People always assuming the worst.

TX12001rwb17_ESO

This is a major problem with the player base, everyone likes to make assumptions, they think because of this content release change that it is somehow bad, if ZOS just released another expansion it would just be the same old thing over and over again, it would be 1 or 2 zones, 6 Delves, 6 World Bosses, 2 Public Dungeons,1 Trial and a new feature you might not even bother with like Tales of Tribute, is this what you really want again for the 8th year in a row?

I for one am pleased ZOS is going to try something different, with smaller self-contained DLCs we might see things more akin to the Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood and Murkmire DLCs, we could see the smaller areas of the map filled that would be too small for expansion zones such as Central Elsweyr, this has the potential for more interesting stories and content when it is no longer reliant on being connected to an overarching story.

Punches_Below_Belt

The cadence provided a clear set of expectations the players especially subscribers could rely on to make decisions about spending money on ESO. I will not be renewing my subscriptions at least until April when they can be bothered to clarify what content will be included and what will require additional money.

moderatelyfatman

Do you think this is a result of past performance being an indicator of things to come?

When CDPR came out with Cyberpunk 2077, it was a technical disaster. However, they had a track record of producing excellent games and were able to keep their promise to fix the game.

Baldur's Gate 3 was buggy as hell (particularly Act 3) when it first came out but Larian said they would fix their bugs and were able to do so.

In contrast: look at ESO, how many '20XX is the year we will be fixing out bugs' have their been? We've also had two years of relatively empty Q3/4 which were supposed to be focussed on bug fixing, QoL and performance. How has that worked out so far?

Players are not being negative, only realistic. Unless ZOS were announcing that they were going to recode significant parts of the game from scratch to fix this issue, all I see are empty words designed to fool newer players.

Vonnegut2506

This last year has given us the chapter with the least amount of content, companions added to the crown store, a $20 reskin of the sorcerer pet which is worse than the original, a housing update that was underwhelming for most, a PvP update that a whole bunch dislike, some of the worst game performance in the history of the game, an Anniversary event that was so heavily RNG dependent that some people had to take an extended break from the game due to farming burnout, and a developer letter that was tone deaf to all the bad that 2024 brought.

It's pretty easy to see why some people don't assume the worst anymore, they just expect it.

Ragnarok0130

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

This is a major problem with the player base, everyone likes to make assumptions, they think because of this content release change that it is somehow bad, if ZOS just released another expansion it would just be the same old thing over and over again, it would be 1 or 2 zones, 6 Delves, 6 World Bosses, 2 Public Dungeons,1 Trial and a new feature you might not even bother with like Tales of Tribute, is this what you really want again for the 8th year in a row?

I for one am pleased ZOS is going to try something different, with smaller self-contained DLCs we might see things more akin to the Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood and Murkmire DLCs, we could see the smaller areas of the map filled that would be too small for expansion zones such as Central Elsweyr, this has the potential for more interesting stories and content when it is no longer reliant on being connected to an overarching story.

We often assume the worst because we've been here for 10 years and have seen the patterns repeat themselves over and over and over. ZoS then does what we fear, the forums explode in a mixture of bewilderment, shock, anger, and whiteknighting - then after a long dev silence and a plethora of "snips" and bans here in the forums and deleted live stream comments the devs announce they are "listening and taking feedback into account" and then nothing ever changes or we get an U35. All the while Cyro remains in an abysmal state, the in game rewards system remains in the basement, but the crown store is running smoothly with fresh new sparkly skins and mounts offered at a more than premium amount of crowns at a fast content release cadence. Yes long time players are jaded and suspicious from experience and justly so.

Erickson9610

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

This is a major problem with the player base, everyone likes to make assumptions, they think because of this content release change that it is somehow bad, if ZOS just released another expansion it would just be the same old thing over and over again, it would be 1 or 2 zones, 6 Delves, 6 World Bosses, 2 Public Dungeons,1 Trial and a new feature you might not even bother with like Tales of Tribute, is this what you really want again for the 8th year in a row?

