Feedback On Console Environmental Sustainability Features

Integral1900 · June 18

I’m on a PC rather than on a console, but this is one of the most irritating features I’ve ever come across. When it goes black, it won’t back off. I can’t get the black to disengage. Moving doesn’t work. Removing all add-ons doesn’t work. It’s even black when I go back to the character menu. When the black wall descends the only way I can kill it is to go all the way back to the desktop and shut down the launcher. Please can we please have a button on the keyboard that automatically switches the black screen off because the number of times I’ve got stuck in menus, crafting stations and looting containers is really starting to grind on my nerves!

Rainteal · June 18

This change is awful. I am playing on Xbox X, and after moving through menus a few times, I start to get a little bit of a motion sickness/ nausea feeling. Please revert this back ASAP. Thank you.

Destai · June 18

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi all. We're gathering some feedback regarding the Environmental Sustainability Features added in U42. Specifically, we would like feedback on the following patch note:
Reduced GPU use in Contextual Menus (Xbox Series X|S and PS5): When viewing most menus, (eg. managing inventory, achievements, quest journal, etc) framerate is now capped to 30fps. Some menus are exempt on a case-by-case basis (eg. conversations, various mini-games). Testing in Performance Mode while in these menus shows a 50% reduction in GPU consumption, resulting in overall power consumption going from approximately 63% of the maximum possible on a console down to 37%.

We're seeing your feedback about menus capped to 30fps is causing issues for some of you. Please let us know how it is impacting your play experience. We are sharing this with our teams to better inform them of your feedback and how we can improve the experience overall. Additionally, if you are experiencing other framerate issues with either your menus or player character, please note those here as well. Thanks, all.

Honestly, I feel like the teams could've better spent their cycles elsewhere. Like, there's already a lot of topics around performance and now we have a "feature" that caps the performance of something. Within seconds of logging in, the map use feels way more jittery and other menus are no different. At the very least this should've been optional. Hopefully that's something you guys can address soon, so that way we can get back to enjoying the menus.

And I'm a bit confused by this thread when the PTS feedback already warned you guys it wouldn't be well received. I think you guys should entertain reversing course when PTS has that kind of feedback.

Hyporis · June 18

Make this feature optional and not enforce it on every player at least.
Gameplay experience is highly irritating on gen 9 consoles paired with a modern 4k TV otherwise.

Safe the Planet otherwise than enforcing this on us.

i_azazei_i · June 18

Wait this garbage is intentional? Nope, im refunding gold road. This hurts my eyes. Make it optional or get rid of it.

Anachronian · June 18

Did Zos or Microsoft perform an assessment of whether or not this option would increase or decrease the rate at which people would be replacing hardware?

Hardware replacement could potentially lead to far worse environmental problems, mining and refinement as well as transport, that would likely outweigh any reductions done through this type of sustainability setting.

I realize that it is complicated and hard to actually do something that is truly sustainable in the long-term, but these measures often ring hollow, if not making the problem worse, if people do not take the time to review whether or not the policies actually help in net.

xxxGUZxxx · June 18

Yeah the menus look like trash

WildRaptorX · June 18

The menu fps drop made me queasy so I logged off. Dramatic but that’s what happened

It’s an eyesore and so jittery.

TheValkyn · June 18

This change is really jarring and delivers a very poor experience. I don’t think not playing the game at all was the desired power consumption reduction method.

I’ve never in my experience played a game that has decided to do this. This was a total waste of dev resources.

Karivaa · June 18

I am experiencing lag because lots of people are playing. Going into the menus all the time is making me dizzy and gave me a headache. I had to log off. Please fix this.

BlueBin · June 18

I have just spent hours trying to reset my forum password just so I can have my say on this.
I’m an avid console and PC player, here since 2015. I’ve ridden all the bumps, I’ll back ZOS until the day I die, but this 30 FPS limit in the menus is HORRID. Please, at least, give us the choice of turning it on and off. I’m being really put off playing on PS5 right now.

