The year of silence

brandsnipe

CameraBeardThePirate wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Always good to see a Kevin reply.

I think the big irk most have had with this PTS cycle is the seemingly non-chalant nature of not addressing concerns over something as big as the Necromancer change.

Blastbones, and specifically Stalking Blastbones, was the crux of the class. Developer comments in the patch notes addressed 2 things:

1) Wanting to provide a less intensive rotation for Necromancers as an alternative to Blastbones.

2) Wanting to keep the current playstyle of Necromancer intact.

Tons and tons of Necro players gave feedback that neither of these goals have been met. Necro rotations are even more difficult because you now have to jump through hoops for corpses and keep track of Skull stacks before casting DoTs, and the current burst identity of Necromancer was not kept intact with the loss of the much higher damage of Stalking Blastbones vs Blighted - both morphs are now pressure-based instead of the previous Burst vs Pressure choice.

Developer comments in the patch notes have not addressed these concerns. While I appreciated the comments pertaining to corpse generation, the comment completely ignored the feedback pointing out that the rotation was now much more difficult than the previous Blastbones-every-3-seconds. They also have not addressed the copious amounts of feedback that Necromancer's burst identity is being heavily neutered.

The failure to address these two concerns, which are two of the most prevalent ideas in the feedback given on the Necro change, has been rather agonizing since it makes it feel like the team is taking a "We'll deal with it later" approach.

Thanks for the comment @ZOS_Kevin , I know the amount of stuff you sift through on here must be tiresome.

I will add, that in my experience aswell as many i've seen here, BB ever 3 seconds wasn't the cause of a clunky rotation.

FlopsyPrince

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

@ZOS_Kevin Do we have any way to get input into the planned "Quality of Life" changes coming this year? I realize the devs likely have several good ideas, but they are likely to not see it all. Think about the great crafting update quite a while back. Not adding fileting to that (though it was added later) would almost certainly have been suggested if a feedback method existed.

I know from experience that opening a thread suggesting anything will generate at least a few here that will say that my request is stupid, unneeded, or something like that. Having a place we could make requests and know they were at least considered would go a long ways toward helping this and make many things more tolerable.

I deal with a vendor in my day job and I regularly give them feedback and desires. I don't always get what I want of course, but I at least have the feeling I am at least heard. We would be finding a new vendor quickly if I felt completely ignored.

Unfortunately it does not work that way in MMOs. The fact it hasn't in many cases is part of the reason. But it is also because the money amounts are low enough the provider (ZOS in this case) may not feel a need to pay attention.

I like that you did ask for feedback, such as for the Crafting Weekend Event recently. Though it will take some work to get the feeling that players are heard, even if they don't get all they want.

Also, can you point to any examples where we have gotten direct feedback on this forum, not buried in patch notes or such? You mention that in your reply, but I have not seen it.

brandsnipe

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Thanks for the response. There is a disconnect between the devs and players on necromancer changes. Both sides agree on necromancer having a clunky rotation, but the agreenent ends there. I made two polls to get a head count on opinions and the polls show an overwhelming negative response to how necromancer is being handled. Granted the polls only had 41 and 64 votes, i think it still gives an idea of where things truly are. In fact, only 1 out of the 64 people that voted liked the changes and the direction necro is headed. From my experience and others here, BB has more of a targeting issue rather than a rotation issue, and a larger reason for the clunky rotation is the micromanagement of skills due to lack of buffs/debuffs in the class kit, upkeep of short duration or small radius skills, corpse mechanic. The other classes can achieve in one skill to what necro has to do in 2, sometines 3 skills. On another note, shouldn't the 9.3.3 changes be moved to flame skull? The morph has nothing to do with the base skill.

Destai

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

What you're describing is a decision that needs to be better telegraphed. I think there's a real thirst for understanding how to better communicate with you guys. If you guys are shifting communication styles, I think it's important to include the community in that decision. That way our needs and your solutions are aligned.

Think back to the "How do you define communication" situation. Many of us asked for that conversation to continue here, which didn't happen. That was 2 years ago and it still feels like a relevant topic. It’s easy to feel like direct conversations aren’t even a consideration, especially after moments like that or when the class rep program sunsetted. How we're communicated with should be a mutual decision.

