ESO Forum Improvement Survey

i11ionward

i11ionward wrote: »

Hello, is it just me that the placement of the last and next buttons is annoying? I wish they were swapped. I would like this button layout:
<first><previous><current><next><last>
Or move last and first to some other place.
Where can I find the Dev Trackers button in the mobile version? I only found out that there is a dev tracker when I saw a link in something post.
P.S. I use the forum mainly from my mobile phone.

I also remembered! What is missing in the mobile version is a staff comment icon.
I think it could look like this

shadyjane62

I took the survey. But have no hope things will change soon.

For now please stop moving posts to the Hellscape of "Page not found".

Elsonso

i11ionward wrote: »

i11ionward wrote: »

Hello, is it just me that the placement of the last and next buttons is annoying? I wish they were swapped. I would like this button layout:
<first><previous><current><next><last>
Or move last and first to some other place.
Where can I find the Dev Trackers button in the mobile version? I only found out that there is a dev tracker when I saw a link in something post.
P.S. I use the forum mainly from my mobile phone.

I also remembered! What is missing in the mobile version is a staff comment icon.
I think it could look like this

The only issue I have with highlighting "staff comments" more than they already are is that most of them are moderator comments that do not add to the conversation. That indicator should be used only for times when staff is actually contributing to the discussion, not when they are moderating it.

Until they fix that, I suggest that adding it to mobile is not an optimal idea.

h9dlb

My response suggestions were:

Crown store showcase needs to be published well in advance of months start
Forums could do with an event planner/timetable
Mods are too agressive in moving posts, deleting content, snipping and banning

shalalaA7X

DragonRacer wrote: »

Can confirm on mobile (Apple using Safari browser) the first link (with “denied” in front of the URL) doesn’t work. Second link does, though.

First link gives you this:

I’m getting that error on every link I click on the forums the past couple days. I had also tried to click on the link for the pts to the bug/feedback reports.

@ZOS_Kevin

VaranisArano

Northwold wrote: »

Just an observation. I hope people posting here with their gripes are actually completing the survey because that is what the survey is for!! If they're giving us an outlet to say what we think, we should be using it, rather than repeating what we've already said in the past within the forums themselves.

I did take the survery and I did actually write my qualms about the lack of accessible Dev Tracker on mobile in the survery, but IIRC, it was in the "is there anything else you want us to know" section which is pretty broad in comparison to the specific question they asked about the Dev Tracker, which I felt didn't accurately capture the situation.

Honestly, in posting here, I more wanted to let the people writing/reading the survey that their question about Dev Tracker didn't actually accurately reflect my experience. Which is: "I know Dev Tracker exists, but it's not accessible on your mobile forum."

OolongSnakeTea

Excited to give feedback! These forums are def better then most other games, but always room for improvement. Here's to another year of ESO and the forums!

Elsonso

VaranisArano wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

Just an observation. I hope people posting here with their gripes are actually completing the survey because that is what the survey is for!! If they're giving us an outlet to say what we think, we should be using it, rather than repeating what we've already said in the past within the forums themselves.

I did take the survery and I did actually write my qualms about the lack of accessible Dev Tracker on mobile in the survery, but IIRC, it was in the "is there anything else you want us to know" section which is pretty broad in comparison to the specific question they asked about the Dev Tracker, which I felt didn't accurately capture the situation.

Nice. I never noticed that there wasn't a dev tracker on mobile. My main mobile gripe is that there isn't a "Participated", which is my second most used part of the forum organization. I only do mobile when the tactical situation is critical...

The "is there anything else" is a nice way to get survey respondents to focus on what is most important to them, rather than the forum thread, which is sort of "everything but the kitchen sink" and harder to filter.

ZOS_Kevin

Thanks for everyone helping with the "denied:" issue. We brought this up with our forum provider and they are investigating what is going on with hyperlinked items.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for everyone helping with the "denied:" issue. We brought this up with our forum provider and they are investigating what is going on with hyperlinked items.

