Please STOP pushing threads into "Players helping Players" section

Holycannoli

Here's the problem:

I never visit the Players Helping Players forum unless I have a question that was moved there. Once it's answered I stop going there. I suspect most others do the same.

Destai

Holycannoli wrote: »

Here's the problem:

I never visit the Players Helping Players forum unless I have a question that was moved there. Once it's answered I stop going there. I suspect most others do the same.

I'm the same way 98% of the time. If I'm feeling charitable, I'll go there, but mostly stick to General Discussion.

SirLeeMinion

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
  This has changed in the past year or two. Formerly I used to visit General, then Combat & Builds, then Public Test Server. I used to post a fair bit as well.
  
  Now, I tend to look at Dev Tracker (to see if there are any new posts) then scan page one of "Recent." I read threads of interest but rarely post.
  
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
  I'm not sure because I now look only at "Recent" and rarely know where a given thread originated.
  
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
  Probably.
  
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
  Yes to the first three, never to the last two.

And for what it's worth: In addition to seeing threads moved to the graveyard to die, I've noticed, some threads tend to sink even though people are responding to them. I've also seen people ejected from the forums, because they posted polite but critical opinions. I've largely given up posting due to this type of moderation.

vsrs_au

Holycannoli wrote: »

Here's the problem:

I never visit the Players Helping Players forum unless I have a question that was moved there. Once it's answered I stop going there. I suspect most others do the same.

Actually, I don't. I go there both to ask questions and to check if there's any useful information from questions already answered by others, in other words I go there just to learn some useful things. I apply the same logic to all categories, in fact.

joergino

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[*] How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
[*] What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
[*] Do you think the forums have too many categories?
[*] Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
[/list]

1: General, almost exclusively
2: see 1:
3: absolutely, definitely, for sure
4: yes, sometimes

Amottica

The banner choice for looking at recent threads was shown to me by a guildmate a year ago. It is great for keeping up with everything current and still permits managing the forum so we do not have one big unorganized mess.

I have noticed a few threads where they said no one will see the thread now after it was moved. Yet the thread still saw activity.

Danikat

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

I visit a few sections, ones where I think I'm likely to find interesting topics based on a combination of what they're about and past experience with how active they are.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

Mainly General Discussion, Crown Store, Players Helping Players, and Addons. I'll occasionally also check Housing and Lore.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Yes, definitely. There's too many for it to seem practical to check all of them, especially when many are not frequently used.

Also some seem redundant to me, like Quests and Exploration - most of what goes in there would fit equally well in Players Helping Players, with some in General Discussion or Lore. Or having both Combat & Character Mechanics and PvP Combat and Skills - I know PvP and PvE often use different builds, but if a topic is only relevant to one players can just specify which it is, a lot of discussions could go in both.

If it was up to me I think I would:

• Keep Official News & Updates
• Keep General (some changes below)
• Move Players Helping Players into General (next to General Discussion for greater visibility)
• Delete Player Guides - guides can now go in whichever section is most relevant (e.g. build guides in Combat & Character Mechanics, dungeon guides in Dungeons, Trials & Arenas etc.)
• Merge Community Creations, Fiction & Roleplaying and Events & Contests
• Move the Merged Community Creations and Addons & UI Mods sections into General
• Delete Quests & Exploration
• Delete PvP Combat & Skills (these topics now go into Combat & Character Mechanics)
• Merge Alliance War & Imperial City and Campaigns
• Move Dungeons, Trials & Arenas, LFG, Alliance War & Imperial City, BattleGrounds, Crafting, Tales of Tribute and Housing into a new 'Activity Types' section (not sure on the name)
• Keep Customer Support and Guild Recruitment as-is

Here's a quick mock-up of how it would look:

(In total it goes from 36 sections to 29, and I don't think anything would be left without a home.)

In spite of the topic which sparked this question I think Players Helping Players is worth keeping, because it distinguishes requests for help from suggestions, complaints things aren't working etc. which helps to clarify what sort of replies the OP wants. I just think it (and other sections) need more visibility from less clutter and duplication on the categories screen.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

I occasionally use Recent, but the fact that it lumps everything in together and there doesn't seem to be any way to filter out topics from sections I'm not interested in means there's even more chance of missing things I might be interested in than checking sections individually. I never use Unanswered or Participated and only use Dev Tracker if I want to refer back to a post I've seen but I can't remember the name of the topic (likely because there's a lot on the same issue).