I think there’s an expectation that Community Management suggestions could be implemented as-is not after closed door discussions where an alternative is crafted. The best example was the substitute for the U35 Q&A. A more recent example, we gave you guys suggestions for roadmaps. Then the big Chapter reveal came out and it was still the same format.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle.

So why did you guys pull back then?

Especially after U35, I would hope the teams would be prepared to better defend the changes they're proposing. With the slower cadence of combat changes, I think it'd be in everyone's best interest to have an AMA or something with some transparency and back-and-forth. The commentary notes are great, but they only go so far when changes mature across the PTS cycle.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

I don't think there's an expectation to answer every question.

I just think there needs be a better effort on addressing controversial changes, especially when they go against our feedback. If you see one change isn't landing well, then do a deep dive into it. That was the whole problem with how you guys handled U35; some changes needed better explanation and it really didn't happen to the degree people were requesting. I think there's value in you or Gina coming to the hot-button threads and putting together a list of what you see as the high-level bullet points of our feedback. This would give us some assurance that we're being understood.

Like said so many times before, when threads with dozens of pages get at most one reply, it just perpetuates the feeling that there’s a disconnect. I would really appreciate if you addressed that, beyond the usual “we’re working on it” and general defense of your teams. That clearly hasn’t worked.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog.

Yes, and that is both noticed and appreciated. I'm sure it's hard juggling everything, but there's a good effort made on your part and it shows. Thanks for that. Again, on popular threads, I think it's worth trying my previous suggestion: Have CMs cap-off official feedback threads with a summary list of what you think our feedback is.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Dev tracker is a great feature, but avoiding information overload is wise. I have an idea for you.

What about a regular "Community Management Digest" post where you take all of the community management conversations and link them in one post on the Dev Tracker? So all the insights into combat changes, status updates on big endeavors, and other Community Manager initiatives could be linked to that one post. Think of it like a CM-flavoured patch notes. Gina's done a good job having a master list of all the changes in a patch, I think you guys could riff on that for the Community Management stuff.

That being said, your comment's not on Dev Tracker. Can you fix that?

"ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Those items are the kinds of things to put into that "Community Management Digest" post that I'm suggesting. Along with the forum overhauls, and roadmaps we talked about last year.

But that being said, the "we're working on communication" line doesn't tell me anything. At this point, I just interpret it as damage control. Back it up with something, Kevin - talk to us about what efforts you're actually working on. We get it, there's so many teams involved. But you don't need developers to tell us concretely what efforts are underway to improve communication. We've given you oodles of Community Management examples and strategies over the years - what's happened with that feedback?

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Thanks for jumping in here, always appreciate your engagement.

chessalavakia_ESO

brandsnipe wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Thanks for the response. There is a disconnect between the devs and players on necromancer changes. Both sides agree on necromancer having a clunky rotation, but the agreenent ends there. I made two polls to get a head count on opinions and the polls show an overwhelming negative response to how necromancer is being handled. Granted the polls only had 41 and 64 votes, i think it still gives an idea of where things truly are. In fact, only 1 out of the 64 people that voted liked the changes and the direction necro is headed. From my experience and others here, BB has more of a targeting issue rather than a rotation issue, and a larger reason for the clunky rotation is the micromanagent of skills due to lack of buffs/debuffs in the class kit, upkeep of short duration or small radius skills, corpse mechanic. The other classes can achieve in one skill to what necro can in 2, sometines 3 skills. On another note, should the 9.3.3 changes be moved to flame skull? The morph has nothing to do with the base skill.

My guess would be that the developers don't really like the amount that Blastbones are used in meta rotations and the reputation it gives the class. (I suppose it's also possible someone got sick of getting hit with Stalking BB in PvP.)

As a result, they took out the meta Blastbones morph and replaced it with a morph that buffs the damage of the other class abilities, damage over time effects, and specifically buffs the unpopular spammable.

They left the other morph alone other than reducing the cost and adding a guaranteed status. So, if you use the other morph already all you are getting is buffed.

Obviously, this approach isn't really going to go over great with the people that play the current meta in content where their damage is significantly important and enjoy it.

If ZOS was just going for adding more rotation options they had other ways to do it.

