So whatever happened to that Q&A?

spartaxoxo

@ZOS_Kevin

Is it still no news on this?

Jaraal

IonicKai wrote: »

Instead they haven't finished hybridization and thrust combat in a very different and upending direction with U35.

The incomplete hybridization, combined with the mishmash changes of U35 have created some startling situations in how sets and skills synergize. There is some big unintended fallout that will eventually have to be addressed.

Pandora's Box should be left alone. However, it's certainly interesting to have a peek inside.

FeedbackOnly

Jaraal wrote: »

One question I'd like to see addressed is how the skill gap has been closed and accessibility improved for the "low end" players.

Currently, to be truly effective in ESO’s combat, you need to learn to manipulate something that is known as “weaving,” which refers to the act of squeezing multiple actions into the global cooldown window. Doing so drastically increases your agency and output, and it is a staple of the game that we’ve come to embrace, as it helps our combat feel different and exciting to participate in once you learn the ins and outs. However, the impact of weaving leads to a massive gap in performance where players who cannot interact with it as effectively are left miles behind those who can. While this is partially unavoidable and an important part of what makes the mastery of ESO or any activity utilizing a similar system particularly satisfying, we want to do what we can to shorten that delta. The closer the gap between the low and high end, the easier it is to create content that can accommodate a wider audience, while making more natural progression points for those looking to improve. To this end, we’ve started to look at the impact that one of the most common and important forms of weaving has in ESO: Light and Heavy Attack weaving.

Did any of the floor level players notice an improvement in weavability on the PTS? And do you feel closer to the ceiling because of it? Did you low tier players notice that vet trials and vet hard mode dungeons were easier to complete with your nerfed damage because of the 10% reduction in boss health? And did full health world bosses seem more accessible and satisfying to battle?

We know the answer to this

Jammy420

spartaxoxo 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. .

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).

If it were a clean slate I could agree with you, but from what I have read over the years here, they have horrid communication, and that they have done far more bad than good. The pts was a disaster, and instead of communicating logical reasoning we got snark and crickets.

fizzylu wrote: »

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 :')

This is what bothers me, the was an overwhelming amount of feedback for upsate 35, and it was overwhelmingly ignored, and there was an underwhelming amount of communication about it.

MidniteOwl1913

BahometZ wrote: »

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

Oh gods, yes!! Just this. Did they really think and across the board reduction in damage was going to make vet content more "accessible" (and maybe what did they mean when they used that word)? And why was healing so nerfed? I'd really like to understand what they were after.

Jaraal

MidniteOwl1913 wrote: »

BahometZ wrote: »

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

Oh gods, yes!! Just this. Did they really think and across the board reduction in damage was going to make vet content more "accessible" (and maybe what did they mean when they used that word)? And why was healing so nerfed? I'd really like to understand what they were after.

And the answers to all your questions are: they’ll let you know if there are any updates to answering your questions.

ADarklore

Considering the huge fiasco the last update caused, and Rich's subsequent attitude towards people who disagree with ZOS... it's no surprise nothing has been done with this.

Jaraal

The average number of Steam players is down 40% since the beginning of the year. Looks like people are voting on the (unexplained) vision with their wallets. And that doesn't even factor in the number of people still playing, but cancelling their subscriptions.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Jammy420

Jaraal wrote: »

The average number of Steam players is down 40% since the beginning of the year. Looks like people are voting on the (unexplained) vision with their wallets. And that doesn't even factor in the number of people still playing, but cancelling their subscriptions.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Cyrodiil numbers are down considerably as well.

Jaraal

Jammy420 wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

The average number of Steam players is down 40% since the beginning of the year. Looks like people are voting on the (unexplained) vision with their wallets. And that doesn't even factor in the number of people still playing, but cancelling their subscriptions.


https://steamcharts.com/app/306130

Cyrodiil numbers are down considerably as well.

Yes, people are tired of dealing with Mara's Balm. Plus having most people running Oakensoul makes Nocturnal's Ploy redundant, and the third new set (can't even remember the name) isn't even being used (as far as I've heard.)

Nice not having to wait in a queue as much, though. And when there actually is one, it goes by quickly, with people not playing as long as before. I've been doing just enough to get my rucksacks and tier three on my characters, and that's about it. And the overall low AP numbers on the leaderboards indicates I'm not the only one.