Jace669 · June 18

Capping the frame rate at 30fps hurts my eyes and makes me nauseous. The fact that there is no option to restore the frame rate back to its original is stupid - tbh, this is game breaking for me. I am not sure that I will continue playing at the same rate - so if that was the goal, good job.

iRaccoon · June 19

This change is horrendous, it's really jarring going from a smooth 60fps down to 30 when opening any kind of menu. It's even worse when panning or zooming the map, it genuinely messes with my eyes and makes me feel nauseous. I think we can all agree that this change needs reverting asap, or at the very least made optional.

UntilValhalla13 · June 19

This is horrible. Scrolling the map wasn't this bad on the ps4. It definitely shouldn't be on its successor.

https://youtu.be/SOEFidefydg?si=djX9mU7isIH2J75E

SpiritofESO · June 19

Rahuu · June 19

I can see that many have already pointed out what I have also experienced: it’s jarring and headache inducing, this much is obvious and I’ll let others explain in more detail.

The question I have is whether anyone considered home solar panel users? If I have plenty of solar produced electricity with ample battery backup, why am I being throttled at all? Any power saving from reduced GPU usage only affects my battery charge (minimally at that), it has no effect on the environmental impact of retail electricity production.

Why isn’t this new feature optional?

I understand that this is part of a company wide effort to reduce environmental impact, I respect that (ignoring the impact AI has on energy usage), but if I have already done my part in reducing carbon emitting electricity production then why must I also be forced to have my gaming experience impaired when it essentially does nothing for Microsoft’s carbon footprint?

For note; I’m playing on Xbox series X, and I’ve seen that PC users have a simple fix to disable this new feature. That’s all I’m suggesting, a way to turn it off for console if it has no benefit for a specific user.

Keystroke · June 19

Haven’t read full thread, want to add signal for feedback that I have very negative reaction to the changes. It’s giving me a headache and causing eye-strain, please keep menu FPS the same as the game FPS there is already a setting to make everything 30 fps, 60 fps menu is one of most popular mods for Skyrim as well, it feels much better to scroll and UI feels way more response. With the changes, the menus feel laggy. And it’s upsetting I looked through all options and can’t fix it. Please bring back 60 fps menu thanks!

ArchangelIsraphel · June 19

Is there supposed to be a resolution drop on characters within the menus? Because I'm seeing a resolution drop that was never there before on PC.

I'm seeing it on the inventory menu, within the banker/merchant menu on the crows (not happy about that because I spent 10k crowns on those crows due to how much I enjoyed that animation, now my characters facial features are blurry) and I'm seeing it on crown store previews.

I was going to try to get used to the sustainability mode, but with this kind of drop in quality and gameplay experience, I think I'm just going to have to turn it off because it's making the game unenjoyable in multiple ways.

I know this thread is about console, but your PC players are equally upset. Please give us a toggle so that these features can easily be turned off.

Lightyamu · June 19

Logged on today to play the new chapter, instantly grossed out by the menus and thought it was some sort of settings lag. So instead of playing the chapter, I sat here for 20 minutes trying to figure out if this was just me for some reason or some new bug. Little did I know this was actually INTENTIONAL. Practically every gameplay session involved going into the menus to sort my inventory. Every longtime player HAS a massive inventory of items, and now we all have to be massively inconvenienced every time the menu is opened to swap gear, sort consumables, look through materials, partake in PVP, even chat. If I had known ZOS was going to go out of their way to make the entire MMO part of the MMORPG sluggish I would have never preordered the Golden Road chapter, and if it not promptly fixed, I do not expect to even come back to play or pay for anything else going forward. I suppose it's even more environmentally friendly this way right?

ErianaSagewing · June 19

Thank you for opening this thread and listening to players feedback.

I have suffered from migraines for a number of years and take daily medications to help prevent them from occurring. The only problems I have previously experienced when playing ESO have been during some events/trials when many players are fighting together and numerous bright flashes are set off and, the rapid crux circles when the arcanist class was first released. The first is avoidable and the second was thankfully rapidly fixed following player feedback - something I was most grateful for as I do enjoy my arcanist!

