What do you think ZOS is currently/should be/could realistically be working on right now?

Erickson9610

What do you think ZOS...

1. is currently working on right now?
2. should be working on right now?
3. could realistically work on right now?

I'll list my answers to the above as an example:

1. ZOS is probably currently working on the Season of the Worm Cult story content, as well as preparing for the upcoming Vengeance test. They likely already have next year's major feature and story in mind as well.
2. I think ZOS should be working on a new batch of Grimoires to go along with the release of Scribing to the base game, as well as an update to the Infinite Archive to add the third Class Set now that Subclassing lets us use individual skill lines. Hopefully Class Sets become unlocked so we can make use of these Class Sets on any character.
3. I think — for the next update — ZOS could realistically fit in some quality of life updates, like stackable Treasure Maps, since they recently introduced tech to allow Master Writs to stack. Maybe there can be a setting to automatically move furniture to your Furnishing Vault, rather than to your inventory. I'd love to see some work on performance updates, but I'm not sure if those will be ready by next update.

Freelancer_ESO

I could be mistaken but, I think that ZOS is frequently working far ahead of what is actually being released because going from concept to implementation appears to take a very long time.

Needless to say, if accurate this puts a significant damper on the ability to adjust on the fly.

AngryPenguin

Erickson9610 wrote: »

What do you think ZOS...

1. is currently working on right now?
2. should be working on right now?
3. could realistically work on right now?

I'll list my answers to the above as an example:

1. ZOS is probably currently working on the Seasons of the Worm Cult story content, as well as preparing for the upcoming Vengeance test. They likely already have next year's major feature and story in mind as well.
2. I think ZOS should be working on a new batch of Grimoires to go along with the release of Scribing to the base game, as well as an update to the Infinite Archive to add the third Class Set now that Subclassing lets us use individual skill lines. Hopefully Class Sets become unlocked so we can make use of these Class Sets on any character.
3. I think — for the next update — ZOS could realistically fit in some quality of life updates, like stackable Treasure Maps, since they recently introduced tech to allow Master Writs to stack. Maybe there can be a setting to automatically move furniture to your Furnishing Vault, rather than to your inventory. I'd love to see some work on performance updates, but I'm not sure if those will be ready by next update.

1- What takes the least investment to keep the game in the + column financially
2- Restoring Cyrodiil PvP to it's former glory
3- Restoring Cyrodiil PvP to it's former glory (they've already divested in their PvE output, so it's logical to invest further into repeatable content that draws a lot of players and requires minimal dev inputs)

fizzybeef

crossplay is what they should be working on

Cooperharley

1. Story content for the rest of the year, story content for next year, crossplay, cyrodiil's vengeance campaign, etc.

2. Veteran player retention more so than new player attraction. We've established that they're good at attracting new players, but vet players are still leaving in droves.

3. Implementing reward structure to PvE/PvP that's actually enticing/exciting, allowing for account-wide sharing of outfit slots/armory slots/mount training/crown stores skill line skips/etc.

Northwold

Continue working on the new player experience. Which probably isn't high up on the list for forum regulars but is crucial to the long term health of the game IMO.

The game is still very, very complex and things that long term players would think nothing of are incredibly confusing to, and therefore alienating to, new players because there is insufficient explanation and guidance and, indeed, contradictory explanation and guidance.

LunaFlora

put simply
1. Elder Scrolls Online.
2. Elder Scrolls Online.
3. Elder Scrolls Online.

more detailed
1. i think ZOS is working on updates 47, 48, 49, 50, and probably 51+ even if not as much on one compared to the other.
The next big system (like Scribing, Antiquities, Subclassing) is probably being worked on.
Perhaps they're making furniture and item sets for update 48, no idea how long that takes but that likely won't go to PTS until September so pretty probable.

A Companion update is something i hope they're working on, new quests that incorporate the new dialogue options so it doesn't have to be strictly companion romance.

