I enjoy ESO

SilverBride

I enjoy playing ESO. It has a nice mix of activities that I can hop around to as the mood hits me. I love questing and World Bosses and Vents and soloing dungeons and ToT and Housing and selling on our guild's trader and chatting and hanging out with friends I've made along the way.

There are some things I was not happy with this year such as Account Wide Achievements and a DLC being the reward again, or the pet as compensation. And I wasn't happy that both new Companions were female. And there have been a lot of bugs but these will be fixed. But I don't attribute any of this to ZoS doing anything but trying to make the game better for us all.

Players asked for a game and they asked for account wide achievements and they complained about power creep and that the game was too easy. Things may not have been implemented the way players envisioned but they were done in response to player feedback.

Giving feedback is important but not just negative feedback. Positive feedback is just as important to know how changes have been received by the playerbase. And I enjoy ESO.

LesserCircle

Feedback is feedback, I can't give positive feedback about something that is broken or worse than before. Their positive feedback is number of subs, sales and active players, they won't read us here.

Shihp00

yo zos if ya reading this, can u give old light attack damage back? Weaving wasn't really the problem, just player diff i think hehe. i miss my friend but they won't play with the new empower buff. thnx 4 listening, love yall 3>

Punches_Below_Belt

Nor should they or anyone else with a job to do. You can’t listen to thousands of voices most of whom are ill informed, some willfully undermining your efforts for personal advantage and all requiring more than a work day to keep up with. The forums are the least productive way to have any impact on the game but the keyboard warriors are going to keep trying for their version of “flawless conqueror”.

React

I'm glad that the parts of the game you enjoy are working well, and that your way of playing ESO has been unaffected by the things that many people are complaining about right now.

SilverBride wrote: »

And there have been a lot of bugs but these will be fixed.

However, I don't think you can realistically make this statement. They have not indicated that they are capable of resolving the bugs. Firesong was a minor bugfixing patch, which resulted in far more bugs being introduced than resolved. 2020 was dubbed "the year of performance", where they enacted numerous changes to increase the performance and only succeeded in making it worse.

There are numerous examples of them promising to fix things, and never making good on those promises. I'd love to remain optimistic that they are capable of fixing things, but every indication over the history of this game is that they are unable to.

The_Lex

React wrote: »

I'm glad that the parts of the game you enjoy are working well, and that your way of playing ESO has been unaffected by the things that many people are complaining about right now.

SilverBride wrote: »

And there have been a lot of bugs but these will be fixed.

However, I don't think you can realistically make this statement. They have not indicated that they are capable of resolving the bugs. Firesong was a minor bugfixing patch, which resulted in far more bugs being introduced than resolved. 2020 was dubbed "the year of performance", where they enacted numerous changes to increase the performance and only succeeded in making it worse.

There are numerous examples of them promising to fix things, and never making good on those promises. I'd love to remain optimistic that they are capable of fixing things, but every indication over the history of this game is that they are unable to.

Well said.

Tandor

I agree with the OP both in regards to still enjoying the game, and also regarding account-wide achievements. However, the latter has resulted in a significant change in the way I play and help fund the game in order to achieve the former.

While I also agree that such things as account-wide achievements and power creep were dealt with in response to feedback, that feedback generally came from a minority of players, and even when not there was a sufficiently balanced response to suggest that ZOS would stick to the line they adopted in their defence of the present trading system - namely that where there was a balance of opinions both one way and the other they wouldn't risk changing things for fear of alienating as many players as they pleased. That's why the implementation of account-wide achievements surprised me. As for the way it was implemented, well that even displeased a fair number of those whose feedback had called for it in the first place!

I personally don't have a problem with the combat changes in UD35, but common to all the various complaints about the game this year has been an unwillingness to explain the changes, listen to the feedback and then engage with the players over their subsequent concerns. Any benefits from reporting back on the PTS would seem to be highly marginal at best. ZOS seem to have an agenda which is driving these changes, but they haven't told us what it is or listened to any concerns over the consequences of following it. That's why in a recent thread I suggested that the company mantra for 2023 might usefully be "Listen and Engage". Meanwhile I'll continue to enjoy the game, but it's not the game that I signed up to in 2014 and instantly identified as my main MMORPG home for years to come, sadly.

SilverBride

React wrote: »

I'm glad that the parts of the game you enjoy are working well, and that your way of playing ESO has been unaffected by the things that many people are complaining about right now.

