What is going with ESO?

Jarl_Ironheart · April 19

Hey everyone. I've been gone from ESO for a few months due to FF14 release on xbox. I occasionally come to the forums still to keep up on the game just out of curiosity, but by the nine divines I am so lost right now. Can anyone give a good explanation of all the chaos and drama and issues that has been happening the past few months with this game?

Ingel_Riday · April 19

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

- The live database accidentally got tied to the PTS on April 15th, and it went badly. People were copying PTS characters over to the live server and maxxing out their CP / using the billion PTS gold on the character to buy lots of guild trader stuff / selling PTS things on the market to make even more cash. Bad times. Also, if you deleted a character on the PTS to make room for a new test character... said character was deleted on the live server as well. Fare thee well, old friend. Just a complete disaster.

ZOS responded very quickly, shut down the PTS and North American server, and got to it. The live NA server was back up within 8 hours, but PTS was down longer and any accounts that logged onto the PTS were locked until they could be reviewed. So... some of the most dedicated members of our community lost account access... and some still don't have it back yet. But ZOS did what it had to to get the PTS contagion off the live server.

As a compensation, they offered PTS participants 16k of endeavors, all 5 rare style pages, and some other goodies. Fair, but...

- This event has relied on FOMO and some egregiously bad game design to drive up participation figures. Said 5 style pages have brutally low drop rates, and some players have ground away for dozens of hours and still don't have them. As such, the PTS people getting them without any grind led to some snarling and anger. I spent 33.33 hours for the staff of worms replica (400 or so dolmens). 14+ hours and no ul'vor staff. God knows if I'll be able to do enough Vvardenfell bosses for those items. But PTS just get 'em, huh?

But, given all PTS people do for us and how awful the past few days have been for them, fine... except is it? Well, it is... BUT IS IT? :-P Bitterness from the horrendous low drop rates makes it hard to not wince. The mind goes odd places as the grind goes along.

____________________________________________
So yeah, that's the drama. You didn't miss much.

Braffin · April 19

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Hey everyone. I've been gone from ESO for a few months due to FF14 release on xbox. I occasionally come to the forums still to keep up on the game just out of curiosity, but by the nine divines I am so lost right now. Can anyone give a good explanation of all the chaos and drama and issues that has been happening the past few months with this game?

While it's much more present around forums than ingame, we see now the consequences of prioritizing rewards over content for several years.

Appealing, isn't it?

Jarl_Ironheart · April 19

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

- The live database accidentally got tied to the PTS on April 15th, and it went badly. People were copying PTS characters over to the live server and maxxing out their CP / using the billion PTS gold on the character to buy lots of guild trader stuff / selling PTS things on the market to make even more cash. Bad times. Also, if you deleted a character on the PTS to make room for a new test character... said character was deleted on the live server as well. Fare thee well, old friend. Just a complete disaster.

ZOS responded very quickly, shut down the PTS and North American server, and got to it. The live NA server was back up within 8 hours, but PTS was down longer and any accounts that logged onto the PTS were locked until they could be reviewed. So... some of the most dedicated members of our community lost account access... and some still don't have it back yet. But ZOS did what it had to to get the PTS contagion off the live server.

As a compensation, they offered PTS participants 16k of endeavors, all 5 rare style pages, and some other goodies. Fair, but...

- This event has relied on FOMO and some egregiously bad game design to drive up participation figures. Said 5 style pages have brutally low drop rates, and some players have ground away for dozens of hours and still don't have them. As such, the PTS people getting them without any grind led to some snarling and anger. I spent 33.33 hours for the staff of worms replica (400 or so dolmens). 14+ hours and no ul'vor staff. God knows if I'll be able to do enough Vvardenfell bosses for those items. But PTS just get 'em, huh?

But, given all PTS people do for us and how awful the past few days have been for them, fine... except is it? Well, it is... BUT IS IT? :-P Bitterness from the horrendous low drop rates makes it hard to not wince. The mind goes odd places as the grind goes along.

____________________________________________
So yeah, that's the drama. You didn't miss much.

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

Jarl_Ironheart · April 19

Braffin wrote: »

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Hey everyone. I've been gone from ESO for a few months due to FF14 release on xbox. I occasionally come to the forums still to keep up on the game just out of curiosity, but by the nine divines I am so lost right now. Can anyone give a good explanation of all the chaos and drama and issues that has been happening the past few months with this game?

While it's much more present around forums than ingame, we see now the consequences of prioritizing rewards over content for several years.

Appealing, isn't it?

I had hopes for the 10 anniversary jubilee but somehow they seemed to mess even that up and *** people off.

Tandor · April 19

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

- The live database accidentally got tied to the PTS on April 15th, and it went badly. People were copying PTS characters over to the live server and maxxing out their CP / using the billion PTS gold on the character to buy lots of guild trader stuff / selling PTS things on the market to make even more cash. Bad times. Also, if you deleted a character on the PTS to make room for a new test character... said character was deleted on the live server as well. Fare thee well, old friend. Just a complete disaster.