2. i think they should be working on,
more accessibility. Overall accessibility, but especially related to strobing/flashing effects. Like a toggle and intensity sliders for them.
Plus better text visibility for chat overlay, subtitles and nametags (a background with an opacity slider from 0-100%).

3. i think they could realistically work on right now,
probably all of the above. but that doesn't mean i believe it will realistically be in update 47 or 48.
They have different teams for different things so these things could realistically be worked on at the same time.

dark_hunterxmg

IS: probably developing content to fill out the year with story lines and gear and a batch of nerfs to combat the power spike that occured.

Should: fixing the heavy attack bug.

Realistically: all of the above.

Zodiarkslayer

fizzybeef wrote: »

crossplay is what they should be working on

They Do! In the A kinda Funny podcast Matt Firor said so himself: "We really want to do crosspaly! We really want to do it! I swear, this is something that we understand is very important to players. We want to do it. And try na figure out a way to do it."

The quote is from around 27:00 mins. Start a little earlier to understand the context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADaBPspkAL8

MISTFORMBZZZ

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

crossplay is what they should be working on

They Do! In the A kinda Funny podcast Matt Firor said so himself: "We really want to do crosspaly! We really want to do it! I swear, this is something that we understand is very important to players. We want to do it. And try na figure out a way to do it."

The quote is from around 27:00 mins. Start a little earlier to understand the context.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADaBPspkAL8

Unfortunatily still sounds vague and doesnt state its a priority, thought imo its urgently needed.
But glad they adressing it

barney2525

I like their chicken wing sauce, but it needs a bit of zing. Maybe a hotter spice, but without losing the flavor.

Islyn

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

IS: probably developing content to fill out the year with story lines and gear and a batch of nerfs to combat the power spike that occured.

Should: fixing the heavy attack bug.

Realistically: all of the above.

Been away - what bug - link please? Thank you!

Northwold

josefcifkaeb17_ESO wrote: »

[snip]

Because writers who both want to write for and who write superlatively within the constraints of an ongoing MMO are ten a penny, obviously...

The writing recently has not been great. But I do think people ignore that you cannot just bark at someone to write better while ignoring how the product is made. Games are not novels. They are not even TV shows. And in ESO at least it's not the writers who get to dictate the priorities.

[edited to remove quote]

Ulvich

I think they should just stop working on everything and start fixing some of these annoying bugs. How long have we had the Stuck in Combat bug? 10 plus years? Nothing worse then having run across Cyrodiil because you can't mount.

langewapper

ball groups in PVP ?

XSTRONG

1. I think Zos are working on content for year 2026 but still have a smaller group that looks at content being released during 2025 bugs, what did players like or not like, do they need to fix anything until next update.

I also think Zos heavily investing in new Crownstore items all during the year, and they are probably working on Crossplay it would be strange if they didnt.

2. I think Zos should be focusing on making the content aldready in game more interesting with new rewards and stuff for dungeons, arenas, PvP etc etc.. and Crossplay!

3. I think alot of the money that ESO brings goes to development of their new game one way or another.

Northwold

josefcifkaeb17_ESO wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

josefcifkaeb17_ESO wrote: »

[snip]

Because writers who both want to write for and who write superlatively within the constraints of an ongoing MMO are ten a penny, obviously...

The writing recently has not been great. But I do think people ignore that you cannot just bark at someone to write better while ignoring how the product is made. Games are not novels. They are not even TV shows. And in ESO at least it's not the writers who get to dictate the priorities.

[snip]

Mmos are not a story first medium. That simply isn't how it works. They are not books.

So why don't you give it a go. Write a story that has to run through eight different sections, cannot change the world in any material way, needs to feature characters A B and C, needs to be consistent whether players start it midway through or at the beginning, needs to feature lore aspects X, Y, Z, must not alter the world at its conclusion, must feature elements that allow gameplay styles D, E, F, must feature different styles of dialogue each of which ultimately return to the same conclusion, must not include more than G lines of dialogue, must not require more than H number of environments, and so on. Deliver it within two months then turn to the next, turn back for changes required because we've decided to change I, J and K.