Dojohoda

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
  I start with Recent and sometimes I go to page two of Recent. Then I go to Participated.
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
  Recent
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
  I don't have an opinion on that since I rarely use categories, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate that the forum has categories.
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
  Yes

Tandor

Thanks for the updates @ZOS_Kevin .

I mainly use the General Discussion forum, plus very occasionally the Bugs Report and PC Technical Support sub-forums.

I used to use the PTS forum on occasions, but since our comments on the AwA changes were totally ignored I haven't bothered with the PTS or its forum as there hasn't seemed to be any point. I'd love that to change as a PTS serves little purpose without an effective two-way exchange between players and developers.

In any event, I'd prefer PTS discussions to be kept to the PTS forum as their being posted on the General Discussion forum invariably results in spoilers which frustrate those who prefer not to know very much at all about a new Update until it hits the Live servers.

I regularly use the Dev Tracker. It's the only part of the navigation tabs I use.

I'm totally opposed to the creation of an Off-Topic forum as it would quickly degenerate into an unholy mess that would spill over into the General Discussion forum as well as taking a disproportionate amount of the Moderators' time. If people want to discuss things other than ESO there are plenty of other forums where they can do so, they don't need to do so on the ESO forum.

Hapexamendios

In response to @ZOS_Kevin

1. The only section of the forum I visit is General Discussion
2. See 1
3. Yes
4. I don't use the navigation tabs

OldStygian

This used to annoy me also. A thread would start, get a few posts and them get moved to a sub-forum where it dies.

My suggestion to all (as given above) is to always use the RECENT button at the top middle of the the page. Shows recent posts from all forums.

Took me a while to work this out. Maybe mods can make it more obvious option as I chose initially to always go to General based on years of forum browsing.

Elsonso

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

• I use Recent to avoid having to switch between categories.
• Most of the time I am sitting in Participated, and if not there, Recent.
• I pay very little attention to the categories unless I am creating a new discussion. The exception to that is the PTS forum.
• I use Dev Stalker, Recent, and Participated daily, occasionally Unanswered, and Categories when I want to go to the PTS forum.

chessalavakia_ESO

On a regular day I visit the General.

If the PTS is active, I'll generally view the PTS forum frequently early in the cycle.

I visit combat/pvp/lore areas when it's relevant to something I am curious about.

Bug Reports/Players Helping Players are more rare visits.

I occasionally use the categories at the top

It might be worth considering condensing the Player versus Player (PvP) and the Solo & Group PvE into one forum each rather than having multiple separate ones that have very few posts.

However, I think the PTS should be split into three separate forums:

PVP PTS Feedback
General PTS Feedback
Testers PTS Feedback

It feels like at times the feedback is dominated by people that either haven't been on the PTS at all or people that are primarily interested in PvP. This is not to say that their feedback is invalid but, it can get to feel like you won't be heard amidst everything else which can cut down on people downloading the PTS and giving feedback.

MafiaCat115

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple? I go to General, Crown Store, and Lore. Very rarely do I go to any other category. PTS for when there is active PTS issues to look at (like with any potential issues), and News and Website Article Discussions when there is a piece I want to respond to.
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum? Definitely General, Crown Store, and Lore.
• Do you think the forums have too many categories? Yes. I get why the categories for "Official News and Updates", "General", "Customer Support", "Guild Recruitment", and "Extended Languages Section" are there and support them being like that, but I feel like the "Community" section may as well just be a part of the "General ESO" discussion since forum posts are inherently community related anyways.
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated) I use the navigation tabs often since they are great to quickly get to certain things. I especially use "Dev Tracker" and "Participated"
  

I appreciate that you're looking for feedback and are giving us a way to voice our thoughts, @ZOS_Kevin

Northwold

The only sections I would regularly check in the forums are general and housing.

This forum isn't as bad as, say, steam discussions where on mobile the fact that subforums even exist is close to invisible, but it has far too many categories that normal players would never, ever look at. You would only post in them if you wanted to talk to an empty desert and a moderator moving your post there is basically the kiss of death.

In terms of which subsections are actually needed, I'd say general plus anything that it intuitively makes sense to go to for specific unusual activities that most people do not do.

