything taking fringe builds that could obtain ~30-40k DPS and nuking them into the ground so that they can only maybe get ~20k DPS and aren't viable for dungeons anymore? All it did is consolidate the META!! It worked entirely contradictory to their desire to increase player accessibility!!
No one can defend that the top DPS builds shouldnt be nerfed. If they had nerfed all +100k DPS builds and no one else under that was effected, this wouldn't be an issue. We would just say "let the top 0.1% cry". But they nerfed damage at all levels! And, for the most arbitrary of reasons: to make the game more accessible. That means is however they choose to define it and they can make up whatever metrics they want to defend it!

Tandor

I still wish that someone could point to one thing that "content creators" have created. It's such a misleading term, surely there's a better one.

fizzylu

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Well, I will take the radio silence on this subject as a confirmation that they do not have a reasonable explanation on why their stated goals and their achieved results are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

This, and I think they're trying to sweep it all under the rug hoping people will just forget or something haha they're trying to direct attention to U36, but the problem is that U36 already isn't helping much and actually might just make things worse.

Elsonso

Tandor wrote: »

I still wish that someone could point to one thing that "content creators" have created. It's such a misleading term, surely there's a better one.

Influencers. They go on about something they like to get people to follow them into whatever that is.

renne

Marto wrote: »

It's even more sad when you consider that most of the adjustments made during the U35 PTS were suggested by the community.

ZOS absolutely listens to feedback and makes changes based on what the playerbase wants. And that is kind of why the game is in the state it's in. It's why power creep is so rampant, and it's why the playerbase seems unable to tolerate even the most meaningless damage reductions.

I wish I lived in the universe where this happened, because it definitely didn't happen in this one.

Jaraal

fizzylu wrote: »

KlauthWarthog wrote: »

Well, I will take the radio silence on this subject as a confirmation that they do not have a reasonable explanation on why their stated goals and their achieved results are on opposite sides of the galaxy.

This, and I think they're trying to sweep it all under the rug hoping people will just forget or something haha they're trying to direct attention to U36, but the problem is that U36 already isn't helping much and actually might just make things worse.

Except people don’t forget. You still see comments about the Morrowind sustain nerfs, the Bosmer passive debacle, the bringing back sacrificed heroes to sell new content, alts being stripped of achievements, and so forth.

It’s ironic that they could have tossed a flimsy Q&A out there and been done with it, but instead chose to have yet another faux pas eternally etched in the consciousness of the player base that will be referenced and kicked around for as long as the servers still have power.

Marto

renne wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

It's even more sad when you consider that most of the adjustments made during the U35 PTS were suggested by the community.

ZOS absolutely listens to feedback and makes changes based on what the playerbase wants. And that is kind of why the game is in the state it's in. It's why power creep is so rampant, and it's why the playerbase seems unable to tolerate even the most meaningless damage reductions.

I wish I lived in the universe where this happened, because it definitely didn't happen in this one.

• Adding Slayer and Aegis to Oakensoul, as a way to buff it in PVE, without further increasing its PVP damage
• Have Subterranean Assault hit twice after 3 and 6 seconds, thus preserving the 3-second muscle memory, and serving as essentially a free re-cast of the ability that doesn't require any further input.
• All of the new target dummy buffs
• Many new buffs and skills that provided minor buffs were switched to major buffs (or vice versa) for the sake of retaining class identity and advantages.

These are some of the suggestions that players made, and ZOS implemented throughout the PTS.

So, yes, you do live in a universe where ZOS listens to feedback, and implements it into updates.

Update 35 is probably the best update we've ever had in terms of communication. There were articles on the main website, forum posts from Gilliam ahead of the patch notes, and more thorough dev commentary than any patch notes in the past.

[snip]
[edited for baiting]

enemyofgodd

Billium813 wrote: »

But they nerfed damage at all levels! And, for the most arbitrary of reasons: to make the game more accessible.