Sadly, the recent changes are proving to be another trigger and I can only play for short periods of time and must avoid using the menus and maps as much as possible.

Please can this change be reversed and/or made optional? Whilst I fully support making environmental sustainability features in games and on consoles in general, I am sure the intention was not to negatively impact players health and enjoyment.

Bl4ck7h0rn3 · June 19

This is an awful idea - who came up with it? I honestly thought this was a bug before reading this thread!

The menus are used all the time, and switching between 60fps and 30fps frequently just feels clunky. At least make it a toggle under video settings so we can turn it off if we want to.

If you want to look like you're saving the environment, I'd recommend spending money on making sure your servers are powered by 100% renewable energy, or something else. Don't force this on your players.

schindler · June 19

Using the menu since U42 is an awful experience on PS5.
Lowering framerates in "performance mode" and expecting positive feedback is baffling.
Please implement a way to turn it off.

YORKSHIRE76 · June 19

This is terrible, we spend a lot of time in the menu and looking at the map. It now stutters and is a severe downgrade in quality.
Many of us have current gen consoles for a reason, to enjoy games at their best, not in order to go back to 30fps. Xbox series x already has a power saving function built into it, this is optional, the new feature should be aswell.
Also what is with the constant aura surrounding our health bar? What purpose does it serve? At first I thought I had a buff/debuff, but nope it's just visual clutter for the sake of visual clutter.
It gives the player no information whatsoever, why is it there?

vsrs_au · June 19

Necrotech_Master wrote: »

Tiath wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

...such changes should never be forced on users and should always be optional.

Entirely this.

PC/Mac users have the option of editing an ini file to turn it off.

We're stuck with it on console whether we like it or not, and I know this is subjective and slightly hyperbolic, but it is so horrible that I don't want to play, on a day that a new expansion has released that I was really looking forward to, because the UI is making me queasy.

its not an ini file, its a plain txt file lol

but still annoying that have to modify it at all to turn this setting off

It's a configuration file, the fact that it doesn't have a .ini extension doesn't change that. Also, the *.ini files ARE text files, just with a specific format recognised by the software that loads it.

fizl101 · June 19

Using console UI you need to move through menus alot as we don't have the wide range of shortcut keys to go straight to the group menu/crown store etc. The change in fps when running performance mode between the game world and the menus makes my eyes feel like they are suddenly tired. Its not a nice feeling when you have got used to the constant 60fps framerate

Zethiris · June 19

This change is very awful and just an overall negative across the board. Even selecting Verses and Visions in IA becomes extremely bad. Earlier it extended to the game outside of menus for me as well in one of the West Weald public dungeons. I was running through to complete my quest, pulling the map up ever so often to check my path even with aggro because I was on a tank. After I get to an open room, the gameplay from then on was like playing in molasses. Please revert this completely or make it an off be default, but can turn on if possible mode. While I think the thought was good, the execution takes what is normally an enjoyable experience to me wanting to just stop playing completely. Outside of this the expansion has been great, but this needs to be a priority fix as I can’t imagine newer players will see this as a game they want to play in the future. Elden Ring DLC and FFXIV expansion are next week and man does it look good right now to play over ESO.

SickleCider · June 19

PS5. I have to say I was a little unsettled by how quickly the frame cap, as well as a hitherto unmentioned resolution cap, took place. The resolution cap was particularly awful. Several times in the span of ten minutes of active gameplay my whole screen turned crunchy, just because I'd paused for a moment to look at the silly thing my cats were doing or whatever. It low key jump scared me the first time I turned my eyes back to my screen. 🤣 I support efforts to conserve power but please this is horrifying!

Oh, and I didn't actually notice much difference in the menus, but those have been choppy for me for a long time now. . .

ogmoid · June 19

XBOX EU, Series X : +1 it's remarkably jarring.
Please revert

NerfSeige · June 19

Makes me nauseous, please make it optional. Thanks

WildRaptorX · June 19

Still cannot play because this makes me ill. We use menus so much in the game.

Purchased the deluxe edition and disappointed I don’t feel like playing the new chapter, as the menus are making me ill and nauseous