@ZOS_Kevin Can you please address the other concerns around moving threads? It's a frequent topic and I think it warrants some discussion with you. There's not a lot of clarity on what counts as "General Discussion" at this point.

Elsonso

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks for everyone helping with the "denied:" issue. We brought this up with our forum provider and they are investigating what is going on with hyperlinked items.

@ZOS_Kevin Can you please address the other concerns around moving threads? It's a frequent topic and I think it warrants some discussion with you. There's not a lot of clarity on what counts as "General Discussion" at this point.

Seems to me that it is anything that is not covered by one of the sub forums. Whether it gets moved or not, that is a different subject.

Freilauftomate

Destai wrote: »

Can you please address the other concerns around moving threads? It's a frequent topic and I think it warrants some discussion with you. There's not a lot of clarity on what counts as "General Discussion" at this point.

You must be pretty old, like me. The times where you could talk to someone (like the manager) are over. Now it's just "take it or leave it". Nobody is responsible for anything, nobody knows anything, nobody is allowed to talk to anyone. Asking for an open discussion with a @ZOS_employee is very optimistic and kind of cute.

i11ionward

Is it possible to make a setting in the profile that allowed to switch from 12 hour time format to 24 hour time format? At least for me it would be a nice feature.

ZOS_Kevin

Destai wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Can you please address the other concerns around moving threads? It's a frequent topic and I think it warrants some discussion with you. There's not a lot of clarity on what counts as "General Discussion" at this point.

The intent of this survey is to better understand how active users use the forum. That way, we can streamline sections and ultimately get rid of moving threads around altogether. Part of the reason this is happening is because it seems like there are a ton of sections not being used and we would like to keep relevant conversations in the correct section. But if that isn't how users want to use the forum, we don't want to force that.

Not sure if that answers the question, but hopefully it does. We're trying to address a few problems with this survey. The thread moving will be a biproduct of that.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin Can you please address the other concerns around moving threads? It's a frequent topic and I think it warrants some discussion with you. There's not a lot of clarity on what counts as "General Discussion" at this point.

The intent of this survey is to better understand how active users use the forum. That way, we can streamline sections and ultimately get rid of moving threads around altogether. Part of the reason this is happening is because it seems like there are a ton of sections not being used and we would like to keep relevant conversations in the correct section. But if that isn't how users want to use the forum, we don't want to force that.

Not sure if that answers the question, but hopefully it does. We're trying to address a few problems with this survey. The thread moving will be a biproduct of that.

It doesn't unfortunately. Right now, it really does feel like the moderators are forcing us to use the forums in a way that seemingly most of us do not. I've had quite a few occasions where I've asked for something to be moved back and it feels like those requests are ignored. I also DMed you some more examples.

IMO, it'd be better if the practice of moving threads was enacted after that research and after the newest bug was resolved.

Two easily understood deliverables:
1. Can the practice of moving threads be dialed back until you sort out the results of the survey and get the bug fixed?
2. What counts as general discussion? Obviously, there's some sort of policy or criteria internally, why can't we get that and clear up all the confusion?

Let me know if that clears it up for you.

ZOS_Kevin

Destai wrote: »

Two easily understood deliverables:
1. Can the practice of moving threads be dialed back until you sort out the results of the survey and get the bug fixed?
2. What counts as general discussion? Obviously, there's some sort of policy or criteria internally, why can't we get that and clear up all the confusion?