I for one am pleased ZOS is going to try something different, with smaller self-contained DLCs we might see things more akin to the Thieves Guild, Dark Brotherhood and Murkmire DLCs, we could see the smaller areas of the map filled that would be too small for expansion zones such as Central Elsweyr, this has the potential for more interesting stories and content when it is no longer reliant on being connected to an overarching story.

I'm personally looking forward to the new content release cadence, but without the guarantee that we will get updates to old features every year, my outlook is a bit mixed. Of course I'd love to see new Tales of Tribute decks, new Companions to recruit, new Mythic item sets to unearth, and so on — but we aren't guaranteed to get those every year anymore. Hopefully this means that whatever new Tales of Tribute decks, new Companions, and so on have had more time to be polished.

Of course, this is a means to allow ZOS to introduce new features that will receive updates as time goes on, without being bogged down by the requirement of having to update all of the old features every Q2 as well. I hope we get another large update to Scribing relatively soon, though, since that's a relatively new system!

Darkstorne

Remember that end of year letter from three years ago where Firor told us they were skipping a Q4 zone that one year to provide a QoL and bugfix update instead, just like we'd all been asking for? As though all the writers and artists shift gear to bug fixing instead rather than that being a dedicated role? Yeah...

And we lost two dungeon packs a year to drop to a single dungeon pack. Which means ESO+ dropped in value from two dungeon packs and a story/exploration zone per year to... a single dungeon pack.

But they always spin these letters with "we're listening and giving you what you asked for!"

"We listened to you all saying the Chapters were a bit rigid with their content design, so now you'll get zone content in the future. Eventually. At some point. We'll keep you posted! And we'll try out some new features specifically marked as 'experimental' so you can't get mad if they don't work. But remember, you asked for this!"

Matt, just treat us all like adults instead of simpletons and let us know the new MMO is doing great but needs all the manpower it can get. I wish you all the best of luck with it, but end-of-year messages with this much spin are the main reason I've lost so much faith in this team. The messaging is just god awful, and feels like a failing politician trying to talk their way out of bad news with a massive grin plastered across their face.

sarahthes

I'm just skeptical that they'll actually deliver.

MidniteOwl1913

sarahthes wrote: »

I'm just skeptical that they'll actually deliver.

Yes, anything at all. Another round of hype and then "home tours" isn't something I'm looking forward to.

Artem_gig

I am very surprised that the developers literally said what the community asked for every year, but as soon as the developers started doing it, everyone immediately started complaining that that's it, the game is dying, no more content... And how do you think they should add these updates that players asked for so much without slowing down the pace of annual release of chapters? And why did everyone suddenly decide that this is forever, they also said that this is in order to do everything that has long been asked for, so I think that after they implement everything they were supposed to, the annual system will return to us. however, most likely we will have to wait another 3-5 years for this.

IncultaWolf

I'm excited for it, the release schedule was getting too predictable and stale.

colossalvoids

Honestly that's about to be expected.

When some audience starts to see they're not the main focus next year it's a riot, even after being the ultimate focus for years and ignoring other massive communities for a time. I'd hope they'll use the time right before returning to their usual new player centered view point and abandon next year's principles again, it's always a cycle.

Madarc

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

This is a major problem with the player base, everyone likes to make assumptions, they think because of this content release change that it is somehow bad,........

No, .. This is definitely not a problem with the player base, this is something that players assume because they have known ZOS for a long time. And sometimes, despite all the promises not being kept, or only being kept very late, they are not exactly happy.

And of course players make assumptions. You usually do that when you really like a game and would like to know what will happen next.


P.S.:Of course: People often assumed the worst, and sometimes it was even topped.
Bugs or technical problems can happen. But it would have been more beneficial for ZOS to talk about it openly than to keep quiet about it. Mistakes are rarely admitted, on the other hand, small things are also exaggerated and even in this end-of-year letter, the first thing that is written about is the past year, which was "absolutely great, the right decision and necessary, etc."