Alp

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Got 8 pages of feedback here on a change that is purely cosmetic that most people don't seem to like.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/651266/you-will-not-be-able-to-outfit-your-character-in-class-styles-other-than-your-current-class/p1

Aldoss

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Kevin, I really appreciate you coming in here and dropping this.

I want you and everyone else to know that, even though I (and others) might sometimes read the notes, and the corresponding dev comment, and audibly scream "WHAT?!", I do actually appreciate that they're there. I think the notes are a great tool in your communication arsenal.

What I hope I was able to deliver with this post was that communication relies on a well stocked tool box. There is no one tool for the job.

I can only really speak right now for myself as someone who consciously chose to give necro my time and attention this patch specifically because it was widely attributed as the worst class. With that in mind, it made the flaws of the "dev comment only" approach so bitterly blatant.

Up until week 1, we didn't even think necro was on the devs radar. I hope you can imagine the shock we all collectively felt when SacroBones got dropped in week 1. The dev comments there were 100% useful, but them on their own, only served to fan the flames because in that kind of situation, the only real purpose a dev comment can be used for is as a justification. I fall trap to this constantly with my wife, where I make some dumb mistake, hurt her feelings, and then end up saying something that only serves to justify the mistake, rather than address the feelings that I mistakenly hurt. It never works.

This doesn't mean that justifications aren't warranted or wanted, but that justification can only help under appropriate circumstances (of which, killing stalking blastbones was not one of them). Here's the rubric:

Justification - shock = understanding. Justification + shock = insulting.

You alluded to some new processes for communication in the future, so here's my 2 cents on what I hope it is:

I'd love to see a nod from ZOS to the community that alerts the players that the devs are interested in taking on a class' problems. Make a feedback thread that comes one PTS cycle early - "Feedback: Tell us what's wrong with necro, we're looking at it next patch". This wouldn't be something that happens every time a change is made, just the big stuff, y'know, the "we're going to delete your most used skill" kind of "big stuff" (if you catch my drift). In that moment, you served to provide a means by which the players felt like they were given agency over something they loved. You could end up using none of the feedback or ideas that get shared, but my gut tells me you'd learn something useful that might help point the dev tasked with job to the right pain points. Time wouldn't be wasted. Money wouldn't be wasted.

Had you asked for feedback 4 months ago from necro mains in preparation for this patch dump, and then dropped the same notes, you'd 100% still get shock from the lot of us, and you'd likely still get some "are you kidding me?!?"s from the dev comment, but what you'd also get is the lingering question in the back of our minds that asks, "am I really in the vocal minority here?".

Ideally though, none of that would have happened, because you likely would have received PAGES worth of feedback, just like you have here from the last 4 weeks, of information on exactly why necro is a pain and "the worst class" right now.

The problem with your "dev comment only" approach is that, I believe, with my completely naiive experience as to what goes into making these changes, that the devs are done right now putting brain power to this, and the directors are done allocating funds to this. The moment is gone. SacroBones is going live and all the feedback that got shared will be forgotten because the feedback was given at the worst time. The feedback we're sharing won't necessarily be relevant anymore in 3 months, or more, when combat and abilities get another look through by someone. We've shared a hundred pages worth of feedback, and it's utterly pointless.

My tl;dr is this: the strategy you've chosen over the last 12 months for communicating big game changes mostly serves to create shock and drama. Patch day is a massive content maker for streamers and youtubers who all jump on the bandwagon with their collective communities literally foaming at the mouth anticipating something there that they can pounce on to eviscerate you (ZOS) and echo chamber themselves into the weirdest, masochistic, blissful OMEGALUL.png.

Stop. Giving. Us. Ammo.

Tell us you want to make a big change. Give us a warning. Give us agency (even if the agency is fake, but I'd really appreciate it not being fake).

I can't guarantee you won't get hate from the players, but from my experience, it's really hard to be shocked by something when you know it's coming.

Thank you. I appreciate you.

PS - Please revert the changes to blastbones. Also undeath is too strong.Alsohealingisovertunedalsoelesusisovertunedalso,wtfiswiththesiphoningstrikesdude?!Imeanc'mon. Ok... I had to get that off my chest. Thank you.

