Should ZOS focus more on cosmetics or combat and performance?

LPapirius

Over the last 5 years or so nearly everyone on my friends list has left the game. Almost all of them cite the same reason.

Specifically, the steady decline in performance and combat balance, while at the same time ZOS producing so much unnecessary and unneeded cosmetic things like style colors, skill styles, and other strictly cosmetic things that don't improve any of the games core mechanics and functioning.

Where do you stand on this issue? What should ZOS be focusing on more, cosmetics or combat, balance and performance?

Over the years ZOS has stated that they have different teams working on these different issues, but clearly what we are getting are very few to no performance improvements while at the same time being bombarded with a seemingly unlimited number of cosmetic options that don't help the games performance. Why hasn't ZOS hired a few more people to focus on the core game mechanics to improve performance, lag, and disconnecting issues?

So why doesn't ZOS hire more people to work on performance and balance issues to balance out this discrepancy?

A good example of this trend over the last 5 plus years is Cyrodiil and vet trials that are virtually unplayable due to lag and other random issues. Cyrodiil has seen nothing in terms of performance improvements or any kind of attention to make the zone more popular and more fun. Meanwhile we've gotten 30-50 style colors and who knows how many skill styles, like the ram to harvest blacksmithing nodes from the last golden pursuit. Don't all these random cosmetic things negatively impact performance in the long run?

Another example is how out of balance ball groups are in Cyrodiil. For years people have been begging for heal and shield stacking to be limited to reign in the undeniable power creep of ball groups in Cyrodiil. How many updates have we had now that have given ZOS a good opportunity to balance free pull sets like Rushing Agony?

Sure, ZOS should be able to do both these things given they're a AAA rated game with a very significant resource pool to pull from, but they've clearly prioritized cosmetics over performance. What we've gotten over the last 5 years or more has been essentially only cosmetic additions to the game with nothing done to improve the games performance, disconnecting and lag issues. Why have performance issues taken a back seat for so long? And do you want to see this primary focus on cosmetics by ZOS to be the continuing trend?

SerafinaWaterstar

Want both. But disagree with you saying:

Cyrodiil and vet trials that are virtually unplayable due to lag and other random issues.

Cyrodiil is in one of the best states it has been in the last 5 years (PSEU) - lag greatly reduced, dc’s reduced, it’s actually fun to play at the moment (ball groups notwithstanding).

Same with trials.

LPapirius

SerafinaWaterstar wrote: »

Want both. But disagree with you saying:

Cyrodiil and vet trials that are virtually unplayable due to lag and other random issues.

Cyrodiil is in one of the best states it has been in the last 5 years (PSEU) - lag greatly reduced, dc’s reduced, it’s actually fun to play at the moment (ball groups notwithstanding).

Same with trials.

Just imagine how bad performance would be if ZOS hadn't slashed the population cap to literally 10% of what it originally was. Or if they hadn't cut the max group size in half as well.

Erickson9610

I'd like an "Other" option in the poll so I can say "both" — there are separate teams working on separate things.

Plus, there's a lot more to this game than just "combat and performance" and "cosmetics". You also have to consider the writing/stories, gameplay systems (like Antiquities and Tales of Tribute), housing, and dozens of other aspects of the game like that. Removing cosmetics wouldn't allocate more resources to combat, or to any other aspect of the game.

LPapirius

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd like an "Other" option in the poll so I can say "both" — there are separate teams working on separate things.

Plus, there's a lot more to this game than just "combat and performance" and "cosmetics". You also have to consider the writing/stories, gameplay systems (like Antiquities and Tales of Tribute), housing, and dozens of other aspects of the game like that. Removing cosmetics wouldn't allocate more resources to combat, or to any other aspect of the game.

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options. I deliberately left out the "other" or "both" options so people would have to answer which matters more to them.

Of course, as I stated in my explanation, there is no reason ZOS can't do both. But they're not doing both and haven't for a long, long time. ZOS is basically only doing cosmetics now days. (ToT, companions, housing etc. all fit into the broad category of cosmetics)

That is why I limited the poll options to just two options. What should ZOS' primary focus be for ESO, cosmetics or performance? In my view the cosmetics don't matter if the game doesn't play fluidly and we are plagued with lag, disconnects and desync's. And I'm confident all these cosmetic things result is poorer performance. ZOS keeps trying to fix things that aren't broken, like the jabs and flurry animations that are so disliked by essentially everyone, yet ZOS won't revert those even though they easily could.