I really like all the people there and believe that most of them still do their job with a lot of passion. If they want to share this, then they should engage with their community more often, more openly and more honestly (and not just once a year). Don't we deserve that after many years as customers, or newcomers who invest a lot of money? That could be one of the ways to keep loyal fans and customers.

wolfie1.0.

i am tired and exhausted of being disappointed with how changes work out.

As a result, the most positive i can be when it comes to changes is "wait and see" . That way, if it turns out really good, or jsut good i am not disappointed.

licenturion

Darkstorne wrote: »

"we're listening and giving you what you asked for!"

Seeing the amount of backlash this is generating, if they really care about their players, they do a follow up communication with more information and a breakdown of the new structure in the coming days.

If they don't care at all, they let us hang until April and probably get people mad a second time.

NotNi.ya

They haven't given people much proof they can pull anything off tbh. I'm just waiting for the "sorry post" after the first season thing drops

TwiceBornStar

licenturion wrote: »

Seeing the amount of backlash this is generating

The amount of backlash this is generating: 13 posts in this thread. To put things in perspective: There are hundreds if not thousands of people online right now, playing the game, and they all have different opinions. I for one, think it's a bit silly to be negative about something I haven't experienced yet.

I'm reading Matt's letter and correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm thinking he's addressing a lot of issues that have been talked about for ages, so to me that actually looks like a whole bunch of good news!

..and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one!

LatentBuzzard

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

CalamityCat

I prefer to see the specifics before I complain about things that might never happen.But I've also been a jaded long term player in other MMOs, so I understand the pessimism too. My mindset is that I play for fun, so if it stops being fun I move on. Likewise if it's too expensive.

I'm genuinely looking forward to seeing how the whole seasons thing will work in ESO. I definitely support updating and adding new content to the older existing areas, rather than adding areas for the sake of it. I'm currently training a few characters and being reminded how many lovely old areas and characters there are in the base game.

Slight tangent...I secretly hope Stuga can make another appearance, I'd find it hilarious if she rushed into a new encounter and accosted me. She always made me laugh when I was a noob. I'd love her as a houseguest - a long-suffering messenger with the option for her to rush up to guests and say "do you know how long I've been looking for you?!" and drop a sack of messages at their feet.

I look forward to the PvP specific skills, especially if this also means there are less visually intensive versions of skills. I would LOVE if there was a set of really basic visuals for skills that I could switch to in PvE too. Less animated, controls to tone down how bright the colours are etc. Both as a performance boost and to make it easier to see what's going on during trials and dungeon fights too.

I would also hope that future changes can be made to balance either PvP or PvE without having to negatively affect the other. If skills and gear can be created with different properties for PvP/PvE, I think that would be a better way forward.

Overall, it sounds like comments from the community have been taken on board and there will be some experiments coming our way, rather than repeating the same release schedule and methods. I think that's a good way forward.

the1andonlyskwex

If they don't want us to react negatively, they should probably avoid using a loaded term like "seasons". Seasons can take a lot of different forms in gaming, but those forms all have one thing in common, some amount of monetized FOMO.

ZOS has at least clarified that they won't be retiring seasonal "content" like some games, but that doesn't mean they won't be offering battle passes or other types of time-limited seasonal rewards (or activities).

We even have a preview of what this new seasonal treadmill is going to look like in the form of the current Golden Pursuits. They're basically a free battle pass that forces grinding of specific content that people wouldn't otherwise choose to do (because they don't find it fun), just to get exclusive time-limited cosmetics.

If all they were doing was getting rid of chapters and replacing them with smaller, less regular content drops, they would have picked a different word for their new model.

licenturion

TwiceBornStar wrote: »

licenturion wrote: »

Seeing the amount of backlash this is generating

The amount of backlash this is generating: 13 posts in this thread. To put things in perspective: There are hundreds if not thousands of people online right now, playing the game, and they all have different opinions. I for one, think it's a bit silly to be negative about something I haven't experienced yet.