FluffyBird

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

[snip]
we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes
[snip]
We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle.
[snip]
we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered.
[snip]
Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often,
[ship]
we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.
[snip]
we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, [snip]

Classic ZOS approach. Trying, and making great effort, and working on it.

To answer yet unasked, but reasonable question: "What answer would satisfy me?" I guess an announcement of actual answers in hot threads followed by those actual answers within a couple of days. Now, not next PTS cycle. I mean, devs already know what they are doing, they have a vision, a goal, a plan, so they can share them with us and explain the unpopular changes. They... they DO know what they are doing, right?

And Kevin's post is not on dev tracker, btw. Or I'm blind.

MashmalloMan

I definitely appreciate the added information in the dev comments because it helps me understand the purposes of the decision to change something and whether or not we as the players, believe your decision matches your stated goals.

It also makes it easier for me to try to align potential adjustments or quality of life improvements with ideas I can provide based on your goals, instead of suggesting something that is completely unrelated.

Example:

1. The new Blastbones morph was implemented to offer a new playstyle that is less punishing and easier to manage.

2. Blighted Blastbones was meant to retain the original playstyle for those who loved it.

To put it simply, neither of these goals have been met.

1. Grave Lord's Sacrifice can only be cast in combat, takes 2.5s for the skeleton to jump to you, deals no damage on its own, increases sustain issues because you don't have a 50% cost Blastbone to spawn as a semi-spammable, and now it's attached to a second skill in Flame Skull for corpse generation instead of generating corpses on its own.

Please just make this skill passively generate lesser skeletons that blow up on your target when you deal direct damage on a 3-5s cooldown for the 20s, can be cast out of combat. Now you can use any Spammable you want and the skill works on its own to generate ranged corpses and damage.

2. Dynamic cost and stalking's damage modifier or the base skills damage done with class/dots for 5s.

These feel like very simple solutions to the stated goals. When we ask for communication, something as simple as an official thread for the bigger changes made during the PTS cycle where a dev can chime in and discuss some of the direction would make a big difference.

Like if you made an official thread for Blastbones and asked very specific questions in the OP in relation to your stated goals.

Example:

1. Is the new skill fun, does it have a clear power fantasy?
2. Is the new skill easier to manage?
3. Would you consider using this over the other morph? If no, why not?

You already do this. Just do it more, centralize the feedback.

If you think both of the morphs are fine as is, can you at least tell us why? I mean we know you listen because you recently fixed the ranged corpse generation by tying it to skulls, so that implies you don't agree with the other complaints that have been raised... Or... You're still working on it? This is an example where a simple, "somethings coming, we hear you", would go a long way.

Zastrix

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

Heh, I'd probably trust this if it weren't for the U35 fiasco where it was 'promised' that the communication would get better. Really cool what you wrote but doubt it.

Estin

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

I'll start by saying I'm sorry for hoping this isn't just throwing us a bone to calm a frenzy, and that I will take it with some grains of salt, because I know it can be hard to sincerely try and bridge a gap only to be spat upon.

Moving onto my own feedback, I'll skip developer comments since others have given better feedback on it than I could, but when it comes to additional communication on a PTS cycle, I believe one of ways that could really help is addressing feedback for high profile/controversial changes in the PTS patch notes in its own section rather than under a dev comment. To put it simply, an answer for why they decided to go with or against feedback from the players.

To give a couple of examples, since Day 1 of this PTS cycle, players have suggested moving the skill change to the inferior version of blastbones, make blighted blastbones as strong as live stalking blastbones with a split cost, move the skill idea to an entirely different skill in the Necro's already under performing kit, or the many other suggestions given by Necro players to make the class more accessible.

Since none of the feedback outside of the corpse generation issue was taken into consideration, that leaves me, and I'm sure everyone else, simply asking "Why?". Was it because they want all players to use the new skill so it wasn't wasted effort? I, and I'm still sure everyone else, would simply say that somebody who has already mastered necro does not feel the need to use a simpler rotation, but a weaker, more accessible option would be appreciated and used by those who haven't. Was it because it's too late to make any substantial changes to port it over to blighted or another skill, or make blighted into a more accessible dot skill that still spawned corpses? If so, I do feel that many players will appreciate a rollback of the idea but still have it be worked on so that come next PTS cycle, it can return in a much greater form instead of releasing it half baked and returned to later when everyone has already given up on the class. The gist of what I'm trying to say here is that we're looking for an answer on why no feedback was taken into consideration. If it was looked at and said no to, we would like the reason why it was said no to.

