The one positive thing to come from Update 35

Rust_in_Peace

I have never seen the community more united in opinion on the current state of the game. Everyone from pve, pvp, casual and hardcore players are unhappy. Finally we can all realize that it's not "just us" in whatever party we fall into; Zos doesn't listen to ALL of us.

Cheers to ESO community solidarity!

Ratzkifal

Yeah, that really put a smile on my face as well.

Cheers to solidarity!

Iselin

It's remarkable really. Now we just need to set a time for storming the Bastille.

Lucozade85

There's another good thing. A lot of people are going to be saving money they would have spent on ESO+ and Crowns.

FeedbackOnly

I like how you think

Sarannah

I'm always happy!

Captain_Devildog

Rip Eso

Drammanoth

Captain_Devildog wrote: »

Rip Eso

No, ZOS knows ESO will live on - new people will be coming, so they may not be that worried about the backlash from us, regardless whether this is a handful of people, or a larger part of the community.

A meta conclusion in regards to all games - players care more than the devs.

It is sad that we unite against something we should never be against - and yet...

MEBengalsFan2001

The server also should be running smoother with less people playing the game.

p00tx

Drammanoth wrote: »

Captain_Devildog wrote: »

Rip Eso

No, ZOS knows ESO will live on - new people will be coming, so they may not be that worried about the backlash from us, regardless whether this is a handful of people, or a larger part of the community.

A meta conclusion in regards to all games - players care more than the devs.

It is sad that we unite against something we should never be agains - and yet...

I used to think the same thing, but after yesterday, I'm not so sure. The big content creators are teetering on the edge of leaving right now, with most of their weight on the leaving side. If they go, they're not going to stop creating content, and they'll take it to another game, along with their negative opinion of this game. People aren't going to want to go play a game with such a bad reputation, no matter how much sparkly junk they flood the crown store with.

Ratzkifal

p00tx wrote: »

Drammanoth wrote: »

Captain_Devildog wrote: »

Rip Eso

No, ZOS knows ESO will live on - new people will be coming, so they may not be that worried about the backlash from us, regardless whether this is a handful of people, or a larger part of the community.

A meta conclusion in regards to all games - players care more than the devs.

It is sad that we unite against something we should never be agains - and yet...

I used to think the same thing, but after yesterday, I'm not so sure. The big content creators are teetering on the edge of leaving right now, with most of their weight on the leaving side. If they go, they're not going to stop creating content, and they'll take it to another game, along with their negative opinion of this game. People aren't going to want to go play a game with such a bad reputation, no matter how much sparkly junk they flood the crown store with.

Agreed. How do people discover games? Through ads, friends or content creators. If friends and content creators are having a negative opinion of the game it will impact sales. I don't think having this kind of thing happen in Q3, right after the big chapter release is good for ZOS because most of the advertising hype is now over and they need to mostly rely on their players to promote the game for them. If that's suddenly gone the Q4 release will be impacted as well and as a result so will the hype around the Q1 release next year.

Also let's not forget. If ZOS didn't back down now, they will never back down from bad changes in the future. This is exactly the reason why people freaked out at the preview. They knew things would be pushed to live in a broken state because that's how ZOS has always operated. Now we got confirmation that things could figuratively be on fire and ZOS would not do anything about it and that makes me and a lot of others reconsider if ESO is worth investing time and money into. I certainly wouldn't think about recommending it to a friend now.

BalticBlues

Indeed - this is FIRST PATCH ever that goes directly AGAINST ALL ESO PLAYERS.
No matter what you like in ESO - no matter how good you are - you will suffer and struggle.
After all the devastating PTS feedback - how can a designer still release this?