1. So we've talked about this quite a bit internally. The concern here is without moving certain conversations to what should be the approiate section, there is risk of losing track of conversations entirely (from an internal perspective). For example, if the lore team is looking for feedback on lore introduced in Necrom, we would rather they are able to click the lore section and find questions there, than spend triple the time sifting through the general section, looking for a thread that might have feedback. We also would like to avoid making multiple changes if possible. Even in this thread, you can see how the prospect of changes can impact people differently. We are trying to be aware of that and not make multiple shifts where possible. That being said, we'll have a conversation to dial back the moving of threads within reason, without compromising our ability to track threads. As stated earlier, one of the goals here is to not have thread moving be a regular occurrence.
2. The general discussion is intended to be an overall ESO conversation space. However, that is within the context of specific sections being used for thoughts or questions on specific topics within ESO. Right now, conversations that get moved to specific sections not because they do not fit the general section, but rather because they better fit the specific section they are being moved to (i.e. a question on companion feedback originally placed in the general section would be moved to the companions section). Again, all of this is with the understanding that it seems like users use the sections differently than intended. So we would like to adapt to how users are actually sing the forum. And that may come with changes with how we define sections. But a lot of that will be determined by the survey and feedback here.

Hopefully this makes more sense. We've been jumping between different things all day, so this was typed out in bursts. Sorry if anything is confusing.

Four_Fingers

Too bad this isn't Xenforo, OP thread creators are able to create subject tags in the individual thread first posts with that from a drop down box.
Then you can search by tag.
As Admin we could add tags at will.
Maybe Vanilla has an extension for that, it would make dev research super easy.

TaSheen

Four_Fingers wrote: »

Too bad this isn't Xenforo, OP thread creators are able to create subject tags in the individual thread first posts with that from a drop down box.
Then you can search by tag.
As Admin we could add tags at will.
Maybe Vanilla has an extension for that, it would make dev research super easy.

You're right. That would actually be a pretty decent improvement.

Varana

Although to be honest, I'm not quite sure how the survey is trying to find out about how users use the forum.
It asked whether I'm familiar with the Dev Tracker option, which is nice but not the core of the problem.
It forced me to name three forum sections I use - which doesn't account for the fact that I use General about 95+% of the time and only look into PTS when one's going on, and even then not that much. I was a bit stumped what to choose as my 3rd option. In the results, however, all of these will show up with equal weight. That doesn't adequately represent my use of the forums.

ESO_Nightingale

I would really like specific forums for classes in addition to a vampire/werewolf one.

nightstrike

Northwold wrote: »

Just an observation. I hope people posting here with their gripes are actually completing the survey because that is what the survey is for!! If they're giving us an outlet to say what we think, we should be using it, rather than repeating what we've already said in the past within the forums themselves.

Sadly, my gripe is that I can't see the survey, so I can't complete it

Varana

After thinking about it for a bit, I was especially confused about the wording of the Dev Tracker question.
I use the forum on a desktop, so I know where it is, and I can access it. I usually check the Dev Tracker once when I visit the forum, except when I forget, which happens now and then.
Am I "extremely familiar" or only "somewhat familiar" with the feature? What does being "somewhat familiar" with a simple link even mean? I know that checking the Dev Tracker on a weekend is usually not necessary. I assume that is already "extreme familiarity"? What.

ZOS_Kevin

@Varana, thanks for the question! We are trying to see who knows about the tracker and how they use it. We've heard several times that some users don't know the dev tracker exists, or what it's purpose is, regardless of desktop or mobile usage. That would be defined through user familiarity. So know it's there, but not sure why it's there or why they should care it's there. We're just trying to account for all types of users.

Jaraal

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I would really like specific forums for classes in addition to a vampire/werewolf one.

That would be a disaster.

Example: forum moderators would likely move the Grim Focus Permaglow discussions into the Nightblade section, where only Nightblade mains would see what's going on. So, someone who mains a Templar might spend a lot of real money on a cosmetic arms pack without realizing that once they log in their Nightblade alt, the effect would be ruined because of a ZOS design decision beyond the player's control.

Something that affects the player's general immersion and pocketbook should be in the General Discussion section, where they can see the total impact, rather than just the individual class impact.

WiseSky

Somehow I read we are Improving Crafting Surveys, boy was I excited.

Within this Fourm Survey I bet there is no questions about improving the harvesting of crafting surveys...

virtus753

WiseSky wrote: »

Somehow I read we are Improving Crafting Surveys, boy was I excited.

