So whatever happened to that Q&A?

VaranisArano

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

I can't agree that they shouldn't keep up this level of communication.

For one, I do think the reaction to the patch would have been considerably worse without the work the Communications Team did to manage expectations, particularly with the previews of what was coming on the PTS.

Second, I think that the angry players not giving them credit are not the target audience for those communications. Those communications were helpful for PTS testers putting in time and effort to test and useful for reasonable players to see what the Devs were thinking as they evaluate the Updates. Yeah, they were a lightning rod for dissatisfied players too, but in past PTS cycles, those same dissatisfied players have just posted complaint threads regardless while regular players haven't been kept nearly as well informed.

If anything, I'd rather that ZOS was more willing to say "No, that doesn't fit with our vision. We're doing it our way, end of story" on some topics.

Consider one of the areas where feedback was "ignored" or at least not responded to (to the best of my knowledge): the Templar animation changes. AFAIK, at no point was there any comment on it, and it was launched just as it was on PTS despite lots of feedback and critique. If I missed something, feel free to correct me.

Did ZOS ignore that feedback? Or did they read it and say internally, "Nope, that doesn't fit with our vision and our reasons for making the change?"

We don't know. All the players who offered feedback know is that animation change went live without alteration.


I'm fond of saying "ZOS listens. They just don't always do what the playerbase wants."

But the flip side of that is that if ZOS never acknowledges the feedback and that they aren't doing it, then the players who offered it have no way of knowing if it was ever heard in the first place.

Do that often enough and to enough people, and it's not that surprising ZOS has a reputation on the forum such that players don't feel heard, even though we can see plenty of other examples where ZOS did listen to and eventually implement stuff based on player feedback.

spartaxoxo

VaranisArano wrote: »

But the flip side of that is that if ZOS never acknowledges the feedback and that they aren't doing it, then the players who offered it have no way of knowing if it was ever heard in the first place.

Do that often enough and to enough people, and it's not that surprising ZOS has a reputation on the forum such that players don't feel heard, even though we can see plenty of other examples where ZOS did listen to and eventually implement stuff based on player feedback.

With the Templar changes, the patch notes were pretty clear as to why the animation was changed (match the new attack cadence, which they changed to make it easier to weave). They didn't address it again outside of that, but I'm not sure what else they could have said.

They did actually make a post saying that they know people don't like the U35 changes more broadly, but they truly believe the changes were necessary for the health of the game at the same time they announced the Q&A. I have actually never seen a developer give this many statements about a patch before and still get told they said nothing. I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to address every big gripe repeatedly, personally.

Xarc

the Q&A :

Players: why ?
ZOS: Because.

Billium813

Marto wrote: »

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.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

With the Templar changes, the patch notes were pretty clear as to why the animation was changed (match the new attack cadence, which they changed to make it easier to weave). They didn't address it again outside of that, but I'm not sure what else they could have said.

• Puncturing Strikes
  • This ability and its morphs now hit 3 times over a channel time of 800ms, rather than 4 times over 1 second.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/611025/pts-patch-notes-v8-1-0

Where did you see that they expressly stated that the reason they made this change was to enable weaving? That would be a very interesting comment to SEE zos say. I never had any issues with weaving the old Jabs, so any comment that the change was to "allow weaving" seems absurd to me. Also, ZOS doesn't exactly "support" weaving like that. I think you are making assumptions and putting words in their mouth.

Marto wrote: »

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

Wow, what a brilliant deduction! They reduced the damage because it was too high. That certainly seems like a logical deduction. No questioning on what damage was too high? Was it all players doing too much damage? Was there perhaps individual REASONS they could provide?
Obviously, they lowered damage across the board because they think it was too high. They used a sledgehammer when a scalpel was more appropriate and they DID NOT explain individual decisions. You might say "they can't explain EVERY SINGLE decision" to which I would reply "why not?". If they can't defend all their decisions, that is only evidence that they are shooting in the dark! WHICH means inevitably they will need MORE changes again and again and again. They made so many changes simultaneously that I severely doubt they had ANY way of know what the final outcome would be to gameplay. There is no way they can pull that many loose threads and know that the structural integrity of the shirt wasn't adversely effected. They may 20 arbitrary changes, drop it on the floor and see what happens. WE DONT WANT TO BETA TEST ESO EVERY 4 MONTHS.