ZOS_Kevin

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

Dangranma_Burgrukgad

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

Thanks for the update Kevin.
I hope you will understand and I'm saying this with the utmost respect but, at this point, one month and half after, your words "we are still working on something" really sound as you are making fun of us.
Regards.

spartaxoxo

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

I honestly think that's a bad idea because nobody is going to expect U35 news after U36 launches. If we can expect a balance change addressing U35 at a later date, then I think it's better to just address what you can address now and let people know another update on the topic is planned in the future. This update buried in this thread is probably not going to reach many people.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

U36 is right around the corner, it feels very defeating that ZOS is still planning something. No timeframe, nothing a month and a half-later? Really? I'm not sure if that's what your higher-ups are giving you as direction, but honestly it feels super disconnected from the sentiment on the update. It's feel pretty defeating that we can't even get a sense of what the framing for this Q&A will be. So while I appreciate you saying something, it feels like the scant details we're all too used to here. I expected better.

Mr_Stach

I made this post on August 16th and am still getting Notifications on October 3rd, Zos moved it to the General ESO Discussion after PTS for U35 closed. I wish I could mute the Notifications but every day I'm reminded that Zos is kind of working on something that will not adequately handle what people are wanting to see from this Q&A.

I wish I could just close the thread honestly. But here we are, still waiting.

spartaxoxo

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I made this post on August 16th and am still getting Notifications on October 3rd, Zos moved it to the General ESO Discussion after PTS for U35 closed. I wish I could mute the Notifications but every day I'm reminded that Zos is kind of working on something that will not adequately handle what people are wanting to see from this Q&A.

I wish I could just close the thread honestly. But here we are, still waiting.

This thread got moved when I made a thread about this in GD, so that we'd have a GD thread open once the pts concluded. If a mod wants to reopen this thread https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/617368/is-the-u35-q-a-still-coming#latest and close down this one, because Mr_Stach doesn't want to keep getting notifications, I don't mind. I'll just edit in the replies into the opening post that @ZOS_Kevin made. To

Alternatively (and probably way better) you guys can make a new thread yourselves. I bet more people would read a new thread made by Kevin anyway.

PeacefulAnarchy

A lot of people were disappointed nothing in U36 addressed U35 concerns, but considering how soon it came out after U35 was released I don't see why anyone was surprised. Genuinely addressing the community's U35 concerns would take more than just tweaking some numbers back or forward. The concerns were as much about ZOS' direction, motivations and perceptions (and their communication) as they were about specific changes. Most egregious changes were rolled back during the PTS cycle, though it still left a lot of things in the balance. Addressing the core issues would require serious internal discussions and concrete plans for moving forward that would take weeks to come up with and months to implement.

A charitable reading of "We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes" would be that they are having serious internal discussions about how players felt about U35 and how they want to address this and that, rather than a hasty Q&A that no one really expected much from, they are hoping to craft a coherent path forward for their plan for the game's combat. Obviously people can be skeptical about whether this is really happening, and we won't know until they show us, but this at least is plausibly a good direction. Not as good as open back and forth communication with the player base would be, but still.

Destai

PeacefulAnarchy wrote: »

A lot of people were disappointed nothing in U36 addressed U35 concerns, but considering how soon it came out after U35 was released I don't see why anyone was surprised. Genuinely addressing the community's U35 concerns would take more than just tweaking some numbers back or forward. The concerns were as much about ZOS' direction, motivations and perceptions (and their communication) as they were about specific changes. Most egregious changes were rolled back during the PTS cycle, though it still left a lot of things in the balance. Addressing the core issues would require serious internal discussions and concrete plans for moving forward that would take weeks to come up with and months to implement.

A charitable reading of "We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes" would be that they are having serious internal discussions about how players felt about U35 and how they want to address this and that, rather than a hasty Q&A that no one really expected much from, they are hoping to craft a coherent path forward for their plan for the game's combat. Obviously people can be skeptical about whether this is really happening, and we won't know until they show us, but this at least is plausibly a good direction. Not as good as open back and forth communication with the player base would be, but still.

@ZOS_Kevin Please see the bolded for the level of communication expected from such a robust company as ZOS. Hopefully whoever's setting the communication strategy can target that level of detail, and have some awareness that the absence of detail only worsens people's perceptions. Take care.

tmbrinks

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I made this post on August 16th and am still getting Notifications on October 3rd, Zos moved it to the General ESO Discussion after PTS for U35 closed. I wish I could mute the Notifications but every day I'm reminded that Zos is kind of working on something that will not adequately handle what people are wanting to see from this Q&A.

I wish I could just close the thread honestly. But here we are, still waiting.