"The Player Should Have The Fun, Not The Designer Or The Computer"
"As designers, we need to be the player’s greatest advocate during a game’s development, always considering carefully how design decisions affect the player’s agency in the world."
-- Sid Meier, Game Designer, HOF Winner 1999 of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, USA

Wolf_Eye

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

dinokstrunz

Yeah cancelling ESO+ party lets goooooo

Agenericname

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

Overland is still insanely easy for the folks that asked for an optional version.

omnidoh

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

Eh... if by hard you mean "slightly more tedious", then sure I guess.
This game isn't hard at all.
I joined a pug group yesterday for Graven Deep as a Random Veteran daily.
I was not disappointed.
It was my first time in the dungeon, as a healer no less, and we blitzed through the whole thing all fancy-dancy, up until the last boss. Sure it took a long time to kill things, and there was lots of poo to not stand in, lots of movement, etc... but nothing more difficult than any vDLC or Challenger. (Go do Fang Lair Challenger without being carried and then come back and talk to me.)
The last boss was a trip though.
Probably the most fun time I've had repeatedly wiping for about an hour (until I had learned and adapted to all the mechanics) in a long time. Finally completed the boss after group synergy reached the required threshold.

And for whoever said Radiating Regeneration is worthless now? Uhh, I don't know what skooma they're on, but it still ticks for around 1.8K for me, (instead of 2.2K) which is plenty. And I play a Stage 4 Vampire Nightblade healer.
Game is fine, healing is fine, it's all fine.
Could be worse, but it's not Armageddon.
Folks will just have to learn to adapt is all.

Ratzkifal

omnidoh wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

Eh... if by hard you mean "slightly more tedious", then sure I guess.
This game isn't hard at all.
I joined a pug group yesterday for Graven Deep as a Random Veteran daily.
I was not disappointed.
It was my first time in the dungeon, as a healer no less, and we blitzed through the whole thing all fancy-dancy, up until the last boss. Sure it took a long time to kill things, and there was lots of poo to not stand in, lots of movement, etc... but nothing more difficult than any vDLC or Challenger. (Go do Fang Lair Challenger without being carried and then come back and talk to me.)
The last boss was a trip though.
Probably the most fun time I've had repeatedly wiping for about an hour (until I had learned and adapted to all the mechanics) in a long time. Finally completed the boss after group synergy reached the required threshold.

And for whoever said Radiating Regeneration is worthless now? Uhh, I don't know what skooma they're on, but it still ticks for around 1.8K for me, (instead of 2.2K) which is plenty. And I play a Stage 4 Vampire Nightblade healer.
Game is fine, healing is fine, it's all fine.
Could be worse, but it's not Armageddon.
Folks will just have to learn to adapt is all.

"Could be worse, but it's not Armageddon" - well, what was the point of this update according to you? What did ZOS actually achieve here? Who did this help? Yes it could be worse still and in Week 1 it actually was. But the real question is why did ZOS just make everything worse for everyone without having any results to show for it? Why did they ship this if they could have released the patch without a balance update and would have been better off for it? ZOS should not be doing this kind of thing at all and we've been telling them that.
The game is not having an armageddon, it's ZOS' relationship with the community that is having one and the game's health is suffering as a result.

Sedare38

This update is a fail. Reduce dmg, barely reduce healing. DON'T reduce mitigation . . . gj

Ragnarok0130

Ratzkifal wrote: »

p00tx wrote: »

Drammanoth wrote: »

Captain_Devildog wrote: »

Rip Eso

No, ZOS knows ESO will live on - new people will be coming, so they may not be that worried about the backlash from us, regardless whether this is a handful of people, or a larger part of the community.

A meta conclusion in regards to all games - players care more than the devs.

It is sad that we unite against something we should never be agains - and yet...

I used to think the same thing, but after yesterday, I'm not so sure. The big content creators are teetering on the edge of leaving right now, with most of their weight on the leaving side. If they go, they're not going to stop creating content, and they'll take it to another game, along with their negative opinion of this game. People aren't going to want to go play a game with such a bad reputation, no matter how much sparkly junk they flood the crown store with.

Agreed. How do people discover games? Through ads, friends or content creators. If friends and content creators are having a negative opinion of the game it will impact sales. I don't think having this kind of thing happen in Q3, right after the big chapter release is good for ZOS because most of the advertising hype is now over and they need to mostly rely on their players to promote the game for them. If that's suddenly gone the Q4 release will be impacted as well and as a result so will the hype around the Q1 release next year.