SilverBride wrote: »

And there have been a lot of bugs but these will be fixed.

However, I don't think you can realistically make this statement. They have not indicated that they are capable of resolving the bugs. Firesong was a minor bugfixing patch, which resulted in far more bugs being introduced than resolved. 2020 was dubbed "the year of performance", where they enacted numerous changes to increase the performance and only succeeded in making it worse.

There are numerous examples of them promising to fix things, and never making good on those promises. I'd love to remain optimistic that they are capable of fixing things, but every indication over the history of this game is that they are unable to.

My game was affected negatively by Account Wide Achievements but I found a way to adapt. And as I mentioned I was not happy with the DLC as a gift or both new Companions being female. But I gave my feedback as did many others and hope they will take it into consideration.

I have played a lot of MMOs through the years... decades... and none of them were bug free. In my experience they do put out a real effort. Rich even made a pinned thread admitting they dropped the ball with the U36 launch and will do better in the future. I have faith that they will because I have no reason not to.

React

SilverBride wrote: »

React wrote: »

I'm glad that the parts of the game you enjoy are working well, and that your way of playing ESO has been unaffected by the things that many people are complaining about right now.

SilverBride wrote: »

And there have been a lot of bugs but these will be fixed.

However, I don't think you can realistically make this statement. They have not indicated that they are capable of resolving the bugs. Firesong was a minor bugfixing patch, which resulted in far more bugs being introduced than resolved. 2020 was dubbed "the year of performance", where they enacted numerous changes to increase the performance and only succeeded in making it worse.

There are numerous examples of them promising to fix things, and never making good on those promises. I'd love to remain optimistic that they are capable of fixing things, but every indication over the history of this game is that they are unable to.

Rich even made a pinned thread admitting they dropped the ball with the U36 launch and will do better in the future. I have faith that they will because I have no reason not to.

For me, years of them failing to fix long standing bugs and performance issues, failing to make good on their promises, and failing to consistently communicate with the playerbase about the things that matter is a reason for me not to believe that they "will do better in the future". In my opinion, ignoring the history of this game and the issues it has had (at least on the combat/performance end), is willful ignorance.

mandricus

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't attribute any of this to ZoS doing anything but trying to make the game better for us all.

Players asked for a game and they asked for account wide achievements and they complained about power creep and that the game was too easy. Things may not have been implemented the way players envisioned but they were done in response to player feedback.

I see your point and I agree with you.

I personally recognize the good intentions and the will to listen to player's feedback in terms of general suggestions, on lot of forum feedbacks. I think, however, that most of the times, when players are giving negative feedback, they are not criticizing the intentions: they are talking about the outcomes.

And the outcomes were... well, may I say, "questionable", in some cases?

On week 2 PTS of U35 it was pretty clear that there were some unintended consequences. Stuff that needed some more attention. Heck, please do not forget that messing with light and heavy attacks, we had a medium attack weave meta for two weeks! We had animations changed with good intentions, but received in a mixed-and-mostly negative way from players (because of habits, because of questionable visuals, desynced audio cues, or simply because something changed after 8 years... everyone can have his good reasons). Mara's Balm absolutely broken. Empower changed in the last cycles in a hurry, trying to fix a bunch of stuff, with a whole set of new problems caused by this last minute change (e.g.: a good number of sets and builds obliterated overnight).

I followed lot of threads on PTS forum, saw a bunch of youtube videos from various streamers. Boy, what a mess.

A release date delay would have been the smartest and safest choice, in my humble opinion. A little delay, just the time needed to strip off and revert all the combat changes, leave the game as it was, and release the new content only (which, it turns out, it was really good). It would have been, in my opinion, a safest choice at that point in time, expecially after the AWA introduction and a pile of forum pages discussion that showed quite clearly that, despite the good intentions, a good number of unintentional outcomes were not fully considered or analyzed in depth, due to time constraints.

Looks like, however, we are on a running train that can't be stopped or delayed in any way by anyone.
Business is business, cash needs to flow. Release anyway, at any cost.

That is not the real problem however, in my opinion. The real problem is that this time, we got the impression that someone said "ok guys, let's call it a day, leave the game as it is, and start working on the next chapter pretending nothing happened".
We can't know for sure, because we are still waiting for a QA or a post, to better understand the ratio and the expected outcomes behind some of the changes.

That hurts on me, as I love this game. I don't like to see it like this. I've seen its former glory in its good patches, and I will never forget it. Best game ever.