Good luck.

[edited to remove quote]

mrreow

Northwold wrote: »

cut

Then why are we even focusing on the story content if it cannot be good? Clockwork city was great somehow anyway. I think you are setting your bar too low.

But… if what you say was true even though it isn’t considering there was good story in eso previously, then why focus on the story content and not on the multiplayer grouping stuff?

Help me make sense of it

“Our stories cannot be good (anymore) therefore we will prioritise them as main content” doesn’t make much sense to me

Besides there is LOTRO on the other side with even more constraints of whole book series happening in parallel and their stories are whole two tiers above recent eso. Somehow.

So why it cannot be done in eso exactly anymore again?

Northwold

mrreow wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

cut

So why are we even focusing on the story content if it cannot be good? Clockwork city was great somehow anyway. I think you are setting your bar too low.

But… if what you say was true even though it isn’t considering there was good story in eso previously, then why focus on the story content and not on the usual grouping stuff?

Help me make sense of it

“Our stories cannot be good (anymore) therefore we will prioritise them as main content” doesn’t make much sense to me

I didn't say it can't be good. I have in the past posted some pretty blunt remarks on the writing. But simply saying "fire everyone and hire good people because there are loads" is facile, unconstructive and plain not true. There are ways to make the writing better. One very major one was abandoning or at least loosening the previous "year of" structure which was making it structurally impossible to do good stories because they had to break in the middle then the denouement had to be playable independently of the build up(!!!). An MMO really isn't a book and the writing will be subject to a lot of constraints that would never, ever come in a book. You can't pin this all at the writers' door without recognising the difficulties of the medium and that sometimes the way to improve writing might be to improve the overall process of game development -- and where writing is slotted into it.

mrreow

Well I don’t really care how they can arrive at the outcome of enjoyable story and game. That is their craft, not mine. I am merely a consumer eating the final product. And the final product hasn’t been that great lately, story wise.

I still like this bakery and I hope they are good again but right now I am buying my bread in a different one.

Deimus

1. The rest of this year's and next year's dlc, whatever system is tied to it, and cosmetic/crown store items.

2. Subclass balancing, RoA cooldown to be higher and give cc immunity, removing heal/shield stacking from PvP.

3. By next patch they could fix the obnoxious set RoA to give cc immunity and have at least a 20 second cooldown, but they won't even though there are dozens of threads about it they'd rather let it pull you through walls and at 90 degree angles than have it follow the rules for cc. Realistic thing they might actually do is move the Unknown Master Writs from the Miscellaneous tab to the Master Writs tab.

XSTRONG

I remember Matt Firor saying in Kinda funny podcast that " Eso is not a game, its a place "

So apperntly top devs In Zos dont think Eso is a game anymore.

Gaebriel0410

I am not counting bugs or fixes, since I assume every game studio works on that all the time. I have no clue how software development works, so take me with a grain of salt.

1) Things that we see in a year or two, and open world difficulty options (it was mentioned in some recent stream).

2) Whatever makes most sense to improve the overall game. They could hugely improve fishing (I hate fishing in any game) and I'd be happy with it, since there's gonna be a whole bunch of players who love it and I'm not the main character.

3) Everything related to skill styles. From my perspective it seems like the easiest win. Make colour swaps for all possible skills (so that all have all the same colours available) and make them unlocks for various achievements. Probably a relatively simple thing to implement. Instant new stuff for players to hunt, and almost everyone likes unlocking things. Ensures people go to a variety of zones to get that matching colour for their setup.

xylena_lazarow

spell dyes

adding meatbag siege engines to Vengeance

Tazzy

What do you think ZOS...

is currently working on right now? - designing much greater and more colorful Flappys for selling them in the crown store.
should be working on right now? - designing much smaller Flappys or give others the possibility to make them invisable.
could realistically work on right now? - A skill to fight annoying Flappys (...and sell this skill in the crown store...)