@Mr_Stach go into your forum profile, and uncheck the box in red. No more notifications when people comment on posts.



If I have one I want to follow I use the "star" feature to still notify me.

Mr_Stach

tmbrinks wrote: »

Mr_Stach wrote: »

I made this post on August 16th and am still getting Notifications on October 3rd, Zos moved it to the General ESO Discussion after PTS for U35 closed. I wish I could mute the Notifications but every day I'm reminded that Zos is kind of working on something that will not adequately handle what people are wanting to see from this Q&A.

I wish I could just close the thread honestly. But here we are, still waiting.

@Mr_Stach go into your forum profile, and uncheck the box in red. No more notifications when people comment on posts.



If I have one I want to follow I use the "star" feature to still notify me.

You're my hero

Living_Tribunal

I feel bad for this post as much as I do for the guy asking about heavy attacks. Why can't we just get simple answers?

peacenote

spartaxoxo wrote: »

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.

Goodness knows that anyone paying attention on the forums knows how I stand on this, but I also have to sincerely respectfully disagree. They absolutely did not address the most common questions and points in the Q&A for AwA. They took complex feedback and dumbed it down to simplified, paraphrased questions which cut out all the nuances AND barely addressed any actual questions that were asked, both in the 80+ pages of feedback on PTS but comments and threads made afterwards when the changes hit prod on all the different platforms. I'll give a few examples:

• We received NO acknowledgement on whether alts as a playstyle would be generally supported going forward. Will we continue to see design choices encouraging doing everything on one character, and removing functionality that enhances separate character tracking, or is this still something ZOS supports us pursuing when it doesn't impact performance? If this is the direction of the game now, can we at least get some benefit out of it, like removal of the grindy the per-character companion requirements and per character motif tracking?!?
• MANY suggestions on compromises that acknowledged the performance issues, such as different choices for which achievements were individual vs. account-wide, but were more in keeping with the spirit of why those who liked individual achievements wanted to keep them, were met without comment/acknowledgement.
• No official comments on all of the related functionality lost, detailed in this thread, which was un-stickied without resolution or acknowledgement of issues raised - including lost functionality which we still don't know was intended/desired by devs vs. unintended collateral damage - and no answer even on whether it was un-stickied on purpose, with some type of explanation on sticky strategy!
• No acknowledgement of the feedback created to address what the community felt was gaps in the Q&A.

I could go on and on, but as someone who vocally gave support for AwA, assuming it would be a layer on top, because what customer anywhere would be against those of us who have been around awhile having things like the dates each character hit level 50 preserved (!), I still feel soundly ignored and have absolutely no idea if ZOS realized that many people who gave support for the idea wanted account-wide titles, an account-wide tracking layer, and/or the elimination of certain VERY grindy achievements, as opposed to what we got. Literally a follow up paragraph would have done wonders for my perception of the devs and the company. Here's an example:

"Wow! We heard you and must admit that we didn't initially realize all of the nuanced drivers behind support for Account Wide Achievements. Unfortunately we DO need to implement this due to the size of the achievement database, and we regret that this implementation isn't a win for everyone who requested the feature, but we'll work to restore any functionality that was lost as a side effect of implementing AwA in future updates, as feasible. We do believe that transitioning to Account-Wide-Titles was the right way to go, as it aligns with other decisions we've made about achievement awards, so that will not be reversed, but issues like the zone guide being inaccurate and players not being able to know when they have achieved speed mode on other characters, for the pure challenge of doing it again, were side effects of moving forward and things we'd like to address someday. We absolutely support the various playstyles that incorporate making alts and have no intention of purposely making this more difficult or dropping support for this way of playing ESO in the future. Thanks for sticking with us, and keep the feedback coming."

Something like that at a very minimum would have helped me feel heard and appreciated as a customer, instead of misunderstood, unappreciated, and gaslighted by the company I've supported since beta.

And while this may seem like a very very deep rabbit hole veering from the original topic, I don't feel that it is, because I believe all of us who gave feedback about U35 could benefit from a similar response to what we didn't get for either U33 or U35 so far. The reason we don't hear as much about it on the forums now is because many people who wanted to feel heard quit the game. And some of those folks are swearing off all Bethesda games, period, due to how badly these last few controversial updates have been handled. Also.. how much more is there to say, after asking over and over for feedback to be acknowledged? Eventually you just give up, either by quitting or just permanently lowering your expectations and opinion of the game without outright quitting. The Q&A and follow up responses are as much for the people who quit, but might come back, because they are going around spreading criticisms (which in my opinion are pretty valid) of the company for its silence, as it is for those of us who are still here despite the lack of the communication. I really think open, honest, sincere responses about U33 and U35 would be better late than never and could only help the reputation of the game, the company, and its parent companies.