I feel like a lot of people get unnecessarily hung up on the word accessibility in the combat preview. The changes to DoT timers were what were clearly meant to improve quality of life/accessibility and the damage nerfs were a separate and conflicting goal entirely. That said, the final changes to timers are still not well synchronized and ended up being just about as bad as before since a bunch of passives and a handful of skills altogether were straight up ignored, so it's not as though this facet of their goals was achieved anyways.

ZoS' biggest blunder here was releasing so many changes simultaneously thereby conflating the effects of the changes to the point that no effective feedback could be given for any particular individual element. U35 could have been a lot better if the timer changes were introduced first (with maybe a slight DPS boost to make the changes overall more palatable) followed by a later blanket nerf to curb the damage in U36.

Of course, these types of things could have been answered in a FAQ/Q&A, but here were are, a month later still trying to guess the devs' intentions.

Billium813

enemyofgodd wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

But they nerfed damage at all levels! And, for the most arbitrary of reasons: to make the game more accessible.

I feel like a lot of people get unnecessarily hung up on the word accessibility in the combat preview. The changes to DoT timers were what were clearly meant to improve quality of life/accessibility and the damage nerfs were a separate and conflicting goal entirely. That said, the final changes to timers are still not well synchronized and ended up being just about as bad as before since a bunch of passives and a handful of skills altogether were straight up ignored, so it's not as though this facet of their goals was achieved anyways.

ZoS' biggest blunder here was releasing so many changes simultaneously thereby conflating the effects of the changes to the point that no effective feedback could be given for any particular individual element. U35 could have been a lot better if the timer changes were introduced first (with maybe a slight DPS boost to make the changes overall more palatable) followed by a later blanket nerf to curb the damage in U36.

Of course, these types of things could have been answered in a FAQ/Q&A, but here were are, a month later still trying to guess the devs' intentions.

Too much, incomplete, conflicting intentions, little public communication on intention.

Wish I could "Agree" with this more than once.

renne

Marto wrote: »

renne wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

It's even more sad when you consider that most of the adjustments made during the U35 PTS were suggested by the community.

ZOS absolutely listens to feedback and makes changes based on what the playerbase wants. And that is kind of why the game is in the state it's in. It's why power creep is so rampant, and it's why the playerbase seems unable to tolerate even the most meaningless damage reductions.

I wish I lived in the universe where this happened, because it definitely didn't happen in this one.

• Adding Slayer and Aegis to Oakensoul, as a way to buff it in PVE, without further increasing its PVP damage
• Have Subterranean Assault hit twice after 3 and 6 seconds, thus preserving the 3-second muscle memory, and serving as essentially a free re-cast of the ability that doesn't require any further input.
• All of the new target dummy buffs
• Many new buffs and skills that provided minor buffs were switched to major buffs (or vice versa) for the sake of retaining class identity and advantages.

These are some of the suggestions that players made, and ZOS implemented throughout the PTS.

So, yes, you do live in a universe where ZOS listens to feedback, and implements it into updates.

Update 35 is probably the best update we've ever had in terms of communication. There were articles on the main website, forum posts from Gilliam ahead of the patch notes, and more thorough dev commentary than any patch notes in the past.

[snip]

Cherrypicking exmples when there is a massive amount of significant issues they completely ignored feedback on isn't really it though. Two things in that list are the only things you can even say they listened on, the other two were things they already did so have zero reference to "ZOS listening to feedback'.

If it's "the best update in terms of communication" where's the Q&A they promised? Why did we only get this communication after masses and masses of community uproar? It's hard to laud this as a good thing when it literally only happened because the patch was so bad nearly everyone was against it. If it was a good thing it wouldn't have taken the community getting up in arms over a massively broken patch to happen, it would happen anyway.

[snip]
[edited for baiting & to remove quote]

spartaxoxo

The U35 communication up started before the patch began, to the point that one developer got irritated because there was a lot of negativity before the patch even dropped.

It's false to say they only increased feedback because of negativity. They talked about increasing it for weeks before it happening, they previewed the patch earlier, and a forum post and a live stream talking about what they intended from the patch BEFORE it dropped.