Most obviously that's ZOS's own technical stuff, eg public test server discussions. It would also be things like technical support queries.

There are then certain in game activities that occupy very, very specific niches and most players don't get too fussed about. But off the top of my head the only one I can really think of that has a niche community rather different from the rest of the game is housing.

It's probably impossible because the software isn't ZOS's own, but it would strike me as more sensible to be able to add category labels to threads and users can then filter out those categories they DON'T want to see, rather than expecting users actively to seek out posts on subject X in specific subcategories.

vsrs_au

Even the subforums under both guild recruitment and customer support could be combined into 1 subforum each, with the requirement that all threads in these 2 subforums have names starting with 'platform/server:', e.g. 'PC/EU:'

TaSheen

vsrs_au wrote: »

Even the subforums under both guild recruitment and customer support could be combined into 1 subforum each, with the requirement that all threads in these 2 subforums have names starting with 'platform/server:', e.g. 'PC/EU:'

GREAT idea! Should be standard info before posting in those forums.

BlueRaven

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

Multiple - General, Community Creations, Housing... Sometimes PTS

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

General, Community Creations

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

100% agree.. Too many.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

Nope.

EDIT: My suggestion would be for the separate sections to act as a kind of archive for old posts.

Tenthirty2

@ZOS_Kevin thank you for asking!

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
  I usually check 'General' first before I jump in game just to see what's up. Historically if there are server issues or anything else I may want to know before I play the threads show up on the front page of General which I appreciate.
  It's rare I dip into the other subs unless I'm searching for an issue thread before I start my own. Or for something specific like housing I'll create a thread there. But like 90% of the time I'm reading, creating and replying to threads in 'General'
  I occasionally browse the 'Housing' sub too, lots of neat stuff there, but not as active as General so I only check Housing maybe a couple times a week.
  
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
  As above General, Housing and occasionally I may look at Dev Tracker and the Patch Notes & Hotfixes subs, maybe Events.
  
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
  Perhaps. If it were a lot busier here, like several new threads a week per category for combat, housing, lore, ToT, etc then it would make sense to slot them off into their respective forums. Otherwise you'd risk the General forum getting flooded and new threads would quickly end up on page 2, 3 and beyond.
  
  But the forum isn't that busy.
  
  I don't advocate getting rid of those sub forums as I do think it makes sense to eventually move older topics into them. But not immediately, I'd say after a thread has dropped to page 2 or 3 of General then sure, move them off.
  As it is now I often see new threads who's lifespan is not even a day moved off to other subs where they will get little to no visibility.
  
  This also seems to vary mod to mod. There seems to be some confusion or perhaps a bit of a knee-jerk response to some threads on General and they get moved before they've had a chance to get noticed by anyone.
  
  I think a good question the mod team needs to ask themselves is WHAT is the 'General' forum for?
  I've asked that same question when I repeatedly see threads moved. It's like ok, so what ARE we supposed to post here?
  The name "General" by intent seems to be a catch-all for any topic.
  When I create a thread or question I don't think "Well, I have a general question."
  I just have a question or an experience to share and I drop it on the General forum bcuz I know that is the most viewed.
  
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
  I should but TBH I forget they are up there
  I am going to make a point of using them more, bcuz they seem like a good feature but for some reason I overlook them.

haelgaan

[*] How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
Browsing for current chats on the first page, in a few categories. If i'm searching for a subject, that usually starts at Google and goes back to a forum post from there.

[*] What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
-General
-Recent (which can lead anywhere)
-PTS (when patch notes drop)

[*] Do you think the forums have too many categories?
yes.

[*] Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
a few of them. not unanswered or participated, idk even what they are

@Tandor

spartaxoxo

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

1. I usually go to general discussion and see what the unread topics I am interested in. I go to others categories too but GD is the only one that I always visit when using the forums.

2. General Discussion, Tales of Tribute, Housing, and rarely Lore. I don't visit the other sections often enough to even mention.

3. Yes. Absolutely. A lot of them are totally dead as a result. Players Helping Players is a good example. I'm really bummed that Housing is too. I visit it but getting no replies on something people worked hours and hours on is incredibly discouraging to many people, so less and less people post there. As a result as someone who does post and enjoy that forum, I also see less content I'd like to see. It's a bummer.