I still like to believe that various folks in ZOS has good intentions when going ahead with U33 and U35 in the midst of all the thorough feedback provided... but every day that there's silence instead of acknowledgment that the updates may have fallen short or brought unintended consequences dampens that faith.

Marto wrote: »

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.

I also disagree with this. It's because those listening to the feedback didn't understand that the feedback comes from a very narrow frame of reference, and failed to properly apply wisdom and experience to address the root causes underneath the feedback. OR at least listen to the players in the community translating the feedback who have the wisdom and experience! This is a blame the victim sentiment and I don't support that. I'll give ONE AwA related example.

• Majority of Players: "Yes!! Give me AwA!! This game is too grindy; I don't have time to unlock things over and over."
• ZOS: "Hey this is great! This feedback aligns with one of our goals, which is to reduce the achievement database."
• What Many Players Really Meant: "I hate the trophy achievements. The grind got SO MUCH WORSE when trophies were no longer sharable. Also, I really want account wide titles, because I hate having to worry about which character goes to what raid or dungeon. I feel forced into having to repeat these achievements when the meta no longer supports my main and I can't use titles to show my skills on any character."
• Translators in the Community: "Hey ZOS. Many people who want AwA thought it would be another layer. There's a lot of support for account-wide titles, but you really need to work on your rewards system for repeatable content. People complaining about grind - they are upset about having to re-earn titles and chase motifs on all their characters. You're completely dissing role players and others who used achievements as character-tracking, because you're removing this option without providing other ways to track character progress. Please consider one of the myriad of suggestions in the PTS thread as a compromise so more folks can be happy with this implementation while still supporting your goals of performance improvement. Your "earned by" compromise is adding stress to people who want to memorialize nostalgic dates on certain characters and irritating people who don't care about this."
• Execution: Grindy achievements not eliminated. The trophy achievements, motif per character, housing/furniture purchases being per character, etc. all still exist in AwA. Instead, achievements that acknowledge character milestones, like when they hit level 50, explore an area for the first time, etc. are eliminated, which reduces almost no grind (example thread post AwA: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/618179/common-dyes-yawn) and ruins the alt playstyle for many.
• Message from ZOS to Players: "We heard you and gave you what you wanted... AwA! And we heard your feedback about alts and gave you this 'earned by' field."

Players should not be penalized or criticized for giving feedback. It's absolutely ZOS's fault if they don't have enough experience to interpret it properly and then receive backlash. Obviously every person can only give feedback that is limited to the experiences they've had or have taken time to imagine. That's it. Have enough people on staff who can take all of this feedback and turn it into elegant solutions, or do another round of changes after absorbing feedback from people in the community who have the time and experience to be interpreters. Or don't ask for feedback at all and tell us why changes are part of your vision (like... OWN the fact that we can't get immediate boss spawn on alts in delves anymore. Tell us why you're OK with it.) Don't tell us you're doing what we wanted when we point out all the flaws and you don't make any course corrections or even acknowledge the points after we take the time to give the feedback, which you asked for!

And honestly, along those lines, U35 got more acknowledgement of feedback than U33 did. But I still think U35 should get its Q&A... and the U33 thread should be re-stickied until ZOS has solutions to what has been raised there.

psychotrip

Living_Tribunal wrote: »

I feel bad for this post as much as I do for the guy asking about heavy attacks. Why can't we just get simple answers?

Because as long as you keep paying for this game they have no reason to see their errors and improve. We're just statistics to them. It should be obvious at this point that they'll do whatever you let them get away with doing. As long as they're raking in cash this is just noise to them.

There's only one way to handle corporations like this.

Stamicka

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

For those of you who don’t know, “we are still working” coming from ZOS is a bad sign. For some context, in 2016 we were told that “ZOS is still working on performance improvements for PvP”. Fast forward to 2022 and they are “still working” on PvP improvements that are supposed to be done by the end of this year. Players also asked for a updated list of sets that work in the No-Proc Cyrodiil campaign. Guess what? ZOS is “still working on getting the list together” (not sure how a list needs this much time). Anyway, it’s a bad look for the company. It really makes it look like you guys have serious upper management issues if you continue to be unable to deliver on the simple things you promise.

spartaxoxo

They are also "still working" on getting us romance options for companions. They even said it would be a "huge miss" if they weren't there. Well, this is the second year with Companions and still no romance options. Perhaps we'll see them in year three.

thedocbwarren

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They are also "still working" on getting us romance options for companions. They even said it would be a "huge miss" if they weren't there. Well, this is the second year with Companions and still no romance options. Perhaps we'll see them in year three.

