Nothing has Changed.

valenwood_vegan

Given the overall player reaction to the event so far and its various bugs, I am wondering what happened to our new leadership team that was recently so interested in hearing from players and improving communication. Seems to me that we've gone right back to the old pattern of zos largely disappearing when players react poorly to something. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but with all the hype and marketing around this event, I suppose I expected more of an all-hands-on-deck approach when issues immediately popped up. But I'm sure better things are right around the corner?

Danikat

They're not going to comment on the event while it's running. Even if they wanted to they couldn't make changes at this point, they'd need time to design and build a new version and schedule the update (including getting console certification) and by then the event would be over anyway. Telling us they know it's not working well without providing a new version would just discourage participation, which would make the problem worse by dragging it out.

The best we can hope for is some sort of post-mortem update where they talk about lessons learned, and then we have to hope they actually implement that for next year's event which is probably already being planned.

valenwood_vegan

Danikat wrote: »

They're not going to comment on the event while it's running. Even if they wanted to they couldn't make changes at this point, they'd need time to design and build a new version and schedule the update (including getting console certification) and by then the event would be over anyway. Telling us they know it's not working well without providing a new version would just discourage participation, which would make the problem worse by dragging it out.

The best we can hope for is some sort of post-mortem update where they talk about lessons learned, and then we have to hope they actually implement that for next year's event which is probably already being planned.

Sure, that's a perfectly reasonable and valid take. I don't actually expect my post to generate some kind of a response, but I felt it needed to be said, all the same. They *could* take steps to show us real change through actions rather than words.

I fear for what player morale will be after like forty more days of this.

Lucasl402

Danikat wrote: »

They're not going to comment on the event while it's running. Even if they wanted to they couldn't make changes at this point, they'd need time to design and build a new version and schedule the update (including getting console certification) and by then the event would be over anyway. Telling us they know it's not working well without providing a new version would just discourage participation, which would make the problem worse by dragging it out.

The best we can hope for is some sort of post-mortem update where they talk about lessons learned, and then we have to hope they actually implement that for next year's event which is probably already being planned.

Why wouldn't ZOS make any effort to course correct at any given time?

Destai

It's just frustrating to see it go-live with so many problems that were flagged during PTS. I don't see why they should send out a PTS survey when this whole situation perfectly illustrates the issues. So yeah, I agree, nothing's changed.

And I wouldn't be surprised if they're all feeling pretty defeated over there. On a personal level, I can sympathize. It's been a rough year for them. But on a customer level - come on already. People aren't going to financially support the game out of pity. If content isn't enjoyable then people are going to stop spending money. I don't think that's what anyone wants. There aren't do-overs for these events.

In any case, I appreciate them at least doing hotfixes. That helps, but it doesn't make the event more fun.

tomofhyrule

Destai wrote: »

And I wouldn't be surprised if they're all feeling pretty defeated over there. On a personal level, I can sympathize. It's been a rough year for them. But on a customer level - come on already. People aren't going to financially support the game out of pity. If content isn't enjoyable then people are going to stop spending money. I don't think that's what anyone wants. There aren't do-overs for these events.

I definitely feel this. It’s gotta be exhausting and discouraging to keep having to put on a good show when your morale is gone.

It’s been clear for a while that ESO’s budget was slashed - the cancellation of the NA event definitely was a sure sign of that. Now we see a lot of reused assets in this zone, and the big ‘feature’ for the year was “remix what you already have,” nothing new. They’ve been working so hard to hype everything because if it doesn’t go well, then they might get more cuts in the future.

Not that I’m letting them off the hook completely though - there have been a lot of very questionable decisions they’ve made, and this complete ignoring of the PTS and feedback from experienced players shows a total lack of care and understanding.

I really hope that 2026 can turn it around, but the players are at the point where we need results delivered, not just empty promises and overhyped basics. And one of the best things they could do is to listen to feedback - we had all of those surveys, and I’m sure a lot of them were making a lot of similar points. Hear what experienced players are saying. Stop trying to push out vet players.

scrappy1342

Danikat wrote: »

They're not going to comment on the event while it's running. Even if they wanted to they couldn't make changes at this point.

if only they had some way of testing these things out prior to them letting it go live.... <end sarcasm>

wolfie1.0.

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Given the overall player reaction to the event so far and its various bugs, I am wondering what happened to our new leadership team that was recently so interested in hearing from players and improving communication. Seems to me that we've gone right back to the old pattern of zos largely disappearing when players react poorly to something. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but with all the hype and marketing around this event, I suppose I expected more of an all-hands-on-deck approach when issues immediately popped up. But I'm sure better things are right around the corner?