Dang, a QA would be nice to ask all these questions!

Marto wrote: »

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

Do the devs leave comments on why they make changes. Sure, 2% of the time. You seem to be missing the fact that 98% of the time THERE IS NO REASON GIVEN! THEY ARE JUST DOING IT FOR NO APPARENT REASON. Gee, it sure would be nice to have a Q&A to ASK WHY.

spartaxoxo

Billium813 wrote: »

Where did you see that they expressly stated that the reason they made this change was to enable weaving? .

Puncturing Strikes
This ability and its morphs now hit 3 times over a channel time of 800ms, rather than 4 times over 1 second.

Implemented new animations and visual effects to match the attack cadence.

Reduced the overall damage of the primary attack by approximately 21% since this ability no longer incurs a DPS loss while weaving within the 1 second global cooldown window.

They reduced the damage because they changed the ability to support weaving.

Billium813

spartaxoxo wrote: »

With the Templar changes, the patch notes were pretty clear as to why the animation was changed (match the new attack cadence, which they changed to make it easier to weave). They didn't address it again outside of that, but I'm not sure what else they could have said.

They did actually make a post saying that they know people don't like the U35 changes more broadly, but they truly believe the changes were necessary for the health of the game at the same time they announced the Q&A. I have actually never seen a developer give this many statements about a patch before and still get told they said nothing. I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to address every big gripe repeatedly, personally.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

Where did you see that they expressly stated that the reason they made this change was to enable weaving? .

Puncturing Strikes
This ability and its morphs now hit 3 times over a channel time of 800ms, rather than 4 times over 1 second.

Implemented new animations and visual effects to match the attack cadence.

Reduced the overall damage of the primary attack by approximately 21% since this ability no longer incurs a DPS loss while weaving within the 1 second global cooldown window.

They reduced the damage because they changed the ability to support weaving.

They made an arbitrary change decision (shoving Jabs + LA inside a 1 second cooldown), then made tons of follow up changes to defend the original decision to make that change. No reason was provided on why they are making this change in the first place. You can say whatever you want about conformity with other spammables, but WHY did Jabs need to be the same as all the others? The players who used it were fine with it. It was 5% of players that constantly switch classes AND were in end game content that cared.

Also, they reduced the damage because they are expecting weaving to recoup that damage loss? Since when are they EXPECTING players to weave? Why was this even needed in the first place?

spartaxoxo

Billium813 wrote: »

The players who used it were fine with it. It was 5% of players that constantly switch classes AND were in end game content that cared.

Also, they reduced the damage because they are expecting weaving to recoup that damage loss? Since when are they EXPECTING players to weave? Why was this even needed in the first place?

I mean, anytime they make changes to support weaving or other endgame things, it's for the benefit of the endgame community. I think the Q&A probably could have addressed why the wanted to support weaving with those abilities in the first place, but we do know what the intent behind the change was. They wanted to support weaving, and the changes made were generally in support of that including the animation.

Jaimeh

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

The players who used it were fine with it. It was 5% of players that constantly switch classes AND were in end game content that cared.

Also, they reduced the damage because they are expecting weaving to recoup that damage loss? Since when are they EXPECTING players to weave? Why was this even needed in the first place?

I mean, anytime they make changes to support weaving or other endgame things, it's for the benefit of the endgame community. I think the Q&A probably could have addressed why the wanted to support weaving with those abilities in the first place, but we do know what the intent behind the change was. They wanted to support weaving, and the changes made were generally in support of that including the animation.

No, it doesn't make sense; they nerfed LA damage to take away the focus from weaving and make it less punishing for those who couldn't do it well (per ZOS' words in the original combat preview article), but then they change jabs to make it easier to weave with?