ZOS responded very quickly, shut down the PTS and North American server, and got to it. The live NA server was back up within 8 hours, but PTS was down longer and any accounts that logged onto the PTS were locked until they could be reviewed. So... some of the most dedicated members of our community lost account access... and some still don't have it back yet. But ZOS did what it had to to get the PTS contagion off the live server.

As a compensation, they offered PTS participants 16k of endeavors, all 5 rare style pages, and some other goodies. Fair, but...

- This event has relied on FOMO and some egregiously bad game design to drive up participation figures. Said 5 style pages have brutally low drop rates, and some players have ground away for dozens of hours and still don't have them. As such, the PTS people getting them without any grind led to some snarling and anger. I spent 33.33 hours for the staff of worms replica (400 or so dolmens). 14+ hours and no ul'vor staff. God knows if I'll be able to do enough Vvardenfell bosses for those items. But PTS just get 'em, huh?

But, given all PTS people do for us and how awful the past few days have been for them, fine... except is it? Well, it is... BUT IS IT? :-P Bitterness from the horrendous low drop rates makes it hard to not wince. The mind goes odd places as the grind goes along.

____________________________________________
So yeah, that's the drama. You didn't miss much.

Nor did most players, to be fair.

Yes there's been some high drama from time to time, not least in the last few days, but as with all high drama in games once you actually play a game rather than its forum you tend to find that life has gone on as normal for most players.

Ingel_Riday · April 19

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

Fair. I think the PTS thing was more a brutal anomaly than anything. The Necrom expansion was great, and the past couple updates have been reasonable and tolerable (unless you're a magicka necromancer, but that's another story. :-P ). Gold Road looks like a great time, and there's stuff to look forward to.

But yeah... what a week. I had nightmares a few days ago about Molag Bal mocking Lyris for milking mammoths. I was stuck in a DMV line, and he just would not stop with the same old tired subject. Just on and on.

I'm taking a break after this event ends. When the grind invades your dreams, you gotta give it a rest. Also, I don't think you can milk mammoths. I don't how the logistics would work, and I don't know why I'm even thinking about it.

Araneae6537 · April 19

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

- The live database accidentally got tied to the PTS on April 15th, and it went badly. People were copying PTS characters over to the live server and maxxing out their CP / using the billion PTS gold on the character to buy lots of guild trader stuff / selling PTS things on the market to make even more cash. Bad times. Also, if you deleted a character on the PTS to make room for a new test character... said character was deleted on the live server as well. Fare thee well, old friend. Just a complete disaster.

ZOS responded very quickly, shut down the PTS and North American server, and got to it. The live NA server was back up within 8 hours, but PTS was down longer and any accounts that logged onto the PTS were locked until they could be reviewed. So... some of the most dedicated members of our community lost account access... and some still don't have it back yet. But ZOS did what it had to to get the PTS contagion off the live server.

As a compensation, they offered PTS participants 16k of endeavors, all 5 rare style pages, and some other goodies. Fair, but...

- This event has relied on FOMO and some egregiously bad game design to drive up participation figures. Said 5 style pages have brutally low drop rates, and some players have ground away for dozens of hours and still don't have them. As such, the PTS people getting them without any grind led to some snarling and anger. I spent 33.33 hours for the staff of worms replica (400 or so dolmens). 14+ hours and no ul'vor staff. God knows if I'll be able to do enough Vvardenfell bosses for those items. But PTS just get 'em, huh?

But, given all PTS people do for us and how awful the past few days have been for them, fine... except is it? Well, it is... BUT IS IT? :-P Bitterness from the horrendous low drop rates makes it hard to not wince. The mind goes odd places as the grind goes along.

____________________________________________
So yeah, that's the drama. You didn't miss much.

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

Honestly, in game is fun, depending on what you like to do. I wouldn’t go by the state of the forums to make your decision. Not trying to suggest that you should or shouldn’t play, the reasons for and against will be different for different people, which is why I suggest you check out those activities, classes, etc. that are important to you actually in game.

Blood_again · April 19

We are on the Summerset geysers for the cool style page. Join us. It is fun!

DorisOThDead · April 19

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

The Honor pet will be added to your account when Gold Road is live, it says so on the card with the code

Varana · April 19

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

To be fair, basing this on internet forums is a very surefire way to get only the drama and nothing else. I mean, sure, the PTS thing was a major eff-up, but for like 99% of the players, absolutely nothing happened, at all. Judging by the first page of General here, you'd think that half the playerbase was in some way affected. Which couldn't be further from what's actually the state of the game.

The forums are a form of social media - a bit antiquated but still. Basing your perception of the world on social media is a very, very bad idea in general.