To be fair to the new people this event has been in the works for a long time, and likely well before any influence new leadership can have or any significant changes. We likely wont see anything they impacted until next year.

valenwood_vegan

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Given the overall player reaction to the event so far and its various bugs, I am wondering what happened to our new leadership team that was recently so interested in hearing from players and improving communication. Seems to me that we've gone right back to the old pattern of zos largely disappearing when players react poorly to something. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but with all the hype and marketing around this event, I suppose I expected more of an all-hands-on-deck approach when issues immediately popped up. But I'm sure better things are right around the corner?

To be fair to the new people this event has been in the works for a long time, and likely well before any influence new leadership can have or any significant changes. We likely wont see anything they impacted until next year.

Sure, they were probably stuck with this event. And we all know that things happened at zos this year.

But what my post is about is the radio silence now that the event is here and has been extremely poorly received. Now I'll be fair on this point and say I posted before today's hotfixes and the stickied post about them, and it's nice to see some minimum steps being taken. But I'm not sure they are particularly responsive to the bulk of the complaints brought up about the event.

So if they want me to buy in that things are changing, take the opportunity to step up and impress me. Take some responsibility for missing the mark this badly and do something concrete about it.

Anyway, I hope you're right and there are positive changes coming and we'll see the impacts next year. Personally I don't believe that.

SeaGtGruff

There are some very vocal complaints about the event in these forums.

And yet, when I'm in the game, I'm seeing a lot of players hunting animals for event quests, hunting cultists and Daedra in the modified delves and public dungeons for event quests, and burning down siege camp invasions en masse for event quests.

Which makes me wonder just how representative the complainers in these forums really are. And I'm not saying there haven't been issues, and I'm not saying that some ESO streamers are vocal in dissing the event.

But other streamers seem like they're enjoying the event, and their viewers (who generally seem to be higher in numbers than the viewers for some of the other ESO streamers) sound like they're enjoying the event as far as the chats going on.

Not only that, but the servers seem to have been making pretty good progress in Phase 1. I'm sure some people in the forums will say that this is because ZOS is manipulating the numbers, but anyone who's actually participating in the event activities can plainly see that there are a lot of players coming and going at Stirk, as well as a lot of players coming and going at the main siege camp on Solstice.

So I'm kind of confused as to who to believe about just how popular or unpopular this event is. /scratches_head

Veinblood1965

While I have griped in a few comments today, my guess is that a lot of these first time or one time events takes a long time to develop and there were layoffs earlier this year which causes a lot of disruption. Maybe some ideas had to be toned down and easier coding ideas approved.

tomofhyrule

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

And yet, when I'm in the game, I'm seeing a lot of players hunting animals for event quests, hunting cultists and Daedra in the modified delves and public dungeons for event quests, and burning down siege camp invasions en masse for event quests.

Which makes me wonder just how representative the complainers in these forums really are.

Yeah, I know what you mean. Every time I go to the DMV, it’s full. Strange that people say they hate it so much when they’re always in there, right? And how can all these people say they hate work/school when they go every day?

/s

That’s a bit of a correlation/causation here. We know ESO’s playerbase is very focused on grinding for rewards, and thats what we see. But that doesn’t mean they’re enjoying it.

As for the streamers, there’s a survivorship bias at play as well. A lot of StreamTeam members have stopped streaming (at least for ESO). Yes, many came back to show off the new shiny event, but let’s see how many people are streaming next week.

And the progress is being manipulated on the backend. There are no numbers associated with it, which means the team can make it say whatever they want it to. There’s a thread above talking about how it just jumped by over 10% because they recalculated, after the progress was reverted an hour or so after starting.

valenwood_vegan

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There are some very vocal complaints about the event in these forums.

There are some very vocal defenders of zos in these forums as well, I've noticed.

Anyway, if you're happy and having fun, keep at it. Some players aren't and we express this out of worry about and care for the game, not from some malicious intent. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be wasting my time - I have much better things to do than to post feedback here. And that's what this is, feedback. I'm certainly not posting to convince you of anything or prove anything to you, but to provide my feedback to zos based on my opinions. There are many similar opinions to be found that have been shared on this forum, on reddit, in guild groups and discords, and by streamers. There are conflicting opinions to be found as well. But to deny that there has been significant negative sentiment during the initial days of this event is to bury one's head in the sand.

Rkindaleft

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There are some very vocal complaints about the event in these forums.

And yet, when I'm in the game, I'm seeing a lot of players hunting animals for event quests, hunting cultists and Daedra in the modified delves and public dungeons for event quests, and burning down siege camp invasions en masse for event quests.

Which makes me wonder just how representative the complainers in these forums really are. And I'm not saying there haven't been issues, and I'm not saying that some ESO streamers are vocal in dissing the event.