The other example I have is not one that I am concerned about, but is still controversial, and that is the whole class bound outfit styles. If there is some technical limitation behind allowing classes to use outfit styles that isn't from their class, I feel players would appreciate an honest explanation as to why it won't/can't be done instead of silence. Something as simple as "Due to the nature of the effects the outfit styles provide, we don't have a way to allow different classes to use them.". Similar answers were given for requests like crossplay and class change tokens, and while there were still complaints, it did quell a lot of the requests for them. Saying nothing just leaves players to speculate and ask why.

I do sincerely hope there can be a real effort to improve the lines of communication between the players and the devs because it's important for the overall health of the game. I don't mean to compare apples with oranges, but when a MMO company like Jagex can answer player questions for upcoming changes on places like Reddit, Twitter, and even Discord, it leaves me desiring for the same thing from ZOS.

VixxVexx

Could the devs be more open to feedback?

Look at how well games are doing that take player feedback into account whilst still introducing their own ideas.
(ex: Path of Exile, Oldschool Runescape)

I realize that you can't please everyone but currently you're pleasing no one.

brandsnipe

VixxVexx wrote: »

Could the devs be more open to feedback?

Look at how well games are doing that take player feedback into account whilst still introducing their own ideas.
(ex: Path of Exile, Oldschool Runescape)

I realize that you can't please everyone but currently you're pleasing no one.

What i love about OSRS is polls. And maybe this game should or shouldn't have poll, but we have the ability to posts polls on the forums. I posted 2, granted it is a very small sample size of 66 and 48 votes, i still think gives an indicator of where things truly are. Only 1 out of 66 people that voted liked the blastbones change and the direction its going. 46/66 (69.6%) of people voted to completely scap the changes. On my other poll, 9/48 (18.7&) people thought blastbones 3 second cast caused the clunkiness in necros rotation. I think we should make much more use of polls here in the forums.

Tyrobag

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

I'm sorry, not to shoot the messenger but if you want people to feel like you're communicating could you reply to threads where people are pinging you and Gina for input on a daily basis? Perhaps start with this thread that has been pointedly ignored: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/651266/you-will-not-be-able-to-outfit-your-character-in-class-styles-other-than-your-current-class/p8
You replied to this thread we're in that was only one page at the time, that topic is eight pages of people asking for an explanation for the better part of a month

If there were ever a place for direct dialogue between players and devs, its on the PTS forums.

(Side note: 'We'll tell you in a few months how we're going to communicate better', not the best start...)

If this comes off a frustrated its because, like many of us, I am.

Ilsabet

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

I don't know how many people are set up to be pinged by the Dev Tracker, but I know I'd rather see more info accessible there rather than leaving so much buried within threads where we have to guess if the ZOS marker is something substantive or just modding.

Hotdog_23

I just don’t think they have a true plan or vision for combat in general. It seems like they get ideas and throw them on a wall to see what sticks. If they interact with the player base and don’t have a good answer to any question asked, then it makes them look foolish and incompetent. It's much easier to do things if you don’t have to answer for them.

Don’t get me wrong, I can see them making changes and wanting to collect data, or to imply they are not trying or do not care. It seems like the true problem is any form of a true plan or vision for the game.

Plus, you can tell they have pulled resources away from ESO in support of their new project or just more profit. We are getting less content now compared to previous years. Last year we lost the 3rd quarter (it looks like we are losing a 3rd quarter again this year) to QOL and updates, which really just mounted to them cleaning up the game and dealing with how new content was added and how it impacted new players. Which is something they should have been doing all along and not taken a content update to address. Which again leads me to think the lack of long-term vision is the problem. I think they are now trying to think more long-term, but not consistently and only when it suits them.

Understand that the forum can be negative a lot of times and everything cannot be addressed, but a clear lack of respect for its player base is evident by their lack of communication and ignoring all feedback, whatever it is. Maybe I am wrong, but as a long-term player, that’s just the way I feel.