Desiato · April 19

I don't buy any of the "FOMO" conspiracies. If one suffers from fomo, it is a them thing.

In most MMOs, the value of an item is dictated largely by how common it is. Look at all of the yellow style pages that drop from purple gift boxes that are practically worthless. For an item to be valued to has to be difficult to obtain in one way or another.

IMO ZOS wanted to introduce rare, but accessible items and tied them to common activities that people typically do during gift box events: grinding world bosses and group events like dolmens. I don't think there was anything sinister about it and they probably thought they did a decent job spreading players out and avoiding bottlenecks.

In a community as diverse as ESO, it is never possible to please everyone, so there's always going to be disgruntled players posting about their bad experiences. Players are far more likely to leave feedback about something they did not enjoy than something they liked.

think the event was overwhelmingly generous overall when one considers the free DLC, recipes, motifs, mats and style pages.

Only five of dozens of style pages were made rare for those who, like myself, enjoy hunting for rare items. I play a progression based game because I enjoy completing activities while working towards a goal. Items that are purchased with cash or handed to me for eating cake are completely meaningless to me. Though I would have preferred a greater challenge, I understand they had to keep it accessible.

huntgod_ESO · April 19

Desiato wrote: »

I don't buy any of the "FOMO" conspiracies. If one suffers from fomo, it is a them thing.

In most MMOs, the value of an item is dictated largely by how common it is. Look at all of the yellow style pages that drop from purple gift boxes that are practically worthless. For an item to be valued to has to be difficult to obtain in one way or another.

IMO ZOS wanted to introduce rare, but accessible items and tied them to common activities that people typically do during gift box events: grinding world bosses and group events like dolmens. I don't think there was anything sinister about it and they probably thought they did a decent job spreading players out and avoiding bottlenecks.

In a community as diverse as ESO, it is never possible to please everyone, so there's always going to be disgruntled players posting about their bad experiences. Players are far more likely to leave feedback about something they did not enjoy than something they liked.

think the event was overwhelmingly generous overall when one considers the free DLC, recipes, motifs, mats and style pages.

Only five of dozens of style pages were made rare for those who, like myself, enjoy hunting for rare items. I play a progression based game because I enjoy completing activities while working towards a goal. Items that are purchased with cash or handed to me for eating cake are completely meaningless to me. Though I would have preferred a greater challenge, I understand they had to keep it accessible.

If the items were tradeable that argument would still be bad, but the items are not tradeable so there have no in game monetary value. It took me almost 100 hrs over 13 days to get all the replica motifs...that was not remotely fun or pleasant.

Assuming the designers are not brand new and have never worked or designed for an MMO before, it is very easy to code in a safety measure to the drops so players who are outliers, like myself, are not punished abnormally. Adding after X reward Y is not difficult and is pretty standard in most games. So, I know you don't think it was sinister, but allowing those atrocious drop rates on a BOP item is pretty intentional and terrible.

Ingel_Riday · April 19

DorisOThDead wrote: »

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

The Honor pet will be added to your account when Gold Road is live, it says so on the card with the code

I totally missed that. You are a grade AAA adventurer. Thank you!

Ingel_Riday · April 19

Desiato wrote: »

I don't buy any of the "FOMO" conspiracies. If one suffers from fomo, it is a them thing.

In most MMOs, the value of an item is dictated largely by how common it is. Look at all of the yellow style pages that drop from purple gift boxes that are practically worthless. For an item to be valued to has to be difficult to obtain in one way or another.

IMO ZOS wanted to introduce rare, but accessible items and tied them to common activities that people typically do during gift box events: grinding world bosses and group events like dolmens. I don't think there was anything sinister about it and they probably thought they did a decent job spreading players out and avoiding bottlenecks.

In a community as diverse as ESO, it is never possible to please everyone, so there's always going to be disgruntled players posting about their bad experiences. Players are far more likely to leave feedback about something they did not enjoy than something they liked.

think the event was overwhelmingly generous overall when one considers the free DLC, recipes, motifs, mats and style pages.

Only five of dozens of style pages were made rare for those who, like myself, enjoy hunting for rare items. I play a progression based game because I enjoy completing activities while working towards a goal. Items that are purchased with cash or handed to me for eating cake are completely meaningless to me. Though I would have preferred a greater challenge, I understand they had to keep it accessible.

What do you mean by a FOMO conspiracy? Are you implying that FOMO isn't a real thing?

Huh?

Why do you think items fall off the Crown Store? ESO used to joke that items left the store "because we have to make room for new stock," but it's a digital storefront. Items don't take up floor space. Items fall off to get you to buy them. If items didn't fall off the storefront, you'd wait to buy them until Crown sales / until you had enough endeavor points.

But the Palatial Estate in Abah's Landing is only available for the next 12 days! You don't want to miss out, do you? It hasn't been available for purchase in at least a year, if not two. ACT NOW!!!