I don't know what their vision is (since they will not tell us, despite repeated confirmations that there *is* one) but a lot of their decisions, especially in the U35 pts seemed contradictory, and poorly thought out. A Q&A would help a long way to make us understand, but not they can't even own up to cancelling it. Whichever way you look at it, it's very bad PR.

Marto

Billium813 wrote: »

but WHY did Jabs need to be the same as all the others?

Skilled players were disproportionately rewarded for weaving Jabs perfectly.

Most skills in the game are purposely designed to give a light attack weaving window of approximately 200ms. Some very skilled players can do 100ms or even 10ms, but that's a minority.

If an ability lasts 990ms, for example, players that are very skilled and practiced, with low-latency mouse/controllers, and low-ping, can learn to weave that skill within the global cooldown.

But if a player is not as skilled, they don't have high-quality equipment, or they live anywhere outside the US or Western Europe, casting Jabs+LA can take more than 1.2s, requiring 2s of the GCD. These players are at severe disadvantage in terms of damage.

Because Jabs now has a cast time of 0.8s, a player that performs 50ms weaves and one that performs 200ms weaves will now deal the exact same damage.

Iselin

Marto wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

but WHY did Jabs need to be the same as all the others?

Skilled players were disproportionately rewarded for weaving Jabs perfectly.

Most skills in the game are purposely designed to give a light attack weaving window of approximately 200ms. Some very skilled players can do 100ms or even 10ms, but that's a minority.

If an ability lasts 990ms, for example, players that are very skilled and practiced, with low-latency mouse/controllers, and low-ping, can learn to weave that skill within the global cooldown.

But if a player is not as skilled, they don't have high-quality equipment, or they live anywhere outside the US or Western Europe, casting Jabs+LA can take more than 1.2s, requiring 2s of the GCD. These players are at severe disadvantage in terms of damage.

Because Jabs now has a cast time of 0.8s, a player that performs 50ms weaves and one that performs 200ms weaves will now deal the exact same damage.

I actually do like that part of the jabs change (being a 72-year-old klutz ) It's the nerfs to its damage and heal that has made me replace it with something else.

Billium813

Marto wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

but WHY did Jabs need to be the same as all the others?

Skilled players were disproportionately rewarded for weaving Jabs perfectly.

Most skills in the game are purposely designed to give a light attack weaving window of approximately 200ms. Some very skilled players can do 100ms or even 10ms, but that's a minority.

You make it sounds like it was almost impossible to weave with Jabs pre-U35 and that those that could were in the vast minority. You make it sound like anything over 1 second means "oh well, better luck next time, cause now LA can't happen". When in reality, it was only difficult to weave for players that EXPECTED a 1 second window because they were comparing Jabs to other spammables that fit nicely into your definition of acceptable. Players with muscle memory for this "1 second GCD" found it difficult to play Templar because it was more like 1.2 seconds. That didn't fit the muscle memory all the Sorcs and NBs out there had learned on their characters, so that MUST mean that Templar needed to conform or GTFO. I still don't see what is wrong with one class having a different play pattern or requiring different skills.

Marto

Billium813 wrote: »

Marto wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

but WHY did Jabs need to be the same as all the others?

Skilled players were disproportionately rewarded for weaving Jabs perfectly.

Most skills in the game are purposely designed to give a light attack weaving window of approximately 200ms. Some very skilled players can do 100ms or even 10ms, but that's a minority.

You make it sounds like it was almost impossible to weave with Jabs pre-U35 and that those that could were in the vast minority. You make it sound like anything over 1 second means "oh well, better luck next time, cause now LA can't happen". When in reality, it was only difficult to weave for players that EXPECTED a 1 second window because they were comparing Jabs to other spammables that fit nicely into your definition of acceptable. Players with muscle memory for this "1 second GCD" found it difficult to play Templar because it was more like 1.2 seconds. That didn't fit the muscle memory all the Sorcs and NBs out there had learned on their characters, so that MUST mean that Templar needed to conform or GTFO. I still don't see what is wrong with one class having a different play pattern or requiring different skills.

Because it's unpredictable and changes wildly from player to player.