Within this Fourm Survey I bet there is no questions about improving the harvesting of crafting surveys...

Well, they are doing that too, in that they are finally fixing Plentiful Harvest after nearly 3 years…

lillybit

I took the survey but forgot something; it would be nice to be able to turn off notifications for threads, particularly ones that are popular. I almost exclusively use my phone and never managed to find a way to do it.

I actively avoid commenting on polls and discussions I think will be popular because I get swamped with hundreds of notifications, I never see the ones I'm more interested in following. This is especially annoying when a post is moved because I often never see it again if I miss the notifications

Edit to add notifications for threads I've commented on. I know how to remove bookmarks but the ones I'd like to get rid of usually aren't bookmarked

VaranisArano

lillybit wrote: »

I took the survey but forgot something; it would be nice to be able to turn off notifications for threads, particularly ones that are popular. I almost exclusively use my phone and never managed to find a way to do it.

I actively avoid commenting on polls and discussions I think will be popular because I get swamped with hundreds of notifications, I never see the ones I'm more interested in following. This is especially annoying when a post is moved because I often never see it again if I miss the notifications

Edit to add notifications for threads I've commented on. I know how to remove bookmarks but the ones I'd like to get rid of usually aren't bookmarked

@lillybit Yeah, chalk that one up to bad Mobile design, as is sadly usual around these parts. On the mobile site, you can get to the "Edit Profile" screen through menus, but no farther.

To get to Notification Preferences, you'll have to type in the link. Just insert your account name instead of the placeholder:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/profile/preferences/AccountName

You'll want to uncheck "new comments on posts I've participated in" as the likely culprit.

Alternatively, if you go to the Full Site through your mobile browser, you'll get access to the Desktop version of the site which actually has full functionality of menus. If you do that, go to Profile -> Settings (the gear wheel) -> Edit Profile -> Notification Preferences and change your preferences from there.

ESO_Nightingale

Jaraal wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I would really like specific forums for classes in addition to a vampire/werewolf one.

That would be a disaster.

Example: forum moderators would likely move the Grim Focus Permaglow discussions into the Nightblade section, where only Nightblade mains would see what's going on. So, someone who mains a Templar might spend a lot of real money on a cosmetic arms pack without realizing that once they log in their Nightblade alt, the effect would be ruined because of a ZOS design decision beyond the player's control.

Something that affects the player's general immersion and pocketbook should be in the General Discussion section, where they can see the total impact, rather than just the individual class impact.

my reason for having a specific forum for classes allows it to be much easier for people playing that class to congregate, share information and for the developers to get feedback and bugs from said classes. currently the only places you can go for that on the forums are sifting through loads of posts completely unrelated to what you're looking for. your example seems pretty niche.

Jaraal

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

I would really like specific forums for classes in addition to a vampire/werewolf one.

That would be a disaster.

Example: forum moderators would likely move the Grim Focus Permaglow discussions into the Nightblade section, where only Nightblade mains would see what's going on. So, someone who mains a Templar might spend a lot of real money on a cosmetic arms pack without realizing that once they log in their Nightblade alt, the effect would be ruined because of a ZOS design decision beyond the player's control.

Something that affects the player's general immersion and pocketbook should be in the General Discussion section, where they can see the total impact, rather than just the individual class impact.

my reason for having a specific forum for classes allows it to be much easier for people playing that class to congregate, share information and for the developers to get feedback and bugs from said classes. currently the only places you can go for that on the forums are sifting through loads of posts completely unrelated to what you're looking for. your example seems pretty niche.

I completely understand, and in a perfect world that would be useful. Unfortunately, adding even more categories for forum moderators to shuffle threads around to would only compound the frustration caused by the current modus operandi. There are too many sections as it is now.

Having half of the threads in the main forum people go to for information locked and with no links to where they have been moved is unsightly and confusing. And if that's the way they plan on conducting it going forward, then having less, not more, categories to try and find where threads you posted or are interested in have been relocated to is better.