ESO has eased up on FOMO on some event costumes, but only slightly. Some events have catch-up bags, but good luck ever getting the Jester Daedroth outfit if you didn't grind for it last year. Waiting for the Jephrine weapon patterns to go on sale again? Should have bought them when you had the chance, all those years ago. You missed out.

I could go on.

It's not a conspiracy. It's an actual tactic game companies use to increase engagement. I came back for every season of The Crew 2 because if you didn't earn the Battle Pass items within 60 days, that was it. You'd never get 'em, unless Ubisoft decided to run old seasons again years from now.

Companies employ statisticians, psychologists, and/or marketers to fine-tune this stuff. Every now and then, they experiment with an outlier to gauge response. If it goes over poorly, they walk things back a bit. If people don't grumble, they push a bit more. You WANT some grumbling, so you know the line you need to toe a bit away from.

Honestly, I'm not trying to be mean to you. I just... I struggle to believe that you genuinely think FOMO is a conspiracy theory. That's so... hm.

Anyhoots, I don't know how you view a RNG that leaves some players grinding for dozens upon dozens of hours while other players luck out after three or four dolmens as an "accessible challenge." It's accessible for some (getting it in 3 dolmens takes less than 15 minutes), but not for others (I spent 33.33 hours). It's a challenge for some (willing myself through the tedium), but not for others (3 dolmens takes less than 15 minutes). I could wax on, but you already know my opinion here.

The only thing I guess it does accomplish is keeping the staff pages somewhat rare, but it does so in a way that promotes burnout and misery among the playerbase. The whole style page aspect of this event is rubbish.

Incidentally... the pages go away on the 25th, at which point you might never see them available again. Will they come back next year? Probably not. Will they hit the Crown store? Wouldn't bet on it. You have 6 more days to earn them, or you'll never get them. Don't want to miss out, do you? /conspiracy mode

Edit addition: again, I just... FOMO as a conspiracy theory is something else. "If one suffers from FOMO, it is a them thing" is also such a, pardon my French, victim-blaming phrase. You have companies actively, intentionally engaging in psychological techniques to get money from the playerbase and/or compel them to participate in content... and it's the players' faults for not being strong-willed enough to resist? Great. What a kind assessment. You must think the EU is very silly for restricting the practice so much and curtailing EA's shenanigans.

Jaraal · April 19

^^100% spot on.

Multi-billion dollar corporations don't do things on a whim. Everything is researched thoroughly and calculated to deliver maximum returns. Psychology absolutely is factored in when planning player engagement.

Skullstachio · April 19

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

I don't buy any of the "FOMO" conspiracies. If one suffers from fomo, it is a them thing.

In most MMOs, the value of an item is dictated largely by how common it is. Look at all of the yellow style pages that drop from purple gift boxes that are practically worthless. For an item to be valued to has to be difficult to obtain in one way or another.

IMO ZOS wanted to introduce rare, but accessible items and tied them to common activities that people typically do during gift box events: grinding world bosses and group events like dolmens. I don't think there was anything sinister about it and they probably thought they did a decent job spreading players out and avoiding bottlenecks.

In a community as diverse as ESO, it is never possible to please everyone, so there's always going to be disgruntled players posting about their bad experiences. Players are far more likely to leave feedback about something they did not enjoy than something they liked.

think the event was overwhelmingly generous overall when one considers the free DLC, recipes, motifs, mats and style pages.

Only five of dozens of style pages were made rare for those who, like myself, enjoy hunting for rare items. I play a progression based game because I enjoy completing activities while working towards a goal. Items that are purchased with cash or handed to me for eating cake are completely meaningless to me. Though I would have preferred a greater challenge, I understand they had to keep it accessible.

What do you mean by a FOMO conspiracy? Are you implying that FOMO isn't a real thing?

Huh?

Why do you think items fall off the Crown Store? ESO used to joke that items left the store "because we have to make room for new stock," but it's a digital storefront. Items don't take up floor space. Items fall off to get you to buy them. If items didn't fall off the storefront, you'd wait to buy them until Crown sales / until you had enough endeavor points.

But the Palatial Estate in Abah's Landing is only available for the next 12 days! You don't want to miss out, do you? It hasn't been available for purchase in at least a year, if not two. ACT NOW!!!

ESO has eased up on FOMO on some event costumes, but only slightly. Some events have catch-up bags, but good luck ever getting the Jester Daedroth outfit if you didn't grind for it last year. Waiting for the Jephrine weapon patterns to go on sale again? Should have bought them when you had the chance, all those years ago. You missed out.

I could go on.

It's not a conspiracy. It's an actual tactic game companies use to increase engagement. I came back for every season of The Crew 2 because if you didn't earn the Battle Pass items within 60 days, that was it. You'd never get 'em, unless Ubisoft decided to run old seasons again years from now.