Because it requires too much practice and effort to get good at weaving Jabs, compared to all other skills.

It's fine for a game to have variance of skill and power. It's fine for a game to demand skill and expertise. But not this much.

Destai

@ZOS_Kevin can you give us an update?

VaranisArano

spartaxoxo wrote: »

VaranisArano wrote: »

But the flip side of that is that if ZOS never acknowledges the feedback and that they aren't doing it, then the players who offered it have no way of knowing if it was ever heard in the first place.

Do that often enough and to enough people, and it's not that surprising ZOS has a reputation on the forum such that players don't feel heard, even though we can see plenty of other examples where ZOS did listen to and eventually implement stuff based on player feedback.

With the Templar changes, the patch notes were pretty clear as to why the animation was changed (match the new attack cadence, which they changed to make it easier to weave). They didn't address it again outside of that, but I'm not sure what else they could have said.

They did actually make a post saying that they know people don't like the U35 changes more broadly, but they truly believe the changes were necessary for the health of the game at the same time they announced the Q&A. I have actually never seen a developer give this many statements about a patch before and still get told they said nothing. I don't think it's reasonable to expect them to address every big gripe repeatedly, personally.

No, that's fair. I forgot that.

Elsonso

Marto wrote: »

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.

Part of the purpose of a Q&A is to collect all of the little nuggets of answered questions from weeks of patch notes and Live streams, and assemble them into a single place.

Another part is to provide clarification to places where the little nuggets were misinterpreted or misunderstood.

The last part is to address any common questions for which no little nugget exists.

The reason for all of this is that, by providing more concrete communication in a consolidated place, the players are not hunting down these nuggets, or simply making up their own nuggets, and passing them along with any misinterpretations or misunderstandings that might exist.

The job of the players should not be to run around after game developers and assemble a bible of answers to player questions about an upcoming release. Players are biased, and ultimately inaccurate, sources of information. This is something the studio should be doing. The game is their product, not the players'.

For example... I am sure that people have noticed that someone at ZOS took the time to create the Update 36 Power Point, which collects up all the little nuggets for the next release and puts them in one place. The Q&A is the same thing, just lighter on the marketing points and heavier on, well, questions and answers.

Ragnarok0130

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.

I can't agree with this statement. Good communication would be if the dev team's stated goals and the patch changes aligned and accomplished the mission. Extremely poor communication is when the goal that you repeatedly told the community is the reason for making sweeping changes after committing not to, and the changes themselves being diametrically opposed to one another. This also indicates extremely poor internal communication among the different dev teams as well - a fact admitted to here on the forums by the dev teams in an update about "goals working against one another". Additionally another instance of extremely poor communication is when you commit to a Q&A and fail not only to hold the Q&A that you committed to, but ghost the very community that you told the Q&A was forthcoming. I see nothing but disorganization and lack of communication at every turn as one with project management experience.

VaranisArano

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

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.

I can't agree with this statement. Good communication would be if the dev team's stated goals and the patch changes aligned and accomplished the mission. Extremely poor communication is when the goal that you repeatedly told the community is the reason for making sweeping changes after committing not to, and the changes themselves being diametrically opposed to one another. This also indicates extremely poor internal communication among the different dev teams as well - a fact admitted to here on the forums by the dev teams in an update about "goals working against one another". Additionally another instance of extremely poor communication is when you commit to a Q&A and fail not only to hold the Q&A that you committed to, but ghost the very community that you told the Q&A was forthcoming. I see nothing but disorganization and lack of communication at every turn as one with project management experience.

I'll draw a distinction between the Dev Team, who's responsible for the vision, and the Communications Team, who's responsible for communicating that vision to the playerbase.

If the Dev Team isn't communicating between their different teams, or if what they've told the Communications Team isn't consistent with the in-game impacts, the Communications Team can't do too much about that. Yeah, it's a failure of communications, but it's not the same "failure to communicate with the playerbase" as we're complaining about here/saying they did a better job of. As far as I know, it's not Gina's job to make sure that the Combat Team is talking to the Encounters Team about the ramifications of how accessible vet content is or isn't, for example.