No offense to Kevin, but we have seen many times before that they are going to do better with communication, and ZOS always fails at it. Here's hoping they do get better, but history has a way of repeating itself and is a pretty good guide to the future. 

Stay safe

Pelanora

Start
Earlier.

Putting things fully worked through into pts, for feedback, is much too much too late.

Find another way to test changes for early feedback, before pts, then you won't be in the dilemma of having to unwind and re do, at cost, changes you've made.

tomofhyrule

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Hi Kevin,

Thanks for letting us know the team will focus on trying to communicate with the PTS more next cycle. I know that I've felt completely discouraged testing things this cycle due to the number of things I've reported and heard nothing from, to the point that I really hope they did fix the Orsinium main quest since I just couldn't be bothered to set up a template and redo the whole questline on the opposite server when I didn't even see the questbreaking bug acknowledged in the patch notes.

But I do want to say that seeing the Dev Comments in the patch notes does make me feel better sometimes. The problem is that we only see it for combat changes, not common cosmetic changes. All of the cosmetic issues that have been shoved through seem like the devs aren't seeing any feedback on them, and for a game that has a very robust RP/Character Creation/screenshot/etc. crowd, it's not a good look.

As an example:

• U35, Templar Jabs: We know that the animation had to get changed since the skill got an extra hit and a longer duration. It said so in the patch notes. But... why did the spaer model change? The Templar's Aedric Spear line is pretty consistent with that low-poly spear that looks like a beam of light, which fits very well with the class. And now there's one skill that they manifest an unrelated staff motif from somewhere else in the game (which the lore for even specifically says it's not designed for poking). Just leaving the original model would remove a fair number of complaints about the skill, so why did it have to change?
• U39, Grim Focus Permaglow: While I'm sure many people are happy that they don't have to turn this skill on and monitor its upkeep while focusing on the rest of their skills, the glow makes no sense anymore. It used to let us know that the skill was not turned on so we had to turn it on. Now... it just reminds us that we haven't taken it off our bars outside of combat? Making the skill permanent also broke the in-game stack counter so we have to rely on addons to count our stacks for us. It would have been too easy to the devs to rework the VFX to give it a purpose now that the glow's original purpose was removed and another important cue was broken in the process - we've seen the devs rework a skill and change it completely from the ground up so changing only the VFX of this should be possible. But instead, all we've heard is it's "working as intended." Really, the current permaglow is intended?
• U41, Locking Class styles: Despite the Class styles being previewable in the Outfit system/collections menu on Live after U40, the change in U41 was to lock them to specific classes and add the respective set VFX to the styles pages themselves. That frustrated a lot of players as nothing of the sort had ever been done before and that ESO is unlike other MMOs in the fact that fashion is unlocked to all characters regardless of class. Particularly since there are some features in the Class set styles that are not available elsewhere in game or the Crown store. No response to this was ever given... save a developer trying to make the UI more obvious that things were locked and breaking the entire Outfit system as a result.

While I realize that this PTS cycle is over and it's not likely that this post will be seen before U42 hits the PTS, I would hope that the devs are more inclined to interface with the PTS forum, particularly if a thread comes along with a lot of replies (like the ones listed above). I get that this is a game made by a team whose creative design may not mesh with ours, but there are points that some more dialogue would be welcome (and 90+% of the complaints about the bottom two decisions would end immediately if the cosmetics community was taken into account).

Furthermore, there are no Official Feedback threads for things that are found to be bugs, but are not directly being tested, and that would be useful. There are countless bugs that have made it Live despite being reported on PTS, and it's usually because it's something that didn't fit into one of the feedback threads we have. Again, I'll use the example of me finding the Orsinium line is completely broken as an example - I was going through to take screenshots and found some invisible walls added in in a quest-locked room. Orsinium's interiors shouldn't have been touched this update so there was no bug thread beyond the ones for Housing and the new Dungeons, which this is not. So I don't know if that was actually seen by the devs. But if that bug goes live and prevents people from running Orsinium for a few months... well...