Companies employ statisticians, psychologists, and/or marketers to fine-tune this stuff. Every now and then, they experiment with an outlier to gauge response. If it goes over poorly, they walk things back a bit. If people don't grumble, they push a bit more. You WANT some grumbling, so you know the line you need to toe a bit away from.

Honestly, I'm not trying to be mean to you. I just... I struggle to believe that you genuinely think FOMO is a conspiracy theory. That's so... hm.

Anyhoots, I don't know how you view a RNG that leaves some players grinding for dozens upon dozens of hours while other players luck out after three or four dolmens as an "accessible challenge." It's accessible for some (getting it in 3 dolmens takes less than 15 minutes), but not for others (I spent 33.33 hours). It's a challenge for some (willing myself through the tedium), but not for others (3 dolmens takes less than 15 minutes). I could wax on, but you already know my opinion here.

The only thing I guess it does accomplish is keeping the staff pages somewhat rare, but it does so in a way that promotes burnout and misery among the playerbase. The whole style page aspect of this event is rubbish.

Incidentally... the pages go away on the 25th, at which point you might never see them available again. Will they come back next year? Probably not. Will they hit the Crown store? Wouldn't bet on it. You have 6 more days to earn them, or you'll never get them. Don't want to miss out, do you? /conspiracy mode

Edit addition: again, I just... FOMO as a conspiracy theory is something else. "If one suffers from FOMO, it is a them thing" is also such a, pardon my French, victim-blaming phrase. You have companies actively, intentionally engaging in psychological techniques to get money from the playerbase and/or compel them to participate in content... and it's the players' faults for not being strong-willed enough to resist? Great. What a kind assessment. You must think the EU is very silly for restricting the practice so much and curtailing EA's shenanigans.

Hence the phrases: "being paid to incentivise inconvenience" and "once entertainment becomes a business, the fun gets sucked right out of it." (hypocritically I do pay attention to asmongold.)
There is also the Maplestory fiasco in which the company that made maplestory, Nexon, ended up being fined by the FTC in NK/SK because the drop chance for an overpowered item in the purchaseable cubes literally had a 0% rate odd of dropping in addition to drop rates being manipulated behind the scenes without the players knowledge. (It was covered 3 months ago by force gaming on youtube titled "the biggest mmo scam in history" and I would link the vid, but somebody got too trigger happy kickin Molag in the Bals.)

Edit: just to add, even though the nexon thing got resolved, I believe what they did ended up setting a precursor for other companies watching to do a similar thing behind the scenes.

Jaimeh · April 19

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

Although there are issues with bugs and performance (and they seriously need to clean up their coding), quality-of-life-wise the game has never been in a better place, and for that alone it's worth jumping back in. The devs (if the live anniversary event was anything to go by) still seem really excited about the game, and the community is as loyal and supportive as ever. I think ESO is in a good place right now, the momentum from the release of the Necrom chapter last year, which was by all accounts a really positive one, is still going strong, and with scribing on the horizon, there's a lot of excitement right now. There's been an influx of new players and events are really populated too, it doesn't feel stale, it feels bubbling, and I hope it continues that way!

Dragonnord · April 19

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

issues that has been happening the past few months with this game?

Past few months? No issues at all the past few months, none, zero.

Just these last days something happened that never ocurred before and the Devs are working hard to sort it out the best way possible.

Outside of that, everything is fine, just the normal "i love this", "I hate that" from players and regular issues as any other game has.

By the way, great things are coming!

Desiato · April 19

If someone is motivated by fomo and it's having a negative impact in their life, they need to learn how to manage it. It's truly a them thing that only they can work on. I suggest looking into stoicism to help master one's own mind.

RNG loot tables have been part of RPGs since the pen and paper days and long before it was a billion dollar industry. Limited time holiday event items have been a thing since muds. They're meant to be fun.

Though it is a fact that psychology plays a role in every serious customer facing business, but I don't see anything remotely malicious about the implementation of this event. The average fast food commercial is probably far more psychologically engineered.

At the end of the day, people need to take ownership of their decisions and avoid falling into the trap of doing things they don't enjoy for irrational reasons.

I'm honestly afraid to say anything more because I don't want my forum account actioned! Believe what you will, but I don't think ZOS has done anything evil here.

Ingel_Riday · April 20

Desiato wrote: »

If someone is motivated by fomo and it's having a negative impact in their life, they need to learn how to manage it. It's truly a them thing that only they can work on. I suggest looking into stoicism to help master one's own mind.

RNG loot tables have been part of RPGs since the pen and paper days and long before it was a billion dollar industry. Limited time holiday event items have been a thing since muds. They're meant to be fun.

Though it is a fact that psychology plays a role in every serious customer facing business, but I don't see anything remotely malicious about the implementation of this event. The average fast food commercial is probably far more psychologically engineered.