Also let's not forget. If ZOS didn't back down now, they will never back down from bad changes in the future. This is exactly the reason why people freaked out at the preview. They knew things would be pushed to live in a broken state because that's how ZOS has always operated. Now we got confirmation that things could figuratively be on fire and ZOS would not do anything about it and that makes me and a lot of others reconsider if ESO is worth investing time and money into. I certainly wouldn't think about recommending it to a friend now.

Precisely what we’ve witnessed with Update 35 is Nexon levels of disregard for player feedback. I never thought I’d see it this bad.

Prof_Bawbag

omnidoh wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

Eh... if by hard you mean "slightly more tedious", then sure I guess.
This game isn't hard at all.
I joined a pug group yesterday for Graven Deep as a Random Veteran daily.
I was not disappointed.
It was my first time in the dungeon, as a healer no less, and we blitzed through the whole thing all fancy-dancy, up until the last boss. Sure it took a long time to kill things, and there was lots of poo to not stand in, lots of movement, etc... but nothing more difficult than any vDLC or Challenger. (Go do Fang Lair Challenger without being carried and then come back and talk to me.)
The last boss was a trip though.
Probably the most fun time I've had repeatedly wiping for about an hour (until I had learned and adapted to all the mechanics) in a long time. Finally completed the boss after group synergy reached the required threshold.

And for whoever said Radiating Regeneration is worthless now? Uhh, I don't know what skooma they're on, but it still ticks for around 1.8K for me, (instead of 2.2K) which is plenty. And I play a Stage 4 Vampire Nightblade healer.
Game is fine, healing is fine, it's all fine.
Could be worse, but it's not Armageddon.
Folks will just have to learn to adapt is all.

What would a harder overland have actually involved? Smart AI needs the game built from the bottom up as to implement it. That ain't ever gonna happen in ESO due to the vast amount of content. The AI is what it is. The only way to make overland more difficult is to make it more tedious. So yeah, in a strange twist of fate, some players got a small dose of what they asked for. Tedium. Just like old craglorn used to be tedious taking an age to kill wasps. It was riveting stuff.

FluffWit

Iselin wrote: »

It's remarkable really. Now we just need to set a time for storming the Bastille.

Eh, I can usually be placated with cake.

p00tx

omnidoh wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

Eh... if by hard you mean "slightly more tedious", then sure I guess.
This game isn't hard at all.
I joined a pug group yesterday for Graven Deep as a Random Veteran daily.
I was not disappointed.
It was my first time in the dungeon, as a healer no less, and we blitzed through the whole thing all fancy-dancy, up until the last boss. Sure it took a long time to kill things, and there was lots of poo to not stand in, lots of movement, etc... but nothing more difficult than any vDLC or Challenger. (Go do Fang Lair Challenger without being carried and then come back and talk to me.)
The last boss was a trip though.
Probably the most fun time I've had repeatedly wiping for about an hour (until I had learned and adapted to all the mechanics) in a long time. Finally completed the boss after group synergy reached the required threshold.

And for whoever said Radiating Regeneration is worthless now? Uhh, I don't know what skooma they're on, but it still ticks for around 1.8K for me, (instead of 2.2K) which is plenty. And I play a Stage 4 Vampire Nightblade healer.
Game is fine, healing is fine, it's all fine.
Could be worse, but it's not Armageddon.
Folks will just have to learn to adapt is all.

If all you're doing is 4 person content, it may not be such a detriment. Try out some of the 12 person content now, specifically the new trials and their hardmodes. Healing is nowhere near what it was before patch, and it's not enough to counter the incoming damage in trials without ignoring the other part of a healer's job, which is keeping up buffs and debuffs and minding mechanics. Outgoing player dmg is not enough to make the dps checks.

Rust_in_Peace

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

The real spike is in normal mode dungeons and solo arenas. The damage and health pools are the same as they were in U34 so they both got much harder. Both instanced.