Aerin

I genuinely want to believe in what you're saying, @ZOS_Kevin, but it's becoming increasingly difficult for me. I truly want to have faith in you. However, all I seem to encounter are forum moderators who only seem to ban, block, and shuffle topics around. None of them seem interested in helping or responding to the simple questions posed by players in the forums. If the forum moderators themselves can't be bothered to reply or assist us, how can I trust that the developers will be any different? I simply can't bring myself to believe it. I wish there were some miracle for this to change, but I know better... this can't be serious!

For example, right now, the developers are making significant adjustments to the necromancer class, and while some players appreciate the changes, a large number of us despise them. Yet, there seems to be no acknowledgment of our concerns. No one speaks up, and all we're met with is silence.

I'm sorry, @ZOS_Kevin, but I find it impossible to believe in you... I just can't.

Jaimeh

To still be ''working on communication'' 10 years later is an insult to the playerbase intelligence. How long must it take for the dev team to do better in this regard, it has been a pain point for years and it's only gotten worse.

Urvoth

Jaimeh wrote: »

To still be ''working on communication'' 10 years later is an insult to the playerbase intelligence. How long must it take for the dev team to do better in this regard, it has been a pain point for years and it's only gotten worse.

They’re only responding to this thread because it garnered a lot of attention outside of the forums as well. and it makes them look even worse if they don't say anything at all. If they actually cared about listening to feedback and communicating with the playerbase, they’d also be responding to the dozens of active PTS-related threads about the necro changes, undeath, Templar jabs, etc.

We’ve seen the same song and dance every other year at this point and yet nothing changes. The community managers are almost completely MIA outside of official patch streams, there’s no active interaction with the community about pain points, and they act like player feedback doesn’t exist.

IncultaWolf

Urvoth wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

To still be ''working on communication'' 10 years later is an insult to the playerbase intelligence. How long must it take for the dev team to do better in this regard, it has been a pain point for years and it's only gotten worse.

They’re only responding to this thread because it garnered a lot of attention outside of the forums as well. and it makes them look even worse if they don't say anything at all. If they actually cared about listening to feedback and communicating with the playerbase, they’d also be responding to the dozens of active PTS-related threads about the necro changes, undeath, Templar jabs, etc.

We’ve seen the same song and dance every other year at this point and yet nothing changes. The community managers are almost completely MIA outside of official patch streams, there’s no active interaction with the community about pain points, and they act like player feedback doesn’t exist.

Pretty much, even outside the forums there are hundreds of players expressing their displeasure at the necromancer changes. If they cared, they would communicate with their players more and ask us and the people who have spent thousands of hours on the class what can be done to improve/balance it. We're here willing to give very detailed feedback if you would talk to us.

https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1ask2uo/why_does_zos_hate_necromancer_class/
https://www.reddit.com/r/elderscrollsonline/comments/1av04li/necro_pts_changes_again_today_do_they_even_play/

@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno

Aldoss

@ZOS_Kevin, You said that there was some communication changes coming next patch. I'm going to point out that, while I appreciate that, this is precisely the moment where communication is warranted.

You've got a patch going live that contains some serious issues that many players have called attention to in this forum.

These issues are not trivial. Please, talk to us.

Are the devs aware that GLS is not buffing all skills?
Are we the ones wrong thinking that GLS should buff Animate Blastbones or Graverobber?
Are the devs in disagreement that flinging 3x flame skulls is more complicated than firing BB every 3 seconds was?
Are the devs concerned at all about the interaction between status effect procs and force pulse?
Are the devs not worried about how overpowered the new Siphoning Strikes is?

I'm really frustrated at ZOS. These are conversations that should be had with your players. It doesn't need a whole production.

"Hi, I'm the dev who worked on GLS and I hear the criticisms of the skill. This is why the skill is going live as is: ______"

Why is this so hard?

IncultaWolf

Aldoss wrote: »

@ZOS_Kevin, You said that there was some communication changes coming next patch. I'm going to point out that, while I appreciate that, this is precisely the moment where communication is warranted.

You've got a patch going live that contains some serious issues that many players have called attention to in this forum.

These issues are not trivial. Please, talk to us.

Are the devs aware that GLS is not buffing all skills?
Are we the ones wrong thinking that GLS should buff Animate Blastbones or Graverobber?
Are the devs in disagreement that flinging 3x flame skulls is more complicated than firing BB every 3 seconds was?
Are the devs concerned at all about the interaction between status effect procs and force pulse?
Are the devs not worried about how overpowered the new Siphoning Strikes is?