At the end of the day, people need to take ownership of their decisions and avoid falling into the trap of doing things they don't enjoy for irrational reasons.

I'm honestly afraid to say anything more because I don't want my forum account actioned! Believe what you will, but I don't think ZOS has done anything evil here.

Firstly, in regards to FOMO... so you're acknowleding that it's an actual thing? Okay. Has it occurred to you that most people grumbling on this forum do manage their susceptibility to it quite well? I'll use me as an example. I quit World of Warcraft 6 years ago. Their FOMO tactics got to be too much and I realized that if I didn't quit the game, it'd negatively impact every facet of my life. I got out. They've thrown FOMO ads at me time and time again to draw me back, and I've ignored them. On a different note, I've had merchants at local festivals throw FOMO at me time and time again (2 wooden owls for 1, but only until noon today. Come on, you don't want to miss out. By the time you come back, this will have sold and you'll never have a Jack Skellington and Sally owl couple). I ignore it. My wife is an economist, and I had to study some of this stuff for my M.B.A.. I'm aware of the tricks of the trade, and I tune a bunch of it out nowadays. Not all, but a significant portion.

I only let myself cave regarding two particular games: The Crew 2 (which is now on life support in favor of The Crew: Motorfest, which I don't care about at all) and ESO (aka Fashion Scrolls). These are my two fellows. Well, one fellow now. ESO is the one game that I let tempt me with limited time baubles. The one game whose limited time FOMO events actually register on my radar. I haven't missed an event in years. I take my laptop with me to do events while on vacation. I ran Jester/ Anniversary events while in Amsterdam. I ran a holiday event for 20 minutes every night during a lakehouse getaway with family members. This is it. This is my naughty vice. For this, I let myself be baited. I generally enjoy it. Not this time.

400 dolmens for my staff. 190 geysers and nothing. If not for their FOMO (pages will disappear from loot tables on the 25th), I would have stopped a long time ago... but they built it with FOMO as a motivator to persist... knowing that people would indeed persist, sunk cost fallacy be darned. This is intentional tedium. It's not enjoyable, and it makes me question my exception.

But that having been said, I don't think anyone is saying ZOS is actually evil or doing evil. That's a stretch too far, especially for something as banal as style pages. We're saying that this is bad game design. We're saying that it's tedious, RNG-based misery that shouldn't have ever been that away. We're not saying anyone is a Tolkien orc.

They probably meant for this to be fun... in a fashion. It's not. There's no mercy mechanic like other modern games have. Heck, there's no mercy mechanic like many systems of this very game have (eventually, you'll get your pillar of nirn dagger... even if it's the last sticker in your sticker-book. If you're tired of grinding for the Blessed Inheritor armor motif, just buy it for $42.99 and move on with your life. Etc.). I could do 400 more geysers and not have it. I could get it the very next geyser. With the sheer mob of other unhappy people plugging away, the geysers aren't remotely challenging or exciting. They're dull, easy, vapid slot machine pulls. People are sick of my grumbling and I'm sick of their grumbling, and we're all sick of the few who get a lucky slot machine pull. I've hidden zone chat in my game to ignore everyone but guildies.

You want to cite pen and paper tabletop gaming? No dungeon master worth his or her salt would want his adventurers to be so checked out and burned out that some of them start watching tv instead of focusing on the game, some take to heavy drinking to cope with the 500th kobold den ransacking, and some question why they even waste time coming over to play in the first place. "Don't worry, my lads and lasses, you have a small chance of getting the MacGuffin at each one of these identical dens. Eventually it'll happen! Well, maybe! Also, you better get it before the end of our gaming session or it'll be gone from the loot tables forever. Don't miss out!" Then his kid sister comes it and gets the Sword of MacGuffin on her first den because she rolled the right number on some dice. Thrilling. Guess she earned it more than the adventurers did, eh?

You get the idea. I don't think the ZOS crew are evil or malicious. I just think this event is awful. Well, that and I think someone thought this was a great way to pad engagement figures for the event... which it was, matter of fact. Problem is it was an overly OVERT way to pad the figures that everyone is well aware of, so if the event figures are broadcasted far and wide as a point of engagement pride, we're all going to cackle and jeer.

______________________________________________

Also, I've blathered on far too long, but I'll throw this out there: you're clearly recommending that those of us exhausted from the grind just give up and move on. That we're to blame for our own disgruntled natures. In effect: "Nobody forced you to keep playing. Sure, FOMO was in play... but you didn't have to keep trying. It's on you now. Give up and move on if you hate it. Don't blame ZOS for your own compulsions, even if ZOS stoked them."