4. I do when visiting on PC, but can't on mobile without changing my phone settings to view the Desktop page. Since it's difficult to use, I just skip it.

Mik195

I'm 100% viewing on my phone. I used to just bookmark the general forum, but because of the constant moving of threads, I changed my bookmark to show latest posts.

The only time I will go into other areas is when I'm trying to find patch notes which I always have more difficulty finding than I expect.

The only forum breakout I'd like would be to banish comments about content not available on console yet. I knew the ending of the last couple of chapters before they were available to console players because I couldn't tell from the subject of the post to avoid.

Supreme_Atromancer

Destai wrote: »

I'm glad you're noticing the frustrations. I hope that you're also looking at what other frustrations many of us have here. Reddit might also give you some unfiltered insight. You may recall when you first joined, I outlined some ways to improve the forum experience, and a lot of those don't require navigation changes. I'm happy to DM you if you need more detail. There's a reputation here and elsewhere that we have to tip-toe with our words, and honestly, it's fairly earned.

I personally find the forums pretty frustrating to engage at times. I don't feel like my time is respected by ZOS. It's a bit frustrating to have to review my own comments just so I can try to remember what I originally said a week later because someone took it poorly.

Just a different perspective- The Forums used to have a different reputation: it was essentially a known cesspool, even compared to Reddit. There was no way I'd have contributed anything back in the day, and there was no point anyway. Soooo much passive-aggressiveness and trolly comments. No one actually enjoys that, it just ends up making you either feel miserable that someone is being smarmy at you because they can, or you only stick around if you're willing to step up your own flame game.

Since moderation was stepped up, the quality of the banter has improved, imv. It may be annoying to have to double check yourself, but to be frank, given the medium, and the nature of communication on the internet, its not a terrible thing to be required to be extra careful about what you say. You just have to, like, stop and think about what you're saying, and how you're saying it. That should not be a problem.

I'll say that I've had stuff removed too, and it feels frustrating, or I feel like I was taken wrong but at the same time, I don't expect them to be perfect, and for the degree of passive aggressiveness and just pointless trolling that's been removed, I find it acceptable honestly.

Regarding the broader discussion, I agree that "other threads" are often where other comments go to die, with obvious predictability. Many of them just don't get enough traffic to justify their existence, really.

I use General mostly. My interests include both lore and housing as well, so I check them out from time to time but I've found that missing either for weeks at a time doesn't result in anything really being missed, they're so infrequently contributed to.

But this highlights a problem. In the lore channel, I feel like I can post rambling thoughts about stuff in case someone's remotely interested. If those categories were removed, AND moderation became more *hands-off*, I feel fairly confident that such posts would be buried in comments like "lItTeRaLlY uNpLaYaBlE!" and noonegivesacrap.gif. Which pretty much is how the forums used to be.

BretonMage

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

[*] How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
I mainly go to the "General" section, and in there, mostly to the General Discussion, sometimes to Combat & Character Mechanics, and occasionally to Housing or Crown Store. If I have a question, I'd just post to those subject subsections.

[*] What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
General Discussion. And after that Combat & Character Mechanics.

[*] Do you think the forums have too many categories?
Yes.

[*] Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
No. I only noticed them this year

phaneub17_ESO

Threads go there to die!!

katanagirl1

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

I typically visit the Bug Reports, Housing, Crafting, General Discussion, and Tales of Tribute sections. I hit the Patch Notes when a new update comes out.

I don’t know if there are too many categories but I don’t visit the others.

I don’t use any navigation tabs. I can see if I have already read the thread in a particular section because it is grayed out, so I stop reading there.

Zodiarkslayer

@ZOS_Kevin Thank You! I just wanted to raise awareness for the issue and didn't expect it to get such a constructive reply.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

• I visit the forums daily. I look for interesting topics. I engage only when I can add something to the discussion or help/ share my experience. I had to learn that, though. He He...
• I visit General, Combat and Players helping Players. The PTS too, if there is a new PTS patch out. Other than that I have neither interest, nor experience enough.
• Yes and No. Thinking about how many play styles ESO has and how many mini games and activities are incorporated by now, there are natural sub categories to be made. However, a more condensed structure would help a lot.
• Absolutely not. I mostly read on mobile and use the desktop page only if I have to make some editing that the mobile version doesn't allow for. Navigation is pretty one dimensional on mobile.