Ishtarknows

I'm only marginally interested in new cosmetics- updated old zones not at all, would love better performance but most of all I want new stuff! New areas to explore, new trials and dungeons, a new combat "thing" be it weapon, skill line or something else.
It's important we get new things or the game will be stale and people will leave. A lot of my friends only log on for team trial nights because they've finished everything else and tbh I only log on to get the daily rewards and do endeavours most days because I too have completed everything else except trials achievements. Putting lipstick on Bal Foyen doesn't change that.

LunaFlora

these things are developed by different teams!
they can do them all

LPapirius

Ishtarknows wrote: »

I'm only marginally interested in new cosmetics- updated old zones not at all, would love better performance but most of all I want new stuff! New areas to explore, new trials and dungeons, a new combat "thing" be it weapon, skill line or something else.
It's important we get new things or the game will be stale and people will leave. A lot of my friends only log on for team trial nights because they've finished everything else and tbh I only log on to get the daily rewards and do endeavours most days because I too have completed everything else except trials achievements. Putting lipstick on Bal Foyen doesn't change that.

New content is needed as well. I very much agree with that. But that discussion is something ZOS appears to have decided on and will let us know what's going on with that sometime next month if they stick to schedule. From what we've heard so far, it looks like we should expect significantly reduced new content going forward. Which makes the cosmetics vs. performance question even more important. In other words, should ZOS keep what they already have in good working order, or should we just keep adding more shiny objects to the game that likely negatively impact performance instead? It doesn't have to be one or the other, but that's how it's played out in recent years.

whitecrow

I care about performance, but honestly I don't have many issues. I think the occasional glitch in this type of game is to be expected. For me, it's not a Problem.

sarahthes

Artists and programmers don't cover each other's jobs within the company. So what you're asking is if they should fire the designers and hire more programmers?

LPapirius

sarahthes wrote: »

Artists and programmers don't cover each other's jobs within the company. So what you're asking is if they should fire the designers and hire more programmers?

Or maybe they just just hire more programmers. Then they could do both.

Erickson9610

LPapirius wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd like an "Other" option in the poll so I can say "both" — there are separate teams working on separate things.

Plus, there's a lot more to this game than just "combat and performance" and "cosmetics". You also have to consider the writing/stories, gameplay systems (like Antiquities and Tales of Tribute), housing, and dozens of other aspects of the game like that. Removing cosmetics wouldn't allocate more resources to combat, or to any other aspect of the game.

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options. I deliberately left out the "other" or "both" options so people would have to answer which matters more to them.

Of course, as I stated in my explanation, there is no reason ZOS can't do both. But they're not doing both and haven't for a long, long time. ZOS is basically only doing cosmetics now days. (ToT, companions, housing etc. all fit into the broad category of cosmetics)

That is why I limited the poll options to just two options. What should ZOS' primary focus be for ESO, cosmetics or performance? In my view the cosmetics don't matter if the game doesn't play fluidly and we are plagued with lag, disconnects and desync's. And I'm confident all these cosmetic things result is poorer performance. ZOS keeps trying to fix things that aren't broken, like the jabs and flurry animations that are so disliked by essentially everyone, yet ZOS won't revert those even though they easily could.

Companions, Tales of Tribute, Housing, and so on are not cosmetics. And further, the "game" in ESO is not just the combat — while most game modes build off of ESO's combat (such as Dungeons, the Infinite Archive, Cyrodiil, Battlegrounds, etc) it is not the only "game" in ESO. The combat aspect of the game is completely irrelevant with Housing, Scrying/Excavating, Fishing, Lockpicking/Justice System, and so on.

It would be more apt to split the poll options into "Combat" and "Non-Combat".

Cazador

I can't really pick either choice since they really aren't mutually exclusive. Also I'd argue that combat and balance aren't inherently connected to performance and that it kind of skews the options one way.