Pixiepumpkin

Elder Scrolls Online, not sharing the dev team with their new IP mmo.

reazea

AngryPenguin wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

What do you think ZOS...

1. is currently working on right now?
2. should be working on right now?
3. could realistically work on right now?

I'll list my answers to the above as an example:

1. ZOS is probably currently working on the Seasons of the Worm Cult story content, as well as preparing for the upcoming Vengeance test. They likely already have next year's major feature and story in mind as well.
2. I think ZOS should be working on a new batch of Grimoires to go along with the release of Scribing to the base game, as well as an update to the Infinite Archive to add the third Class Set now that Subclassing lets us use individual skill lines. Hopefully Class Sets become unlocked so we can make use of these Class Sets on any character.
3. I think — for the next update — ZOS could realistically fit in some quality of life updates, like stackable Treasure Maps, since they recently introduced tech to allow Master Writs to stack. Maybe there can be a setting to automatically move furniture to your Furnishing Vault, rather than to your inventory. I'd love to see some work on performance updates, but I'm not sure if those will be ready by next update.

1- What takes the least investment to keep the game in the + column financially
2- Restoring Cyrodiil PvP to it's former glory
3- Restoring Cyrodiil PvP to it's former glory (they've already divested in their PvE output, so it's logical to invest further into repeatable content that draws a lot of players and requires minimal dev inputs)

^ This

Freelancer_ESO

Northwold wrote: »

mrreow wrote: »

Northwold wrote: »

cut

So why are we even focusing on the story content if it cannot be good? Clockwork city was great somehow anyway. I think you are setting your bar too low.

But… if what you say was true even though it isn’t considering there was good story in eso previously, then why focus on the story content and not on the usual grouping stuff?

Help me make sense of it

“Our stories cannot be good (anymore) therefore we will prioritise them as main content” doesn’t make much sense to me

I didn't say it can't be good. I have in the past posted some pretty blunt remarks on the writing. But simply saying "fire everyone and hire good people because there are loads" is facile, unconstructive and plain not true. There are ways to make the writing better. One very major one was abandoning or at least loosening the previous "year of" structure which was making it structurally impossible to do good stories because they had to break in the middle then the denouement had to be playable independently of the build up(!!!). An MMO really isn't a book and the writing will be subject to a lot of constraints that would never, ever come in a book. You can't pin this all at the writers' door without recognising the difficulties of the medium and that sometimes the way to improve writing might be to improve the overall process of game development -- and where writing is slotted into it.

I think you'll find plenty of books that are part of a series that function even when you read them out of order or haven't completed the entire series.

I'd argue that a big part of why ESO's year of stories ran into issues was because the stories tended to have the characters that met resolution in part two too involved in part one and the part one only characters frequently weren't sufficiently interesting/impressive/impactful.

tomofhyrule

Erickson9610 wrote: »

What do you think ZOS...
1. is currently working on right now?

Trying not to panic about the absurd power creep that was just unleashed and trying to figure out a way to nerf everything without making people quit.

Honestly, the season content is done. They’ve definitely finished the writing and VA by this point, so a lot of it is probably finishing touches on the art or mechanics.

But brace yourselves, the nerfs will be coming. Based on timing, we should see the next PTS go up around the first week of July, so U47 definitely exists and is getting tested internally.

You probably also have people who are getting next year’s stuff ready, in terms of story and feature programming. The planning for it is definitely done by now.

2. should be working on right now?

Listening to feedback. Communicating. Like they said they would. This is probably the most frustrated I’ve seen the playerbase since U35, and as much as people want to stick their heads in the sand because it didn’t affect them personally, that patch had major effects on the game that are still being felt.

Stop ignoring the PTS. How many times have there been major issues that were reported week 1 of PTS, reported in the official threads and using the /bug command in game, and yet they ended up going live unchanged 6 weeks later?