Okay, sure. I don't need these style page. I want them and I feel pressure to earn them before the 25th, but I don't need them. But if I'm willing to call it on this... I don't need those daily rewards, either. I don't need to grind for fashion scroll items. I have more outfits than I could ever feasibly wear on my 5 characters, and mountains of crafting materials and Crown potions. I could stop now. Just stop grinding and move on. I have the Devil May Cry franchise, the Red Faction franchise, Morrowind (which I need to replay), the complete works of Shakespeare to re-read, and a couple hundred games in my backlog to see. I could come back every year in June for the big expansion, re-subscribe for one month of ESO plus, beat said expansion in 30 hours, and leave until next year. It'd save me a lot of money on Crowns and subscription fees. Just cut my last live service vice off. Be done with it. Lord knows I have better uses for the $1k or so I sink into this game per annum. It's quite a vice, indeed.

I'm pretty sure that's not what they want me to do, though, and I'd truthfully rather not since I usually enjoy my last live service vice... hence my loud grumbles. These kind of slot machine FOMO moments are a short term engagement gain but a long-term commitment killer. They're a bad idea.

SeaGtGruff · April 20

Braffin wrote: »

we see now the consequences of prioritizing rewards over content for several years.

I think that's up to each player.

As a general rule, most players put a lot of emphasis on rewards, and game companies know this, so they try to add a lot of attainable rewards and earnable achievements into their games. You can see this even in "casual" games such as solitaire, sudoku, minesweeper, etc.-- there are level numbers that reflect how many lifetime points you've earned, titles you can attain by reaching specific levels, achievements you can get by meeting certain requirements, etc.

ESO is really no different from many other games in that respect. Players ask for achievements that give special rewards so they can show off their accomplishments. They get upset if some achievement is beyond them, and ask for stuff to be made easier so they can get rewarded, too. They get upset if achievements are so easy that anyone can attain them. They get upset if something too similar to their highly-coveted and hard-earned special rewards gets added to the Crown Store, because they feel that it cheapens the value of their special rewards.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting special titles and special rewards for being able to accomplish something; I'm just saying that each player needs to decide for themself whether they care more about attaining those things than about having fun. ZOS doesn't make those decisions, they (and other game companies) just try to cater to what they think players are hoping to get from their gaming experiences.

ADarklore · April 20

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

IMO, based on your commentary, it sounds like you weren't enjoying ESO in the first place. Blaming an unfortunate (and first time) incident that didn't even involve you for a reason why you don't want to play again... speaks volumes.

The game is awesome IMO, and getting better. They're adding more spontaneous events, adding Scribing system, allowing us to change appearances of our skills, etc. I've been having a blast with this year's event, and has actually made me play more.

Braffin · April 20

@Ingel_Riday

I'm not arguing against your statements regarding currently popular business decisions based on FOMO. I indeed share your analysis.

Nonetheless FOMO itself isn't a business practice at all, but a state of mind, thus completely subjective (in the meaning of the subject is causing FOMO out of itself).

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/fomo

That's why the best option to leave this circle of unreasonable fear and abusive offers based on it, is to combat and overcome said fear. @Desiato is very right with this.

Being affected by FOMO isn't evil of course, but merely a mostly unintended and possibly harmful condition of mind.

Therefore it's nothing, which should be encouraged. That's not fitting for a phenomenon seriously in question of describing a severe mental illness.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8283615/

And I assure you: Trying to treat FOMO by ensuring nobody misses out in the end will be as effective as treating alcoholism with booze.

Affected players either reflect their behaviour and it's cause or will be haunted by fear endlessly.

Braffin · April 20

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

we see now the consequences of prioritizing rewards over content for several years.

I think that's up to each player.

As a general rule, most players put a lot of emphasis on rewards, and game companies know this, so they try to add a lot of attainable rewards and earnable achievements into their games. You can see this even in "casual" games such as solitaire, sudoku, minesweeper, etc.-- there are level numbers that reflect how many lifetime points you've earned, titles you can attain by reaching specific levels, achievements you can get by meeting certain requirements, etc.

ESO is really no different from many other games in that respect. Players ask for achievements that give special rewards so they can show off their accomplishments. They get upset if some achievement is beyond them, and ask for stuff to be made easier so they can get rewarded, too. They get upset if achievements are so easy that anyone can attain them. They get upset if something too similar to their highly-coveted and hard-earned special rewards gets added to the Crown Store, because they feel that it cheapens the value of their special rewards.

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting special titles and special rewards for being able to accomplish something; I'm just saying that each player needs to decide for themself whether they care more about attaining those things than about having fun. ZOS doesn't make those decisions, they (and other game companies) just try to cater to what they think players are hoping to get from their gaming experiences.

No, zos is of course not able to decide if a specific player is prioritizing rewards over enjoyment or not.

Nonetheless by setting their development focus either on production of shinies (as they did) or adding meaningful content, they very well decide the composition of their overall playerbase.