It was pretty clear that U35 needed some additional tweaks (if not a complete 180° turnover in some cases). But this time they decided to stop with changes, because in u35's feedback lot of people complained about change fatigue. They listened to feedback.

May be another case of good intentions, questionable timing and outcome.

For me, is a disappointment to see the game in this state, and to know that it will stay like this for months.


Edited to better clarify

Sallymen

What I enjoy in Elder Scrolls Online:
-Dungeons (When the queue works)
-Tanking in PvE (When block works)
-Farming for pages and leads (When the drops work)
-PvP in Cyrodill (When it doesn't lag or break)
-Achievement Hunting (When they work and give rewards that are not just titles)
-Tales of Tribute (When I do not crash during a game and immediately lose because of it)

I enjoy everything in this game... When it works as intended. This is not bashing or baiting in the slightest, this is a genuine coming from someone who has subbed to the game since 2016. I've seen the highs and lows of this game and this is definitely the lowest point this game has gotten in.

SilverBride

Sallymen wrote: »

What I enjoy in Elder Scrolls Online:
-Dungeons (When the queue works)
-Tanking in PvE (When block works)
-Farming for pages and leads (When the drops work)
-PvP in Cyrodill (When it doesn't lag or break)
-Achievement Hunting (When they work and give rewards that are not just titles)
-Tales of Tribute (When I do not crash during a game and immediately lose because of it)

I enjoy everything in this game... When it works as intended. This is not bashing or baiting in the slightest, this is a genuine coming from someone who has subbed to the game since 2016. I've seen the highs and lows of this game and this is definitely the lowest point this game has gotten in.

But it's not the lowest point for everyone. I think it's important to acknowledge that many of us still enjoy ESO.

Four_Fingers

Most of us that play everyday enjoy ESO or we wouldn't do it.
That is why we are so vocal when they do sloppy work on it because they are capable of great things.

Sallymen

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not the lowest point for everyone. I think it's important to acknowledge that many of us still enjoy ESO.

That's true but that doesn't make it okay for all these issues to continue. If you enjoy this game you should advocate for it to be better. And it starts with making sure the game works as intended. It's hard to ignore the issues when they affect you everytime you log in.

Sallymen

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Most of us that play everyday enjoy ESO or we wouldn't do it.
That is why we are so vocal when they do sloppy work on it because they are capable of great things.

This right here. People have been rallying on these issues because they want to see this game do good. I enjoy this game a lot but again all the issues stem from the game not working as intended.

SilverBride

Sallymen wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not the lowest point for everyone. I think it's important to acknowledge that many of us still enjoy ESO.

That's true but that doesn't make it okay for all these issues to continue. If you enjoy this game you should advocate for it to be better. And it starts with making sure the game works as intended. It's hard to ignore the issues when they affect you everytime you log in.

I have given feedback, negative as well as positive. That is advocating for the game to get better in my opinion. But I am still playing without issue every day just as I did before. For me, the game is not broken.

Zezin

SilverBride wrote: »

But it's not the lowest point for everyone. I think it's important to acknowledge that many of us still enjoy ESO.

Definitely not the lowest point for everyone, but for AwA it was the sprinkles in your game being changed maybe the icing, with from what I see from your posts over the time I'm here your "cake" being exploration and questing. For me the "cake" of the game has always been combat and it's been *** ever since U35, to the point I haven't logged in in over a month, ever since the last pts week where the reality that they would not revert the atrocity they made hit me. I still have a lot of good memories and friendships that I built over the years with this game as it's basis so it's extremely hard for me to not care about it or not want to come back, but by the end of that 4th week of pts this game would just make me angry every time I logged in so yeah... Not everyone is done with the game, changes affect people in different ways and to different degrees for me U35 was too much, enough for me to not want to log in to a game I played for years with thousands of hours.

ankerous

It's not much different than negative reviews for products, restaurants, etc. Very often the only reviews left will be negative because people are more likely to leave feedback if they have a less than expected experience. I think a lot of the problem is not only are there some major issues at times, but the players have to wait quite a while for it to be fixed by a patch, sometimes longer than one patch cycle.

I've read quite a lot of positive feedback on these very forums over the years. It feels like they can't handle criticism from some players who are very frustrated with the quality of experience they are having right now with the game in a very important part of combat. It would be different if they would give some sort of feedback and maybe try to reassure the players but instead all that seems to happen is suppression of the opinion of their customers.

Sallymen

A mug that has a broken handle is still a broken mug.