PrincessOfThieves

Ratzkifal wrote: »

p00tx wrote: »

Drammanoth wrote: »

Captain_Devildog wrote: »

Rip Eso

No, ZOS knows ESO will live on - new people will be coming, so they may not be that worried about the backlash from us, regardless whether this is a handful of people, or a larger part of the community.

A meta conclusion in regards to all games - players care more than the devs.

It is sad that we unite against something we should never be agains - and yet...

I used to think the same thing, but after yesterday, I'm not so sure. The big content creators are teetering on the edge of leaving right now, with most of their weight on the leaving side. If they go, they're not going to stop creating content, and they'll take it to another game, along with their negative opinion of this game. People aren't going to want to go play a game with such a bad reputation, no matter how much sparkly junk they flood the crown store with.

Agreed. How do people discover games? Through ads, friends or content creators. If friends and content creators are having a negative opinion of the game it will impact sales. I don't think having this kind of thing happen in Q3, right after the big chapter release is good for ZOS because most of the advertising hype is now over and they need to mostly rely on their players to promote the game for them. If that's suddenly gone the Q4 release will be impacted as well and as a result so will the hype around the Q1 release next year.

Also let's not forget. If ZOS didn't back down now, they will never back down from bad changes in the future. This is exactly the reason why people freaked out at the preview. They knew things would be pushed to live in a broken state because that's how ZOS has always operated. Now we got confirmation that things could figuratively be on fire and ZOS would not do anything about it and that makes me and a lot of others reconsider if ESO is worth investing time and money into. I certainly wouldn't think about recommending it to a friend now.

Exactly. ESO had a rocky launch and it haunted the game for a while. People heard horror stories about the launch and thought that ESO is just a boring, buggy mess that's not worth trying. I'm pretty sure that the shift towards B2P model was influenced by this, among other things.
Then there was the Morrowind fiasco, and it took another year or 2 to rebuild the community after that.
And now we have this... I thought it's gonna be similar to Morrowind, but it turned out to be much worse. At least in Morrowind it didn't affect casual playerbase and all trials and hardmodes could be cleared even by less hardcore teams.
The question is, does ESO have another couple of years to rebuild? And how can we trust the developers after this?

rexagamemnon

I’ll raise a glass to that. Community solidarity is good for the game, especially now. I dont recall complaining about many updates, i think only 1 in the past, and i normally voice my support for the devs and give them the benefit of the doubt. Devs this time hit some points players have complained about in the past, but went about it completely wrong. They completely gutted Magplar. If that doesn’t tell you something about how bad this update is, nothing will. Hopefully zos will for next update announce a full revert of update 35 for update 36

rexagamemnon

FluffWit wrote: »

Iselin wrote: »

It's remarkable really. Now we just need to set a time for storming the Bastille.

Eh, I can usually be placated with cake.

Fellow academics, well said gentlemen. Eating to much cake will go to your thighs, and as far as bastille goes, just don’t break out the guillotine.

FeedbackOnly

BalticBlues wrote: »

Indeed - this is FIRST PATCH ever that goes directly AGAINST ALL ESO PLAYERS.
No matter what you like in ESO - no matter how good you are - you will suffer and struggle.
After all the devastating PTS feedback - how can a designer still release this?

"The Player Should Have The Fun, Not The Designer Or The Computer"
"As designers, we need to be the player’s greatest advocate during a game’s development, always considering carefully how design decisions affect the player’s agency in the world."
-- Sid Meier, Game Designer, HOF Winner 1999 of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, USA

Fun is what they forgot

p00tx

BalticBlues wrote: »

Indeed - this is FIRST PATCH ever that goes directly AGAINST ALL ESO PLAYERS.
No matter what you like in ESO - no matter how good you are - you will suffer and struggle.
After all the devastating PTS feedback - how can a designer still release this?