Beyond that, ZOS really needs something to draw players and make money. This Season was more expensive than previous Chapters and gave noticeably less content, and people aren’t likely to shell out another $50 next year for the same. The big feature they released was basegame. If ZOS wants people to buy next year’s season, they need to make it more appealing, and also add in something people really want, find fun, and is exclusive to the pass.

About the only thing I think would tick those boxes is a new Class. Anything really, but the three big ones you hear a lot are a Dwemer Artificer and also Bards or Monks. Personally, I think monks are more aligned with a weapon style than a Class (imagine a heavy-armored Monk with a giant battleaxe) and Bards might be hard to make three lines as opposed to just being the support line folded into a different Class, but the Artificer could easily make three skill lines and slots nicely into existing TES lore and we also have NPCs in ESO who could be called Artificers already (like Neramo or the Vanos twins, all of whom have been missing for a while…).

Every DLC Class has been only available for purchase (either from Crowns or via Chapter editions), so that wouldn’t be a departure. And with Subclassing, even players with full character slots could play the new Class without starting from scratch, but players who want to can make a new baby character (which would also be a nice reason to go back to the revamped tutorial and starter zones). Altogether, a new Class could bring a lot of players back to the game and get a lot of players to buy the Season Pass for it.

3. could realistically work on right now?

Communication.

Where is the third part of the PvP Q&A? Where are the other Q&As they said they’d do?

The players have essentially lost faith in ZOS trying to talk to them. Every “deep dive” they post answers zero of the players’ main concerns, and instead tries to gaslight us into thinking it’s amazing.

I’ll go back to Subclassing. We got a deep dive where the Systems Designer they interviewed said “players can drop their tank and support skill lines for more damage-dealing abilities and passives.” This is a Systems Designer who forgot that 4 of the 7 Classes - all of the basegame ones, and the only ones that everyone is guaranteed to have access to - don’t have designated tank and support lines. They also say “ there is no desire to reduce the effectiveness of pure classes and their ability to complete content,” but the nerfs we already had show that they don’t mind reducing the effectiveness of pure Classes and their abilities, and they completely ignore that the massive power differential between a player who chooses to Subclass and one who doesn’t will lead to social pressures. While ZOS is not responsible for making groups take people, ZOS is responsible for balancing the game such that one setup is not so grossly overpowered that not running it is akin to throwing.

I even heard from some of the early testers for Subclassing(some StreamTeam members) who did have a direct line to the devs gave feedback that they wanted to make sure the pureclass builds were still comparable, and the devs were surprised that anyone would even want to pureclass. This tells me that the devs have no idea what the players want and can’t comprehend it at times.

I’ll also go back to the infamous PvP stream debacle - nobody expects the devs to be the best players in the world, but when the lead combat designer doesn’t know that heavy attacks restore resources, or can’t figure out what is happening when the culprit is a set complained about daily on the forums (pulls from Rush of Agony), or talks about enjoying the troll tank meta in PvP when it has been a source of consternation for a while… that shows that the combat team both doesn’t know what the playerbase wants or needs, and more dramatically, they don’t care either.

emilyhyoyeon

Erickson9610 wrote: »

What do you think ZOS...
Maybe there can be a setting to automatically move furniture to your Furnishing Vault, rather than to your inventory.

If you mean, for example, picking up a furnishing in your house makes it go directly to the vault rather than inventory, you can already do that. Unless you mean, like, a looted furnishing immediately goes to the vault like how crafting materials immediately go to the craft bag when you pick them.

dark_hunterxmg

Islyn wrote: »

dark_hunterxmg wrote: »

IS: probably developing content to fill out the year with story lines and gear and a batch of nerfs to combat the power spike that occured.

Should: fixing the heavy attack bug.

Realistically: all of the above.

Been away - what bug - link please? Thank you!

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/668394/heavy-attacks-auto-canceling#latest