Jaimeh

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't attribute any of this to ZoS doing anything but trying to make the game better for us all.

Players asked for a game and they asked for account wide achievements and they complained about power creep and that the game was too easy. Things may not have been implemented the way players envisioned but they were done in response to player feedback.

Even the part of the playerbase that asked for AwA, didn't ask for the way it was implemented, and ZOS didn't listen to feedback on the PTS as we saw with all the issues afterwards. Mostly people wanted account-wide titles, not the complete deflation of repeatable content on alts. Also, ZOS didn't introduce AwA just because players asked for it, but to help with performance, let's not forget that.

No one doubts that being a dev is hard work and that they have good intentions. It's their product, it'd be illogical for them to let it go to ruin willingly. And for a lot of issues there are workarounds and adaptation (even though ideally it shouldn't have to be that way), but for others, there's simply nothing to do. Take the blog bug for example, I've been playing in Cyrodiil these past few days and it's catastrophic not to be able to block incoming attacks and siege damage. We have to wait two weeks for the fix, if it will get fixed on that patch maintenance. I think problems like these are what players are mostly critical about, and with good reason. They are not negative just to bum out the players who enjoy the game, they are negative because they can't enjoy their own game, and can't play with these problems unresolved. I do think the majority of people who are critical usually give informative accounts of current issues, often with extensive testing either on live or on the PTS, and they do so exactly because they love the game and wish to play it to its fullest potential. Of course we should be reminded in the forums of how wonderful the game is and hear from the players who are enjoying it, but when a company fails so pervasively, turning a blind eye is helping no one, especially not the future and health of the game.

Arunei

The last bit of your post seems to carry disdain for the people who are voicing negative opinions and feedback. Your entire post would have remained the same without what reads as a subtle stab at people leaving negative feedback. If people are having problems with something then of course they're going to post about it, and they're allowed to do that regardless of the nature of the feedback. People aren't generally going to say "x and x really bothers me but hey y is nice".

And the reason people are posting so much? It's because they care about the game and want it to be better. They complain because they want ZOS to actually stick to their promise of "we'll do better". They don't want to give up on a game they enjoyed, or still enjoy but less than they once did. It bothers me when people say "well if you don't like it stop playing" because guess what? If everyone who didn't like something quit playing, there wouldn't be a game for anyone else TO play. A game like this needs to retain players, not chase them off.

Negative criticism is not a bad thing, when constructive and where it's due. I've seen negative feedback that's unconstructive, but most of what I've seen has been constructive, with people saying what they think is wrong and offering insight into what they think could help. Or they give detailed explanations as to why they think something is wrong, even if they don't know how it can be fixed.

And positive criticism can be just as harmful as negative unconstructive criticism. Toxic positivity won't help improve anything. Not that I think you're being toxically positive at all, but what I mean is posting positivity for the sheer sake of refusing to acknowledge anything being wrong. If people have legit positive feedback and all that's 100% great, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to be positive unduly, just so it can balance the negative. Because when it comes to a of things in life (such as stores, restaurants, any number of services like dry cleaning, doctor's offices, and so on), if you see a very large number of negative reviews and low scores, it could very well indicate there is a problem.

dmnqwk

Positive Feedback comes generously via players paying subscriptions, buying things and giving them monies.

Negative Feedback comes from Forum Posting.

Of course you can have the flipside for each, but this is how most feedback occurs. (since people don't feel their feedback is listened to as much by stopping giving the monies).

VaranisArano

Positive feedback: I do enjoy ESO's content and gameplay when it's working as intended.

Since Cyrodiil PVP hasn't been working as intended for quite some time, I mostly quest these days. Fortunately, quests are working as intended for the most part, so it's pretty enjoyable.

A small thing that didn't make waves, but I did notice: ZOS finally fixed the bug with the Elsweyr Prologue quests that broke the Main Quest "The Tharn Speaks." Yeah, it's a small bug fix to get excited about, but when I've spent three years telling confused players to drop or complete the Prologue quests to get Tharn to show up for them, it's nice to see it finally get fixed!

Cryptor

I love this game & I am just so grateful that I have good friends to hang out with in-game. As a casual PvE player who just wants to sit down in the evening and chill with some good friends, this is so perfect. I don't raid, I don't pvp, I mostly just do open-world PvE and dungeons. For someone like me, this is all I need to forget about my realities for just few hours every evening.