EDIT: Concerning structure, I had an idea. I noticed that most threads can be categorized by type, rather than topic. To me there are four types.

1. Open Discussions
2. Helping/ getting helped/ Sharing
3. Suggestions/ Complaints/ Feedback
4. Technical Support/ Information

These types pretty much reflect how most players engage with the forums. A structure based on type would make using it easier, I think.

I also noticed that there are no filter option besides "All" and "Following", which is pretty useless if one is not even aware one can follow a thread by activating the empty star.

I think tagging the thread with topics rather than moving them to subcats could be better to categorize threads visually and could be used in conjunction with an adjusted filter system. Tagging could be easily done by the thread creator as a requirement for creating the thread.
If you were to add a colour coding based on the tag for the main topic, you get a pretty intuitive design. Or using the already existing symbols instead of colours could work pretty well, too.

Anyway, these are just ideas.

DragonRacer

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

So the posts being moved is so that they are in the sub-section that matches the contents of the thread. This is based on the current structure of the forum. The intent is not to harm players or hinder conversation.

However with that being said, we've noticed frustration with some of the moving of conversations and have started looking at how we can better address this problem. That way, those posting get the help they need and we have conversations happening in the right places. We do intend on asking a wider audience here on the forum how they use the forum currently and how that experience can be made better from user navigation standpoint.

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.

• How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
• What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
• Do you think the forums have too many categories?
• Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

1. I glance at the top banner first to see if we have a maintenance pending or any issue alerts. I skip News, mostly, as I am in Discords where the news article alerts are posted so I generally read those straight from the Discord link. I mostly view General Discussion the majority of the time and occasionally look at the Tales of Tribute subforum. Sometimes I'll look in the PTS subforum to get a preview of what's to come on console. That's it. Even though I am a player who likes to help other players, I generally forget that subforum even exists, never look at it, and basically consider it the cornfield into which threads are wished into to disappear from view.

2. See answer above.

3. Absolutely think it's spread too thin. General Discussion should be the main catch-all, IMO, with maybe a few subsections like for PTS feedback and Bug reports. Heck, I don't even look at or maintain my recruitment thread anymore in the Guild Recruitment subforums since the in-game Guild Finder essentially made that obsolete (a great addition, by the way. but it absolutely should allow one to search a guild by name and not just by category and hope the guild you're looking for pops up - QoL update, please).

4. Never. Honestly forgot those existed. When I want to see dev comments, it's usually when I am browsing General Discussion and see a thread with the ZOS symbol next to it. I'll click the symbol and either be rewarded with dev comments or disappointed that it's just a mod post wagging a finger.

emilyhyoyeon

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
I almost exclusively use General unless there's something hyper specific I'm looking for. The other forums just don't get enough activity.

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
General, 99% of the time
PTS, during PTS cycles
Crown Store, rarely, when new store stuff comes out or to make suggestions
Bug Reports, rarely, if there's ever a huge bug to check to see the devs are aware of it

Do you think the forums have too many categories?
Yes. Other than official news section, I think it can be simplified to:

General
Community & Creative (everything under the current Community section, +Housing, LFG, Guild Recruitment, etc)
Combat & Game (all combat design, PVP, PVE, Quests, ToT, etc)
Bugs
Tech Support

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
I didn't even know this banner existed until this. It honestly looked like it was separate from the forums, being connected to the Game/Account/Store banner thing.

fred4

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for the quick feedback already. Wanted to provide a bit more context from our side of things. We literally started the conversation internally around possible changes to forum navigation and categories last week. So this is just in opening stages and nothing is set in stone. Just stating this to note that there will be some time before changes are actually seen on the forum. But your feedback here will help form a starting point for those conversations to continue.

Hope that's helpful just to give some background. Please continue to provide feedback in this thread. We'll be reading and taking note of feedback provided.

You've been relentless about moving posts to "Players Helping Players". If someone asks for help with evaluating their complete build, I can see why you might move that. However you've also moved threads, that I've participated in, where the OP asked about a particular aspect of combat only. Those were IMO interesting to a wider audience, especially where there was no clear answer and the thread actually resulted in a discussion. You've killed such discussions by moving the thread.