So yes, I blame zos for this current fiasco. Not for having to grind for "my precious" (I'm not affected by FOMO and have no interest in the style pages.), not for the PTS accident (these things happen), not for compensation the victims of said accident, but for creating a community which prefers to grind till the state of depression (that's what is reported in the according threads) over celebrating the anniversary of their favorite game.

It's just sad tbh.

ArchMikem · April 20

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Ingel_Riday wrote: »

Hm, I'm a bit out of the loop, but I can give it a shot:

- ESO just celebrated 10 years and held an anniversary event in Amsterdam. Event rocked and went well. I went to it,myself. My "Golden Honor" still hasn't appeared in my pet list even after redeeming my code, but eh. Whatever. Good times. No drama here. Just accolades.

- The live database accidentally got tied to the PTS on April 15th, and it went badly. People were copying PTS characters over to the live server and maxxing out their CP / using the billion PTS gold on the character to buy lots of guild trader stuff / selling PTS things on the market to make even more cash. Bad times. Also, if you deleted a character on the PTS to make room for a new test character... said character was deleted on the live server as well. Fare thee well, old friend. Just a complete disaster.

ZOS responded very quickly, shut down the PTS and North American server, and got to it. The live NA server was back up within 8 hours, but PTS was down longer and any accounts that logged onto the PTS were locked until they could be reviewed. So... some of the most dedicated members of our community lost account access... and some still don't have it back yet. But ZOS did what it had to to get the PTS contagion off the live server.

As a compensation, they offered PTS participants 16k of endeavors, all 5 rare style pages, and some other goodies. Fair, but...

- This event has relied on FOMO and some egregiously bad game design to drive up participation figures. Said 5 style pages have brutally low drop rates, and some players have ground away for dozens of hours and still don't have them. As such, the PTS people getting them without any grind led to some snarling and anger. I spent 33.33 hours for the staff of worms replica (400 or so dolmens). 14+ hours and no ul'vor staff. God knows if I'll be able to do enough Vvardenfell bosses for those items. But PTS just get 'em, huh?

But, given all PTS people do for us and how awful the past few days have been for them, fine... except is it? Well, it is... BUT IS IT? :-P Bitterness from the horrendous low drop rates makes it hard to not wince. The mind goes odd places as the grind goes along.

____________________________________________
So yeah, that's the drama. You didn't miss much.

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

"I'm leaving thread" confirmed.

Jarl_Ironheart · April 22

ADarklore wrote: »

Jarl_Ironheart wrote: »

Everytime I come back to this game I somehow get surprised by the absolute dumpster fires that take place. Don't think I'll be coming back to ESO for a while if ever again.

IMO, based on your commentary, it sounds like you weren't enjoying ESO in the first place. Blaming an unfortunate (and first time) incident that didn't even involve you for a reason why you don't want to play again... speaks volumes.

The game is awesome IMO, and getting better. They're adding more spontaneous events, adding Scribing system, allowing us to change appearances of our skills, etc. I've been having a blast with this year's event, and has actually made me play more.

I've been playing for 7 years and I'm a mega Elder Scrolls fan. Can't even count the hours I have in oblivion and skyrim. I did like this game but I don't know, it just feels outdated. It could definitely use some improvements. Less paid rewards would be a starter.

Blood_again · April 22

Braffin wrote: »

No, zos is of course not able to decide if a specific player is prioritizing rewards over enjoyment or not.

Nonetheless by setting their development focus either on production of shinies (as they did) or adding meaningful content, they very well decide the composition of their overall playerbase.

So yes, I blame zos for this current fiasco. Not for having to grind for "my precious" (I'm not affected by FOMO and have no interest in the style pages.), not for the PTS accident (these things happen), not for compensation the victims of said accident, but for creating a community which prefers to grind till the state of depression (that's what is reported in the according threads) over celebrating the anniversary of their favorite game.

It's just sad tbh.

Thank you for crystallizing this idea.

While I join to sadness by the current state, I guess the crisis is a result of multiple short-term factors crossed.
There are some of them:
- high expectations (10th itself + a PR campaign started a couple months ahead)
- easy reachable content + low drop rate (plays like a carrot on a rope for the whole playerbase, not a segment)
- high anxiety about events (issues for the last half a year raised it a lot)
- free-to-play week at the beginning of the Anniversary (crowded spots raised FOMO dramatically).
Each single one of them wouldn't be so harmful. The sum is crushing.

It doesn't change the fact that it was ZOS who did that. No more variants.
But there is hope that the current state of the community is more of a relapse than a chronic one. I hope, at least.

I also find some bitter irony in the fact that many ingame changes for the last few years targeted "less grind". In some parts of the game, but not the whole.
Maybe that moment formed some mixed attitude towards grind as a method, which served as some kind of vulnerability in front of the current events. Fertile soil for bitter seeds.
While I believe that was made for a better purpose, the current result is sad and confusing.