ETA

Here's some other changes made due to player feedback

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27%

Light and Heavy Attacks will once again scale with your stats, just to a lesser extent than before.


There will also be a handful of tweaks to some class abilities in next week’s PTS patch, based on the feedback we’ve received, but the majority of these will come in the final PTS patch.

Additionally, for Dungeons and Trials, we’ll be reducing the health of all bosses on Veteran difficulty and above in the final PTS patch to account for the overall DPS loss

There are three main issues we would like to address with some targeted adjustments in next week’s PTS patch. These mainly pertain to Damage and Healing over Time effects, as we’ve found those have been the focus of the majority of conversations between all types of players. The first is the loss of reactive gameplay with ticking Area of Effect-based abilities, where delayed tick rates make them feel far less reactive to their surroundings and further punish their lack of mobility as such. The second is how the extension of durations on Area of Effect-based abilities actively harms their effectiveness since their power has been stretched out over a longer period, further increasing their risk of targets not staying in the area. The final is how ESO has always been a game about choice, and how global standards can over-define the reality of ability portrayal and can actively harm that idea. Now, let us go over what you are probably really here for – what we are doing to address these points.

Those are all quotes from the devs that they communicated to us through forum posts here.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/612574/update-35-pts-combat-feedback-upcoming-changes/p1
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/613388/upcoming-pts-combat-balance-adjustments/p1

The bulk of the patch went through because they believed in it, but they made several changes based off feedback from players.

It's not cherrypicking when the majority of the combat balance adjustments that the DID make were based off feedback or outright taking player suggestions and implementing them.

What several players wanted was a near full reversion of the changes. And the devs didn't want to do that.

This patch was the epitome of thorough communication but not doing what the playerbase ultimately wanted them to do and sticking by their own design decisions instead. And the message they must have received loud and clear, is that there is no point to this level of communication if you're giving players news they would not consider good.

It doesn't count for anything unless you do what they want.

They should absolutely announce the cancellation of the Q%A anyway, but this patch had a lot of communication and they clearly and explicitly made changes based off feedback and referenced that feedback when explaining their changes. And that counted for absolutely nothing. They should still announce the cancellation anyway to keep a promise, but I wouldn't blame them if after this they didn't give this level of communication during bad news again. Because the player base will not accept it and there's no use trying to talk to a stone wall.

Billium813

First, the Empower buff will no longer apply its bonus to partially charged Heavy Attacks.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27%

Light and Heavy Attacks will once again scale with your stats, just to a lesser extent than before.

This was a legitimate bug that was found and needed to be fixed. You can say "player feedback lead to them making this change" if you want, but this was a BUG that they needed to fix. This was not an example of the devs listing to the community, taking their thoughts and ideas under consideration, and deciding that the community was correct AGAINST DEVS INTENT. There is a big difference. The REASON they made these changes was because players on the PTS were demonstrating ABSURD DPS numbers with a dang restoration staff. There was NO way devs would allow this and of course they would fix this once it was shown (I'll even handwave the fact that YouTube videos needed to be made and the most popular content creators had to vocalize the issue first)

There will also be a handful of tweaks to some class abilities in next week’s PTS patch, based on the feedback we’ve received, but the majority of these will come in the final PTS patch.

Very minor tweaks and not nearly enough (https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614365/pts-patch-notes-v8-1-4)!

Listen, I'll be the first to admit that 90% of players were crying for universal rollbacks and that is not helpful. Devs have a direction in mind with every change they push to PTS and it's always more helpful to provide feedback that is trying to work WITH that direction. I always try to make my suggestions to incorporate the intended direction and never throw out "rollback everything" opinion. I'm not surprised when devs completely ignore "revert all changes" comments and don't do that! But when someone brings up legitimate issues with their intentions, or point out other areas that need to be changed, or question why it was necessary to change certain things, we hear crickets. We never hear them address the missing stuff. We wait for the next PTS and expect them to make a comment. We throw our feedback into the void and hear nothing. They say "based on player feedback" like we know what that means. I think it means "we are making this change, which isn't what they asked for, because we think it will fix some other issue players are bringing up".