NotaDaedraWorshipper

Different teams work on these things, it isn't a choice between one or the other.

valenwood_vegan

I'd like them to devote more resources to eso, in general. It brought in a lot of cash for them, they could do better.

spartaxoxo

It's literally different teams

JeroenB

To my mind your question has false groupings. 'Combat' and 'performance' are independent aspects, just as 'cosmetics' is independent from both, and all three together cover only a fraction of the game's aspects. I have noticed a decline in performance, and consider that important, but I really don't care about combat, and especially not PvP combat balance. What I care about is interesting new places and stories to explore, for which performance is relevant, but not combat (balance).

I do care about obnoxious flashy glowy cosmetics -- in the sense that I strongly dislike the visual and auditory pollution I must suffer from others even when I avoid using them myself. So if ZOS could focus on a setting to let us tone down the display of other player's cosmetics, I'd support that. (No chance, of course...)

spartaxoxo

LPapirius wrote: »

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options.

Untrue. Good Polls capture the actual opinion of the respondents. Forcing them to pick something else might make the poll outcome go the way you want it to go. But, it will also be a junk poll. Making decisions on junk polls/bad data can have negative consequences.

Renato90085

Both
But I want good ping more

Cazador

Erickson9610 wrote: »

LPapirius wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd like an "Other" option in the poll so I can say "both" — there are separate teams working on separate things.

Plus, there's a lot more to this game than just "combat and performance" and "cosmetics". You also have to consider the writing/stories, gameplay systems (like Antiquities and Tales of Tribute), housing, and dozens of other aspects of the game like that. Removing cosmetics wouldn't allocate more resources to combat, or to any other aspect of the game.

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options. I deliberately left out the "other" or "both" options so people would have to answer which matters more to them.

Of course, as I stated in my explanation, there is no reason ZOS can't do both. But they're not doing both and haven't for a long, long time. ZOS is basically only doing cosmetics now days. (ToT, companions, housing etc. all fit into the broad category of cosmetics)

That is why I limited the poll options to just two options. What should ZOS' primary focus be for ESO, cosmetics or performance? In my view the cosmetics don't matter if the game doesn't play fluidly and we are plagued with lag, disconnects and desync's. And I'm confident all these cosmetic things result is poorer performance. ZOS keeps trying to fix things that aren't broken, like the jabs and flurry animations that are so disliked by essentially everyone, yet ZOS won't revert those even though they easily could.

Companions, Tales of Tribute, Housing, and so on are not cosmetics.

To add on to this part of your comment, companions are essentially much more advanced combat pets. Calling them cosmetics would also imply that 2 sorcerer abilities and 1 warden ability are also just cosmetics.

CalamityCat

I don't think the artists who are making cosmetics are the same people who are trying to boost the game performance. So it's not a case of wanting one thing or the other, as both are different jobs.

As for the impact of new cosmetics, there will be specifications and limits in place that the artists are working to.

If I find myself crashing or lagging in ESO, my first target is always add-ons. I've never had a performance issue that wasn't helped by nuking unnecessary add-ons.

DeadlySerious

CalamityCat wrote: »

I don't think the artists who are making cosmetics are the same people who are trying to boost the game performance. So it's not a case of wanting one thing or the other, as both are different jobs.

As for the impact of new cosmetics, there will be specifications and limits in place that the artists are working to.

If I find myself crashing or lagging in ESO, my first target is always add-ons. I've never had a performance issue that wasn't helped by nuking unnecessary add-ons.

Right. It's a case of ZOS prioritizing cosmetics over performance and not hiring enough programmers to keep the game running smoothly without disconnects, lag and desyncs. I mean heck, they have a grand total of one guy devoted to PvP and combat, and we all saw how lacking that person was during the BG live stream a couple months back. So it's blatantly obvious we would benefit from more programmers working on performance and game mechanics.

DeadlySerious

spartaxoxo wrote: »

LPapirius wrote: »

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options.

Untrue. Good Polls capture the actual opinion of the respondents. Forcing them to pick something else might make the poll outcome go the way you want it to go. But, it will also be a junk poll. Making decisions on junk polls/bad data can have negative consequences.