Well there are new threads about this every hour, some even have 10 pages. Same with Reddit.

Either way, we will see how it goes.

There are other games that switched to a seasonal model and those games had the lowest player counts ever in there entire existence after that. We will see how it goes here.

This year has been the least I have played and spend money anyway since there is already a lack of new exciting content I enjoy (new unique zones, stories, dungeons, trials, delves with new regions/music/assets). So it will even get worse from here for players like me if most stuff will just get re-used). MMO's that have zero new content like this tend to have a significant drop in player numbers. Look at New World for instance. They added only 1 zone in 3 years and kept reworking the existing ones. They went from 900 000 users to a consistent 4000 users due to PvE content drought and a seasonal story/grindfest model.

manukartofanu

Artem_gig wrote: »

I am very surprised that the developers literally said what the community asked for every year, but as soon as the developers started doing it, everyone immediately started complaining that that's it, the game is dying, no more content... And how do you think they should add these updates that players asked for so much without slowing down the pace of annual release of chapters? And why did everyone suddenly decide that this is forever, they also said that this is in order to do everything that has long been asked for, so I think that after they implement everything they were supposed to, the annual system will return to us. however, most likely we will have to wait another 3-5 years for this.

A few voices isn't the community.

Cooperharley

Yea there’s about 4-5 people on the forums that are pissed at all times no matter what. The forums is full of super unhappy people for sure.

I’m definitely excited based on what was said in the letter

Ingenon

There is a saying "hope for the best and prepare for the worst".

Separately,

Darkstorne wrote: »

Matt, just treat us all like adults instead of simpletons and let us know the new MMO is doing great but needs all the manpower it can get.

In my experience, when a business takes many resources from an existing project to work harder on a new project, that doesn't mean the new project is doing great. It means the new project is behind schedule, and in danger of failing. Anyone else remember Fallout 76 taking resources from Starfield? How did that play out for both projects?

Tommy_The_Gun

In my case, lets just say, there is a reason why I usually assume the worst - especially when it comes to live service games with micro transactions. It all boils down to personal experience when it comes to game industry and what has occurred in lets say between last 2.5 decade (2000 - 2024). And current trends are not making things any better...

kringled_1

People commonly make worst or near worst case assumptions about upcoming change when they don't have much information about it. It's not particularly unique to the eso community or even online games.

Gaebriel0410

It gets exhausting really really fast.

You can't even open youtube without being bombarded with videos of people ranting about how game x is dying / bad.

LadyGP

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

i am tired and exhausted of being disappointed with how changes work out.

As a result, the most positive i can be when it comes to changes is "wait and see" . That way, if it turns out really good, or jsut good i am not disappointed.

I respect this mindset.

My thoughts - give ZoS a chance. It can't really get much worse in it's current state. Server performance is a disaster ATM.

loosej

Gaebriel0410 wrote: »

It gets exhausting really really fast.

You can't even open youtube without being bombarded with videos of people ranting about how game x is dying / bad.

You should stop clicking on them, I don't see any of those in my youtube feed.

Vrienda

They've been using the 'fixing cyrodiil' excuse for like 8 of the last 10 years. They've not been able to do it yet it's still at the forefront of their promises. We have no reason to believe anything but the worst (That be development on ESO is winding down as they prepare to move on for good).

Desiato

Artem_gig wrote: »

I am very surprised that the developers literally said what the community asked for every year, but as soon as the developers started doing it, everyone immediately started complaining that that's it, the game is dying, no more content...

The community isn't a single entity or hive mind, so this characterization isn't really valid. I doubt many, if any, have suddenly changed their positions.

ESO has an incredibly diverse audience, so no matter what ZOS does, they are likely to upset someone.

It's fair for people to be worried. I'm making an effort to avoid jumping to conclusions, but many of us have read letters like this before and they don't always herald change we would prefer.