The Communications Team made a concerted effort to pass on the Devs intentions throughout the PTS in their preview posts. It might be less content than you'd like (and the content is chosen by the Devs), but it was considerably more communication than we've ever had during another PTS.

And if the hold-up with the Q&A is with the Dev Team not wanting to do it, the Communications Team can't do much without their okay. It's not like they're going to throw the Devs under the bus by saying so without their permission. So they might be at fault for the delay or they might not, but either way they'll take the heat.

spartaxoxo

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

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.

I can't agree with this statement. Good communication would be if the dev team's stated goals and the patch changes aligned and accomplished the mission. .

Strongly disagree. When someone does some things right and some things wrong, the wrong does not change the things they did right into things done wrong. As someone who also directs people, when I give feedback I tell them the things they did well alongside the areas they need to improve. I don't tell someone that did a good job in one area and needs to improve in others that they were a failure in all aspects. Because that's not only what's honest, but I don't want them to start doing garbage at stuff they were doing well.

With the glaring exception of the Q&A, they did a good job at communicating with players. A bad job at planning the patch. And a bad job at balancing the patch. Those are all separate tasks (and as VaranisArano mentioned done by separate teams).

Billium813

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Strongly disagree. When someone does some things right and some things wrong, the wrong does not change the things they did right into things done wrong. As someone who also directs people, when I give feedback I tell them the things they did well alongside the areas they need to improve. I don't tell someone that did a good job in one area and needs to improve in others that they were a failure in all aspects. Because that's not only what's honest, but I don't want them to start doing garbage at stuff they were doing well.

With the glaring exception of the Q&A, they did a good job at communicating with players. A bad job at planning the patch. And a bad job at balancing the patch. Those are all separate tasks (and as VaranisArano mentioned done by separate teams).

I agree that the mistakes they make do not discredit the good they do. However, I think perhaps we are all debating on the opinion of what is GOOD vs what is EXPECTED from developer communication.

When ZOS releases patch notes that make a change, and they include a Developer Comment outlining WHY they are making this change. That is GOOD! However, I would argue that that is actually EXPECTED too! The community EXPECTS an outlined reason why they are making individual changes.

If someone were to ask "does ESO have good developer communication", when someone answers that question, they are personally reviewing what their base expectation of communication should be, then comparing ZOS's communication against that expectation. Personally, I think that providing a simple, explanation on every individual skill/set change is what they should be doing at a minimum. If someone meets my minimum expectation, I don't congratulate them for a job well done... I can be much more courteous that they are making an effort, but I celebrate legitimate examples of exceeding my minimum expectation.

Let's looks at an example for a second:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/614365/pts-patch-notes-v8-1-4

• Shadow Cloak
  • Dark Cloak (morph):
    • This morph once again heals for Max Health per tick, rather than missing health.
    • Reduced the base healing by approximately 42% compared to the live version.
    • This morph has a new added functionality where the Heal over Time is increased by 150% when not moving.
    Developer Comment:
    The reason this morph has been iterated on so many times is due to the difficulty in finding a sweet spot where it feels powerful enough for specific builds (primarily tanks in PvE encounters) without being too dominant/enabling in other areas (primarily PvP encounters). By finding a solution that is not as synergistic with some of the classes’ main advantages in PvP encounters, while empowering the enforced playstyle for the builds it is meant to help in PvE, we think the new iteration will finally reach a point where it can settle (aside from potentially adjusting the simple numbers) and see less swings in design.

Now, there are many people that don't like this change to Dark Cloak (please try to get past that bias for a moment if this change displeases you, the reader). However, this is GOOD information for them to provide and approaches my minimum expectation much more closely! It lets us, the players, know why they are making the change and what the developers were thinking/intending. We can see that they are targeting PvP v PvE, that they have an intended direction for users of this skill, and that they want this skill to be less PvP oriented.
However, I would take this a step further and say that this is the base line of communication on changes we should expect from them. If they wanted to release numbers and statistics too, I would say that is over the base expectation and would deserve special recognition! But this level of explanation is EXPECTED.
We don't get this level of explanation or insight for all the changes they make. We are lucky to get this 1/30 changes! And before you comment "we cannot expect them to provide this much detail for every change they make", I will counter that if they cannot defend their change with a simple 3-4 sentence explanation, then the change might as well be them guessing at what to do. And if they are guessing... that is very troubling and implies that the community can expect many MORE shots in the dark by them as they attempt to balance the game with random, arbitrary changes that they pulled from a hat.