Actually it is true. Ideally a poll would have one very clear question with two very clear answers; yes or no. That way the results are clear and definitive. (as this poll is shaking out to be so far)

sarahthes

DeadlySerious wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

I don't think the artists who are making cosmetics are the same people who are trying to boost the game performance. So it's not a case of wanting one thing or the other, as both are different jobs.

As for the impact of new cosmetics, there will be specifications and limits in place that the artists are working to.

If I find myself crashing or lagging in ESO, my first target is always add-ons. I've never had a performance issue that wasn't helped by nuking unnecessary add-ons.

Right. It's a case of ZOS prioritizing cosmetics over performance and not hiring enough programmers to keep the game running smoothly without disconnects, lag and desyncs. I mean heck, they have a grand total of one guy devoted to PvP and combat, and we all saw how lacking that person was during the BG live stream a couple months back. So it's blatantly obvious we would benefit from more programmers working on performance and game mechanics.

One person devoted to PvP and combat???

That guy is a manager with teams under him.

DeadlySerious

sarahthes wrote: »

DeadlySerious wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

I don't think the artists who are making cosmetics are the same people who are trying to boost the game performance. So it's not a case of wanting one thing or the other, as both are different jobs.

As for the impact of new cosmetics, there will be specifications and limits in place that the artists are working to.

If I find myself crashing or lagging in ESO, my first target is always add-ons. I've never had a performance issue that wasn't helped by nuking unnecessary add-ons.

Right. It's a case of ZOS prioritizing cosmetics over performance and not hiring enough programmers to keep the game running smoothly without disconnects, lag and desyncs. I mean heck, they have a grand total of one guy devoted to PvP and combat, and we all saw how lacking that person was during the BG live stream a couple months back. So it's blatantly obvious we would benefit from more programmers working on performance and game mechanics.

One person devoted to PvP and combat???

That guy is a manager with teams under him.

Ok, so how many people does ZOS have working on PvP and combat then?

It's undeniable ZOS needs more teams or more people working on performance issues irregardless of how you parse this discussion.

spartaxoxo

DeadlySerious wrote: »

Actually it is true. Ideally a poll would have one very clear question with two very clear answers; yes or no. That way the results are clear and definitive. (as this poll is shaking out to be so far)

I'm going to quote myself a little here as this has come on this forum before.

"Forced-Choice" in polling is when a survey is created that limits the number of options that a person can choose. This can sometimes lead to different types of response bias such as acquiescence bias (people just agreeing even though the response does not accurately capture their opinion), especially when the forced choices does not accurately allow for respondents to convey an opinion that is more complex than the forced choices allowed. This is why it is often not a good idea to make a poll using only yes/no responses, it can lead to response bias in your data set.

Image from "A Catalog of Biases in Questionnaires"



Source:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1323316/#:~:text=Forced choice (also known as insufficient category). Questions

Microsoft Copilot wrote:

Forced-choice bias. When respondents are only given a limited set of options (like “yes” or “no”) without the opportunity to express other opinions or nuances, it can skew the results and not accurately reflect the respondents’ true feelings or thoughts.

ETA

In this case, you have multiple respondents letting you know they could not select an option that accurately reflected their opinion. So, we know that there is a good chance this poll is skewed and the results may not accurately reflect the opinions of the people being polled. That's before we also consider accuracy issues with the poll in the first place, since these are different teams.

AvalonRanger

I don't want "unwelcome design mount or unwelcome design costume reward of GP endeavour ".
I also don't want nonsense combat aspect of ESO which never changes through this decade.

kargen27

LPapirius wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd like an "Other" option in the poll so I can say "both" — there are separate teams working on separate things.

Plus, there's a lot more to this game than just "combat and performance" and "cosmetics". You also have to consider the writing/stories, gameplay systems (like Antiquities and Tales of Tribute), housing, and dozens of other aspects of the game like that. Removing cosmetics wouldn't allocate more resources to combat, or to any other aspect of the game.

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options. I deliberately left out the "other" or "both" options so people would have to answer which matters more to them.