"The Player Should Have The Fun, Not The Designer Or The Computer"
"As designers, we need to be the player’s greatest advocate during a game’s development, always considering carefully how design decisions affect the player’s agency in the world."
-- Sid Meier, Game Designer, HOF Winner 1999 of the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, USA

That quote from Sid Meier is perfect. It feels like a lot of decisions are made with the mindset that we're too stupid to know what's best for us, even though we're the ones playing the game and spending time, money, and resources to help build the community. Many of us are older and have been gaming for as long as some of the devs have been alive, and definitely have a good grasp of what a healthy game entails.

This anti-customer model is just plain bad. I can understand feeling super frustrated as a dev or designer when all of your ideas are constantly criticized and shot down by the community, and we definitely need to learn how to voice our frustrations better and more constructively, but it's not an excuse to rag on the community you get paid to serve. We are not naughty, ignorant children (mostly) who need to be babysat or condescended to.

AlterBlika

Rust_in_Peace wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

The real spike is in normal mode dungeons and solo arenas. The damage and health pools are the same as they were in U34 so they both got much harder. Both instanced.

Normal dungeons and solo arenas can be done with closed eyes, so no need to adjust them. vBRP is another thing, although I bet it's still doable.

FeedbackOnly

AlterBlika wrote: »

Rust_in_Peace wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

I think the people who wanted harder overland are probably enjoying this patch, as they got exactly that.

The real spike is in normal mode dungeons and solo arenas. The damage and health pools are the same as they were in U34 so they both got much harder. Both instanced.

Normal dungeons and solo arenas can be done with closed eyes, so no need to adjust them. vBRP is another thing, although I bet it's still doable.

Not anymore the non elite players will suffer. Also you are going to want to kick others who haven't adjusted

mzprx

Ratzkifal wrote: »

...Why did they ship this if they could have released the patch without a balance update and would have been better off for it?...

i am not a member of ZOS staff, but i can tell you exactly what happens about 4-5 days before the PTS is supposed to come up. let me illustrate -

at ZOS dev meeting (5 days to PTS launch) -

dev1 - "hot dayum'! is it the time already?"
dev2 - "what? what day is it?"
dev3 - "eh, guys, yeah, we have less than a week until the PTS. we need to come up with some balance adjustment"
dev2 - "what day is it? can anyone answer me?"
dev1 - "quiet! we have to come up with some gameplay changes, otherwise they'll think we don't do anything around here"
dev3 - "who?"
dev1 - "players. so does anyone have anything?"
dev3 - "nah. there's still time"
dev2 - "time for what? i don't even know what day it is! come on, someone tell me!"
dev1/dev3 - "quiet!"
dev2 - "you guys are mean!"

ZOS dev meeting (1 day to PTS launch) -

dev1 - "it seems like we now have only two days to figure out some changes. did anyone come up with any ideas? and where in Oblivion is dev2?"
dev3 - "he says that since we don't like him any more we can go to hell"
dev1 - "ah! that son of a... whatever, we can do this, just think positive. so, about those balance changes..."
secretary - "hi guys, anyone wants some coffee?"
dev1 - "yeah, coffe is good, i'll have 5"
dev3 - "2 for me. and 3 donuts"
secretary (smiling) - "you got it"
dev3 - "where were we?"
dev1 - "BALANCE!!!"
dev3 - "oh, i remember now! hmmm, let me think"
dev1 - "think quick!"
security guy - "is something happening? i heard yelling coming from in here"
dev1/dev3 - "get out!"
security guy - "OK, OK. was just doing my job"
dev1 - "so... you got something?"
dev3 - "nope. nothing. completely empty. so i have an idea"
dev1 - "what? what is it?"
dev3 - "let's... i dunno... say..."
dev1 - "come on, come on!"
dev3 - " um... YEAH! I GOT IT! let's nerf everything"
dev1 - "not bad, not bad, but not everything, that could be perceived badly by our players"
dev3 - "OK, so let's nerf DoTs and HoTs. we say it's because the damage is too high and we want to make the game accessible to more players"
dev1 - "see? i told you. just think positive and you can do it!"
dev3 - "so i'll write it down and we post it as patch notes tomorrow"