FlopsyPrince

Paralyse wrote: »

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!

Who has claimed they wanted an audience with a developer of their choosing? That would be a straw man argument.

People want to feel they are heard, whatever they are paying for. Justifying why that is not true is not very good for the long-term success of anything!

Marto

Billium813 wrote: »

Personally, I think that providing a simple, explanation on every individual skill/set change is what they should be doing at a minimum. If someone meets my minimum expectation, I don't congratulate them for a job well done... I can be much more courteous that they are making an effort, but I celebrate legitimate examples of exceeding my

This is entirely unreasonable, and very unneeded for the vast majority of changes.

Many of these developer commentaries would boil down to "It's dealing too much damage, so we reduced the damage" or "It's dealing too little damage, so we increased the damage",

The commentaries are often only provided when functionality changes (Dark Cloak being turned into a strong tanking heal, and a weaker on-the-move heal), or when changes might not have the most obvious reasoning behind them (The change to Warden's passives working as a nerf to medium-armor builds, and a buff to light-armor builds)

GreatGildersleeve

Give it up folks. We’re on to u36. The u35 Q&A ain’t happening.

fizzylu

GreatGildersleeve wrote: »

Give it up folks. We’re on to u36. The u35 Q&A ain’t happening.

Last time I checked, U36 does pretty much nothing to correct the issues and fails of U35.... it's kind of hard to just up and forget about problems that will still very much be around even once U36 hits.

The problems of U35 will just now be the problems of U36 :')

IonicKai

I think the communication as the events of U35 came out were a step in the right direction. My issue is that U35 should have never gotten to PTS. It had many glaring issues that seemed disconnected from how the game played. The community outcry was justified because it was so many changes that were made in a bubble and didn't match game content. I still feel this is why they conceded on so many of the changes from week 1-5. That said communication regarding vision for the game in terms of combat system and desired content difficulty is still lacking. The fact that we are 8 years into the game and there hasn't been stable combat for more than a 3-6month window is what's frustrating. I also think ZOS really needs to follow through with ideas instead of getting half way through, stating what they intend to finish, then moving to something else before it's complete. Awhile back they stated hybridization was a big change to prevent a need for bigger changes for a decent amount of time. Instead they haven't finished hybridization and thrust combat in a very different and upending direction with U35. That's what pissed off the player base. They contradicted themselves.

LukosCreyden

I understand that balancing a game like ESO is very different from FFXIV for example. ESO just has so many variables. But I really felt like we were at a point where only small, focused changes were needed. A slight tweak here or there. Now we have U35 and everything feels messy again. Like a new square one to start from, in a very frustrating way.
Major overhauls over and over do not keep the game fresh, they fatigue everyone.

I want to see the q&a but I honestly do not think it will satisfy anyone, or answer any real questions. Rather, I think it will be a lot of vague justifications for the changes.

Sorry if this sounds salty, but I really am just tired of all the changes, which is why I am taking a break from the game.
As a casual player, I am all for changes that help us out, but this was not it.

Ragnarok0130

VaranisArano wrote: »

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

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.

I can't agree with this statement. Good communication would be if the dev team's stated goals and the patch changes aligned and accomplished the mission. Extremely poor communication is when the goal that you repeatedly told the community is the reason for making sweeping changes after committing not to, and the changes themselves being diametrically opposed to one another. This also indicates extremely poor internal communication among the different dev teams as well - a fact admitted to here on the forums by the dev teams in an update about "goals working against one another". Additionally another instance of extremely poor communication is when you commit to a Q&A and fail not only to hold the Q&A that you committed to, but ghost the very community that you told the Q&A was forthcoming. I see nothing but disorganization and lack of communication at every turn as one with project management experience.