A good poll seeks to get a good representation of the overall population. If most the population doesn't care and there isn't a don't care option the poll will be skewed and not representative of how the general population feels.

A narrative being stated before the poll can also taint the results. You did ask which of the two would we prefer so that is fair. To be really informative a follow-up poll would need to be presented to cover some of the other options.

Going with real life example I used to get calls asking me which of two candidates I would vote for. When I said third party they would often say but if you had to pick one of the two...
Thing is I didn't have to pick one of the two and the poll not recognizing that option would cause the poll to not be accurate.

Cazador

I feel it's worth pointing out that since the op stated they considered things like Tales of Tribute, Housing and companions to be under the umbrella term cosmetics and are pitting it against three separate highly specific options presented as one it makes the options extremely unequal. When you have a 1v3 as your two options as well as opening with the author's opinion it kind of presents one option as definitively correct and one as totally wrong.

CalamityCat

DeadlySerious wrote: »

CalamityCat wrote: »

I don't think the artists who are making cosmetics are the same people who are trying to boost the game performance. So it's not a case of wanting one thing or the other, as both are different jobs.

As for the impact of new cosmetics, there will be specifications and limits in place that the artists are working to.

If I find myself crashing or lagging in ESO, my first target is always add-ons. I've never had a performance issue that wasn't helped by nuking unnecessary add-ons.

Right. It's a case of ZOS prioritizing cosmetics over performance and not hiring enough programmers to keep the game running smoothly without disconnects, lag and desyncs. I mean heck, they have a grand total of one guy devoted to PvP and combat, and we all saw how lacking that person was during the BG live stream a couple months back. So it's blatantly obvious we would benefit from more programmers working on performance and game mechanics.

I see it as several issues. I'd expect artists to be paid less than experienced programmers. It's also something that can be really quick if you are re-texturing say a new mount colour or have a base outfit 3D model you can tweak into a "new" design. Especially with all the existing models and art in ESO already. Where to fix a performance issue (I imagine) involves a lot of poking around code you probably didn't write, maybe without useful comments so you can easily find the relevant bits to change, and players don't tend to see the failed attempts where your fix didn't work but you spent hours trying.

I honestly don't know though, I'm an artist not a coder so this is purely guesswork. I'd hope some income from cosmetic item sales goes towards coding for better performance, but I wouldn't want to try working with ten years worth of game code to make it run better

Erickson9610

Cazador wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

LPapirius wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I'd like an "Other" option in the poll so I can say "both" — there are separate teams working on separate things.

Plus, there's a lot more to this game than just "combat and performance" and "cosmetics". You also have to consider the writing/stories, gameplay systems (like Antiquities and Tales of Tribute), housing, and dozens of other aspects of the game like that. Removing cosmetics wouldn't allocate more resources to combat, or to any other aspect of the game.

Good polls force the respondent to take a stance, not waffle between a bunch of different options. I deliberately left out the "other" or "both" options so people would have to answer which matters more to them.

Of course, as I stated in my explanation, there is no reason ZOS can't do both. But they're not doing both and haven't for a long, long time. ZOS is basically only doing cosmetics now days. (ToT, companions, housing etc. all fit into the broad category of cosmetics)

That is why I limited the poll options to just two options. What should ZOS' primary focus be for ESO, cosmetics or performance? In my view the cosmetics don't matter if the game doesn't play fluidly and we are plagued with lag, disconnects and desync's. And I'm confident all these cosmetic things result is poorer performance. ZOS keeps trying to fix things that aren't broken, like the jabs and flurry animations that are so disliked by essentially everyone, yet ZOS won't revert those even though they easily could.

Companions, Tales of Tribute, Housing, and so on are not cosmetics.

To add on to this part of your comment, companions are essentially much more advanced combat pets. Calling them cosmetics would also imply that 2 sorcerer abilities and 1 warden ability are also just cosmetics.

Yeah, it's really strange because Companions directly play into the combat system of ESO. They can heal/buff allies, deal damage to enemies, and block/taunt/interrupt.

I suppose that because they can't be used in all modes with combat (such as Cyrodiil or full Trial groups) that they're a cosmetic feature somehow?? Is it just because they can be customized in a way similar to the player?