Being a dev myself (not for ZOS) I'd wonder what their backlog looks like. Someone is giving priority (let's hope) and where any of this stuff falls is anyone's guess. Also Product on their side may be faced with budget and other concerns that are holding up a whole bunch. None of this would be available to anyone here. Also you don't want to communicate that stuff as it's also a public company under MS.

Roadmap would be good, but it might be they don't have one or it changed and they need to regroup/replan due to corp changes and new realities.

Ragnarok0130

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

Kevin I appreciate the update on the Q&A, however it would be really nice to know if this is a short term, medium term, or long term plan to hold the Q&A as it won't make much sense to hold it after U36 launches. The longer it takes to put the Q&A out the less likely it will do anything other than antagonize the community demanding answers on U35's combat changes. When you say "addressing the sentiment around U35 combat changes" it sounds a lot like the Q&A is a block checking exercise trying to address our dislike of the changes as opposed to a brief outlining a plan of action to address the controversial U35 combat changes themselves such as a partial or full reversion. Telling us "we meant well but the U35 combat changes are here to stay despite leading to far less accessibility of veteran content" is not going to assuage the affected players and won't undo the damage to the end game community nor rebuild community trust in the combat team. The animation changes to Templar and flurry must also be addressed as they hot topics in the forums as well.

Billium813

Stamicka wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

For those of you who don’t know, “we are still working” coming from ZOS is a bad sign. For some context, in 2016 we were told that “ZOS is still working on performance improvements for PvP”. Fast forward to 2022 and they are “still working” on PvP improvements that are supposed to be done by the end of this year.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but be careful of leaving ZOS in a no-win situation (which is unfair). If they say nothing, they are the bad guys. If they say they are working on something, they are the bad guys. What do you WANT them to do? It takes time IF they are doing something; that's just a concession we have to make. They aren't going to fix things over night and they also don't want to promise anything in case they can't do it; which would also make them the bad guys...

It would be nice if they could give more details (like a timeframe or specifics), but I understand that they don't want to give us the rope they hang themselves with.

Billium813

spartaxoxo wrote: »

They are also "still working" on getting us romance options for companions. They even said it would be a "huge miss" if they weren't there. Well, this is the second year with Companions and still no romance options. Perhaps we'll see them in year three.

I thought that "petting" NPCs was high on their dev priority list!

honestly, I'd rather they not spend dev time on a "romance system" for Companions. We don't need more niche content *cough* ToT *cough* when PvP and unique zone design has been neglected for so long

Jaraal

Billium813 wrote: »

Stamicka wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Just wanted to update a brief update here. We are still working on something to address sentiment around U35 combat changes. That is the current plan right now. Once we have something more specific to share, we'll update accordingly.

For those of you who don’t know, “we are still working” coming from ZOS is a bad sign. For some context, in 2016 we were told that “ZOS is still working on performance improvements for PvP”. Fast forward to 2022 and they are “still working” on PvP improvements that are supposed to be done by the end of this year.

I don't necessarily disagree with you, but be careful of leaving ZOS in a no-win situation (which is unfair). If they say nothing, they are the bad guys. If they say they are working on something, they are the bad guys. What do you WANT them to do? It takes time IF they are doing something; that's just a concession we have to make. They aren't going to fix things over night and they also don't want to promise anything in case they can't do it; which would also make them the bad guys...

It would be nice if they could give more details (like a timeframe or specifics), but I understand that they don't want to give us the rope they hang themselves with.

Someone in the command chain is writing the timeline for this. They first mentioned that they were "working on a brief Q&A" months ago. Everyone realizes that one writer could type something out in an hour, if they were motivated to uphold their word and make something happen. But clearly there is something going on behind the scenes that we are not privy to, nor likely ever will be.

It's nice that Kevin is letting us know that they haven't forgotten. I'm sure he, as the designated company spokesman, is telling us everything he is allowed to at this point. Honestly, I wouldn't want to have to be the one to put the U35 vision to print. Because it's bound to include the aforementioned conflict of vision that happened on the PTS. To say that one side of the vision was correct is to admit that another aspect of the vision was not. And reluctance to admit mistakes is just human nature, and understandable.