Additionally, for Dungeons and Trials, we’ll be reducing the health of all bosses on Veteran difficulty and above in the final PTS patch to account for the overall DPS loss

Really? Your going to lean on this one? The arbitrary lowering of all bosses health was such a lame, poorly thought out concession. They may have "listened" to the community winge about lower DPS, but they ultimately said back "fine, I guess we could lower bosses health. Happy now?". The health change is sooo random too. How did they come up with that ~10% would be correct? Or that lowering Boss healths was somehow the answer in the first place? They were so hellbent on keeping their direction (which we don't even really know at this point and a QA would totally help illuminate) that they made the most minor concessions they could think of to try to placate players.

There are three main issues we would like to address with some targeted adjustments in next week’s PTS patch. These mainly pertain to Damage and Healing over Time effects, as we’ve found those have been the focus of the majority of conversations between all types of players. The first is the loss of reactive gameplay with ticking Area of Effect-based abilities, where delayed tick rates make them feel far less reactive to their surroundings and further punish their lack of mobility as such. The second is how the extension of durations on Area of Effect-based abilities actively harms their effectiveness since their power has been stretched out over a longer period, further increasing their risk of targets not staying in the area. The final is how ESO has always been a game about choice, and how global standards can over-define the reality of ability portrayal and can actively harm that idea. Now, let us go over what you are probably really here for – what we are doing to address these points.

To their credit, them walking back the AOE duration portion of their "duration extension for player accessibility" changes was a very good idea. I will also gripe that they DIDNT walk back some of the damage nerfs that were placed FOR the duration extension... but I am glad they recognized that making an arbitrary change like "increase all timers cause better for rotations" was a poorly thought out change.

spartaxoxo

Billium813 wrote: »

This was a legitimate bug that was found and needed to be fixed.

No. It was not a bug. It was a balance change and listed as such.

Very minor tweaks and not nearly enough

Not nearly enough is subjective. The devs clearly disagreed with the playerbase on patch being necessary for the health of the game in the long term, and outright stated that. Regardless, those changes did exist.

They say "based on player feedback" like we know what that means. I think it means "we are making this change, which isn't what they asked for, because we think it will fix some other issue players are bringing up".

Sometimes developers listen to feedback and then implement a change that they think addresses the problem players are complaining about, without doing the player proposed solution. This is because they agree with the player the problem, but not the fix. This happens more often than not because players aren't designers and also don't have as much information about the game at their fingertips.

Really? Your going to lean on this one?

Yes. Because this is not an argument about the quality of the patch. People are claiming that feedback was IGNORED. Ignored =/= I don't like your solution. The quality of the solutions are irrelevant to this discussion. I don't like U35 and am not defending it's quality. I'm disagreeing with the idea that feedback was ignored. This change was a direct response to players pointing out again and again that U35 made trials especially inaccessible because their damage was nerfed but the trials remained the same difficulty, making them harder to complete.

Paralyse

Being an ESO player does not entitle you to a personal audience with the developer(s) of your choosing.

People need to learn that they are not being "ignored" just because they provide feedback and their feedback doesn't result in changes.

Part of being a mature human being is understanding that even if you are 100% convinced that you are completely correct and believe 100% that whatever suggestions you are making would result in the best outcomes, other humans can, and will, have 100% opposing viewpoints and be just as confident that you are 100% wrong.

I recall a particularly contentious "AMA" discussion on a very large MMO a few years ago that was held with one of the developers via a web chat type setup, sort of like how Twitch chat works now, but pre-screened. The AMA was being held to discuss a very small number of very specific items which were directly within the responsibility of the developer being questioned. Instead, it turned into a giant complaint-fest where thousands of players were complaining about quite literally everything, including nearly everything that this particular developer had no possible involvement with, and therefore could do nothing to remedy.