I'll draw a distinction between the Dev Team, who's responsible for the vision, and the Communications Team, who's responsible for communicating that vision to the playerbase.

If the Dev Team isn't communicating between their different teams, or if what they've told the Communications Team isn't consistent with the in-game impacts, the Communications Team can't do too much about that. Yeah, it's a failure of communications, but it's not the same "failure to communicate with the playerbase" as we're complaining about here/saying they did a better job of. As far as I know, it's not Gina's job to make sure that the Combat Team is talking to the Encounters Team about the ramifications of how accessible vet content is or isn't, for example.

The Communications Team made a concerted effort to pass on the Devs intentions throughout the PTS in their preview posts. It might be less content than you'd like (and the content is chosen by the Devs), but it was considerably more communication than we've ever had during another PTS.

And if the hold-up with the Q&A is with the Dev Team not wanting to do it, the Communications Team can't do much without their okay. It's not like they're going to throw the Devs under the bus by saying so without their permission. So they might be at fault for the delay or they might not, but either way they'll take the heat.

When I'm speaking about communication or lack thereof I'm not talking about the Community team because the Community Team only communicates when and what they're told to communicate to the player base. Communication is a studio shortfall and not a Community shortfall in my opinion.

gronoxvx

Look, we can discuss at nauseam about the ins and outs of communication and zos, but ultimately the reason why a majority of the playerbase wanted the Q & A was to get an idea from ZOS about their current direction of the game as it seems to change every patch (by this i mean the heads of the dev teams, not the individual devs themselves as they are only following the directions set by the leads).

Eso is a game that has been around for many years, yet U35 felt like a patch youd expect in a beta or year 1 or 2. Not something to inflict on the playerbase 7 or so years after release. People arent saying zos shouldnt make changes to their game at all, but the fact that wrecking ball like patches such as U35 going live constantly has many scratching their heads in confusion and whole guilds and raid teams especially quitting the game. Who wants to invest in a game that has sweeping changes every 3 months especially if it requires people to "reprog" content? Really attractive to new players huh?

We just want to hear what zos' direction for the game is and that they stick to it. Thats all. But due to the silence on this, one can only assume its not something they're aware of themselves.

YandereGirlfriend

Marto wrote: »

Billium813 wrote: »

Personally, I think that providing a simple, explanation on every individual skill/set change is what they should be doing at a minimum. If someone meets my minimum expectation, I don't congratulate them for a job well done... I can be much more courteous that they are making an effort, but I celebrate legitimate examples of exceeding my

This is entirely unreasonable, and very unneeded for the vast majority of changes.

Many of these developer commentaries would boil down to "It's dealing too much damage, so we reduced the damage" or "It's dealing too little damage, so we increased the damage",

The commentaries are often only provided when functionality changes (Dark Cloak being turned into a strong tanking heal, and a weaker on-the-move heal), or when changes might not have the most obvious reasoning behind them (The change to Warden's passives working as a nerf to medium-armor builds, and a buff to light-armor builds)

It definitely is NOT unreasonable to expect a comment on all changes - even if they are brief and/or easy enough to intuit.

If a change is being made to anything then there is a reason for it. That reason ought to be communicated to the players.

There are MANY examples from recent patches where something is just changed for no apparent reason whatsoever. Getting a little bit of insight into why that happened would be informative to anyone who cares about such things. It is also a signal of respect for your players, IMO.

spartaxoxo

I can't think of any developer that explains every single change, except maybe the Warframe guys. Don't know don't play that game but I've heard nothing but good things. But if someone defines a group basically acknowledged as the best in the business as the bare minimum than idk. A lot of times if it's self-explanatory, they leave it at that. I'm also like 70% sure most of the changes did have an explanation this go around as they gave some categorical explanations but I'd have to really comb through it again.

BahometZ

Put simply, update 35 was poorly theorised and calamitously executed, and the player base would like to know what the combat team is thinking.