SilverBride

Arunei wrote: »

The last bit of your post seems to carry disdain for the people who are voicing negative opinions and feedback

All I said was that positive feedback is as important as negative.

Arunei wrote: »

And positive criticism can be just as harmful as negative unconstructive criticism. Toxic positivity won't help improve anything. Not that I think you're being toxically positive at all, but what I mean is posting positivity for the sheer sake of refusing to acknowledge anything being wrong. If people have legit positive feedback and all that's 100% great, but we shouldn't be encouraging people to be positive unduly, just so it can balance the negative. Because when it comes to a of things in life (such as stores, restaurants, any number of services like dry cleaning, doctor's offices, and so on), if you see a very large number of negative reviews and low scores, it could very well indicate there is a problem.

I'm not encouraging anyone to give any type of feedback. I'm just giving my own.

As far as negative feedback, this relates to the Vocal Minority vs the Silent Majority. Those who are unhappy speak out, while most of those who are satisfied don't feel the need to. Those who speak out are almost always the unhappy ones.

I myself have stated some things I have not been happy with, but in general my game experience has not changed for the worse. That is not toxic positivity, that is my personal experience.

Cadbury

Every patch will break something and whatever happens going forward is not up to us. I see ESO as a train ride chugging along in the darkness, and your only choices are to stay on or jump off. I see no point in struggling to change anything and every time I see posts asking for changes ingame I can't help but sigh. At the end of the day, ZOS will do what ZOS does, and no amount of feedback will change that. We're just here for the ride.

When ZOS added AwA, I remember seeing posts from previously stanch ESO supporters venting their frustrations. I realized then that nothing is off limits. Anything and everything can and will be drastically altered. Players who thought the devs only targeted endgame and PvP players were in for a shock. And that to me is a positive. The devs now target everyone.

And all the "Us vs Them" going on is getting old (Yes, "Us vs Them" exists here, and no amount of gaslighting will hide it).

emilyhyoyeon

I very much enjoy ESO because I love TES but it has huge issues that, while some affect me and some don't, are all important to me to be addressed

SilverBride

Cadbury wrote: »

When ZOS added AwA, I remember seeing posts from previously stanch ESO supporters venting their frustrations.

I was very upset by how AWA was implemented because I love to clear every zone map individually on each character and this made it hard to track what I had or hadn't completed, and I was very vocal about my unhappiness. So while I have been supportive of ZoS I don't agree with everything they do. I just don't think the game is anywhere near broken.

MagicalLija

ESO has been a huge part of my life for years now. As much as I love it I can't help but have my mind plagued by the amount of bugs, and trashy decisions ZoS have made.

BretonMage

I enjoy ESO as well. I enjoy questing, WBs, world events, dungeons, housing, cosmetics, exploring, NPCs, the ESO community etc etc. I also enjoy fluid, effective combat (combat and cosmetics are the two major things ESO does so much better than SP TES games). I appreciate that they are trying to improve the game, and, as a mediocre player, appreciate the sentiment that was behind U35.

I'm glad there are experienced players around to give feedback on combat changes, and I hope ZOS will continue to do something with the feedback that was provided.

FluffyReachWitch

I’ve been around for nearly eight years now, and I’m still having a pretty good time in game. I think it helps that I only play if I’m interested or have an immediate goal, otherwise I grab my daily login reward and find another game or hobby. Which is true for the rest of my gaming library as well.

At the moment, I’m recovering from an illness flare that knocked all the strength out of me and kept me out of gaming or doing… anything really, for weeks. ESO has been a comfortable refuge for me as I recover, because it has such a variety of interesting things to do, at various levels of intensity. To me, that variety is one of its greatest strengths.

Since coming back, I’ve bought a house I always wanted, finished buying the storage coffers and chests, reorganized to free up tons of bank and inventory space, and started a routine doing crafting research, writs, and mount training on my alts. The zone I have picked for this isn’t the most efficient, but it has a relaxing environment and music. If I still feel like playing later in the day, I have a new character to explore the map with (also feeling the sting of AWA, but appreciating the free experience scrolls), and I have that new house to slowly decorate as inspiration strikes (helped considerably by the recent wall furniture alignment fix).

Not only is this a nice change of pace, but it’s also good preparation for when I feel well enough to toss some dungeons, solo arenas, and Cyrodiil back into the mix. (Hopefully by then the block bug will be defeated.)

Yeah, I’ve still had my share of disappointments and left constructive feedback this year. I think it’s going to be interesting to see what direction the game moves in during 2023.