The moderators chose not to present those questions to the developer, and instead screened the questions for only ones that were relevant to the topics at hand, and not offensive, hateful, or derogatory.

This led to a massive outcry on the game's forums by players who were convinced they were being ignored, censored, put down, or blown off, by developers that were obviously clueless and inept and didn't care about the game. Threats of violence were made, threats to rage quit and cancel subscriptions and boycott the company and its products because the players were being treated so wrongly.

Unsurprisingly, perhaps shockingly, the rage, hate, and general antipathy did not exactly make the developers of the game want to host future AMA sessions, especially not without pre-screening of questions!

virtus753

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

This was a legitimate bug that was found and needed to be fixed.

No. It was not a bug. It was a balance change and listed as such.

Then why did Rich Lambert call this change a "fix" in a Discord post?

"Fix" is not an appropriate term to use for a balance change. It is appropriate for a change that corrects something unintended.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614866/medium-weaving-meta-cancelled

"We got a fix in where Empower won't affect partially-charged heavies."

spartaxoxo

virtus753 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

This was a legitimate bug that was found and needed to be fixed.

No. It was not a bug. It was a balance change and listed as such.

Then why did Rich Lambert call this change a "fix" in a Discord post?

"Fix" is not an appropriate term to use for a balance change. It is appropriate for a change that corrects something unintended.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614866/medium-weaving-meta-cancelled

"We got a fix in where Empower won't affect partially-charged heavies."

Because it fixed an obviously absurd gameplay situation, not because it was a bug.

ETA:

Empower:
This buff now increases your damage against monsters with Heavy Attacks by 80%, rather than your damage done with Light and Heavy 40%.
Note that this bonus does not apply to partially charged Heavy Attacks, only fully charged Heavy Attacks or channeled Heavy Attacks. This was done to prevent “medium” weaving from becoming a dominant playstyle.

From additional combat changes thread

This change was made to prevent a situation where "medium attack weaving" could become a leading damage producing playstyle; these attacks are generally made by error rather than intentionally , as they are harder to do than a Light Attack or Fully-Charged Heavy Attack.

Additionally, we are reducing the damage from the final hit of restoration heavy attacks by approximately 27% and increasing the amount of Magicka restored by 10%. We’re taking out some of the raw power from this weapon type to prevent it from becoming a dominant damage producing weapon, and instead moving its focus of this attack type to be on the Recovery side of things.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/615168/additional-combat-changes-for-update-35

Marto

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They should absolutely announce the cancellation of the Q%A anyway, but this patch had a lot of communication and they clearly and explicitly made changes based off feedback and referenced that feedback when explaining their changes. And that counted for absolutely nothing. They should still announce the cancellation anyway to keep a promise, but I wouldn't blame them if after this they didn't give this level of communication during bad news again. Because the player base will not accept it and there's no use trying to talk to a stone wall.

I agree. I'd prefer for ZOS to have never promised a Q&A to begin with, but otherwise, cancelling it might be the most honest way to go about it.

Ultimately, there's not much of a point to most questions we could ask because they've already been answered by the patch notes themselves.

Why did Biting Jabs change to 0.8s? For the same reason other abilities were changed to 0.8 or 1.8 seconds, to allow for a 200ms weaving window.

Why did the damage get nerfed? Because the damage was too high.

Why did Warden get their damage passive changed? Because medium armor Wardens were overperforming, and light armor Wardens were underperforming. Damage Done benefits medium armor more than it does light armor, crit damage benefits light armor more than it does medium armor.

Read the Developer Commentary. The answers to nearly all your questions are right there.

You may dislike the specific solution, or think the logic isn't sound, or think that something was overnerfed or overbuffed. By all means, provide feedback.

But a lot of the feedback that was "ignored" boils down to players refusing to acknowledge the problems. So it doesn't matter if ZOS' solution is good or bad. Players will get angry because they aren't able or willing to acknowledge the problem.