I'm really frustrated at ZOS. These are conversations that should be had with your players. It doesn't need a whole production.

"Hi, I'm the dev who worked on GLS and I hear the criticisms of the skill. This is why the skill is going live as is: ______"

Why is this so hard?

Pride and ego are very powerful, unfortunately for some people it takes a lot to admit when you did something wrong.

Suddwrath

Jaimeh wrote: »

To still be ''working on communication'' 10 years later is an insult to the playerbase intelligence. How long must it take for the dev team to do better in this regard, it has been a pain point for years and it's only gotten worse.

The saga continues, unfortunately. Until the 'improvements' actually manifest in a meaningful way, I will remain skeptical.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/446497/so-about-that-communication-zos/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/528790/improving-communication#latest

Jammy420

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All,

Just wanted to chime in here. So the dev team does read the forums often, especially during PTS. Over the last few cycles, we've tried communication via the developer commentary sections in the patch notes as it's helpful to address the philosophy around choices being made.

However given the feedback in this thread, while we will continue to do the developer commentary notes, the desire to have more of your direct questions answered is something everyone values. We want to meet this request to go back to some of the direct communication during PTS cycles, so we will do so with the U42 PTS cycle. To set expectations, while we won't be able to answer every question, we will find some of the more commonly asked questions and get those answered. And the bigger bulk of answer will come following week 1 and week 3 of PTS, as those are the weeks most changes occur.

Outside of the PTS cycle, we do answer questions pretty often, however a good portion of them tend to be either specific to the user or contained within a thread, like the Whitestrake's Mayhem blog. However, if there is a greater desire to see some of those conversations in the Dev Tracker, we can accommodate that. It still won't have everything as we also want to make sure those who have alerts tied to the dev tracker are not getting a ton of pings, but we can make a greater effort to have some conversations more visible there.

Lastly, we are working on some additional communication related items for later this year, so we'll update on those when we are closer, but we have some of this on the horizon.

Thanks again for your feedback thus far. Feel free to leave any additional feedback here and we'll review. Thanks!

We will see.

IncultaWolf

Suddwrath wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

To still be ''working on communication'' 10 years later is an insult to the playerbase intelligence. How long must it take for the dev team to do better in this regard, it has been a pain point for years and it's only gotten worse.

The saga continues, unfortunately. Until the 'improvements' actually manifest in a meaningful way, I will remain skeptical.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/446497/so-about-that-communication-zos/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/528790/improving-communication#latest

Wow, 4 years ago and they're still saying the same thing with nothing improving

NuarBlack

Probably time to abandon ship tbh. If you have been paying attention to the wider news of their acquisition by Microsoft there is a better than 50% chance ZoS and Bethesda will be cannibalized into Microsoft and this is just the early signs of ESO being put into maintenance mode.

colossalvoids

IncultaWolf wrote: »

Suddwrath wrote: »

Jaimeh wrote: »

To still be ''working on communication'' 10 years later is an insult to the playerbase intelligence. How long must it take for the dev team to do better in this regard, it has been a pain point for years and it's only gotten worse.

The saga continues, unfortunately. Until the 'improvements' actually manifest in a meaningful way, I will remain skeptical.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/446497/so-about-that-communication-zos/p1

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/528790/improving-communication#latest

Wow, 4 years ago and they're still saying the same thing with nothing improving

Yeah expectations are really low already as I remember Gina stressing it a ton that things will change times and times again, and here we are in a same deafening silence as previously years later. There were times devs were forced to communicate but it's still mostly a general talk rather than going into specifics (which is an issue).

System_Data

ESO dev team communications are absolutely terrible, especially considering that there other game devs that do so much more.

Imagine having a dev team that does monthly twitch streams that discuss about current issues and upcoming content.

Weekly twitch streams where you see members of the game company play their game.

Frequent short streams that keeps the community updated.

Feedback on forums that's actually taken in consideration.

That game is free to play and their dev team is actually enthusiastic about their game. I've grown out of that game, but how i wish ESO dev team were like that. What we get is the same as previous years, "we'll do better". Hard to not compare when you've seen it done better and especially with how monetary involved ESO is.