But other streamers seem like they're enjoying the event, and their viewers (who generally seem to be higher in numbers than the viewers for some of the other ESO streamers) sound like they're enjoying the event as far as the chats going on.

Not only that, but the servers seem to have been making pretty good progress in Phase 1. I'm sure some people in the forums will say that this is because ZOS is manipulating the numbers, but anyone who's actually participating in the event activities can plainly see that there are a lot of players coming and going at Stirk, as well as a lot of players coming and going at the main siege camp on Solstice.

So I'm kind of confused as to who to believe about just how popular or unpopular this event is. /scratches_head

I've certainly been seeing a LOT of complaints about how this event is outside of the forums - both in game and in discords. I was doing the Sap quest in Reaper's March yesterday, people were yelling at each other in zone chat for "stealing" kills, angry about killing mobs and getting no drops, my partner who is primarily a solo quester and isn't on the forums gave up on the event outside of the crafting daily after one day of trying it out because he found the rewards basically pointless and the quests boring to play.

---

Anyway. I really hope they took the responses from the PTS survey seriously. As someone who has played since the console release and pretty much has every veteran achievement except the trifecta achievement for 2 trials I'm getting dangerously close to giving up, too. People have, frankly, gotten over repeating the same exact things 100x over on the PTS and having nothing happen. People talked in this event's feedback thread about how the drop locations would fill up and fighting over mobs would be a horrible experience, they had *ample* time to make adjustments to this but they didn't, or make adjustments to 1000 other things that people complained vehemently about and didn't, like the random change to jabs, the 2 years it took to do something about the perma glow, bug reports get ignored 99% of the time, the U35 QnA that never happened, the tone-deaf comment from Wheeler about sets, unfinished or even abandoned features like Scribing, hybridization or IA.

At this point we absolutely need clarification on what the purpose of the PTS even is. Are we just meant to get a sneak peak at the upcoming content? Do you want or listen to suggestions for solutions? Do you just want an outline of the problem? Because the way it's set up now, people type paragraphs of feedback, nothing happens, and then people get annoyed that their feedback went unacknowledged, and then eventually stop providing anything because they feel like giving any feedback is redundant.

dcrush

I’m sure there are “very exciting things” coming up that they can’t wait to tell us about, but they can’t talk about it yet but all we need to do is be patient because honestly, really, the things that are coming are going to be so exciting.

/s

freespirit

I have to say first day I found the event annoying and moaned about the rewards, totally got very frustrated!

A few days in with my farming spots sorted out I am actually quite enjoying it!

Yes the rewards could be better but considering the projected length I'm now fairly happy with them.

Yesterday I purchased the season pass for one of my other accounts, today I did all the quests on both accounts and it really didn't take that long, I did the same yesterday.

I do not rely on Siege Camps for souls I farm them elsewhere and can collect them in minutes, same for fat, furs, sap and essences.

If people are fighting over kills then maybe they should think "out of the box" that's what I've done.

AlienatedGoat

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

There are some very vocal complaints about the event in these forums.

And yet, when I'm in the game, I'm seeing a lot of players hunting animals for event quests, hunting cultists and Daedra in the modified delves and public dungeons for event quests, and burning down siege camp invasions en masse for event quests.

People can have entirely different experiences. When I was in-game today and yesterday, people had some "very vocal complaints" in zone chat and /say, especially at the siege camps.

Getsugatenso

It's sad to see a game you love and have been playing since 2018 turn into this.

katanagirl1

It’s likely too late to make any significant changes to the event, but they could at least increase the horribly low drop rates on most of the things like furnishings and furnishing plan drops. Even the Stirk Fellowship motifs are pretty rare drops and highly priced in guild traders.

If they aren’t going to listen to the PTS feedback then they really should get more involved in sharing ideas with the playerbase before revealing them, which they seem unwilling to do. Yeah, they’ll surprise us with whatever is new, but it won’t necessarily be a pleasant surprise. The recent track record proves otherwise. If they had shared the Subclassing idea earlier, we might have had a more enjoyable experience for everyone, whether the player subclassed or not.

moderatelyfatman

To be fair, this event was made under the previous team long before the new leadership.
I think part of the lacklustre feel so far might be chalked up to this.

I'm curious to see what next year will bring, whether it will be 'more of the same' or a change in direction.

Zodiarkslayer

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Given the overall player reaction to the event so far and its various bugs, I am wondering what happened to our new leadership team that was recently so interested in hearing from players and improving communication. Seems to me that we've gone right back to the old pattern of zos largely disappearing when players react poorly to something. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but with all the hype and marketing around this event, I suppose I expected more of an all-hands-on-deck approach when issues immediately popped up. But I'm sure better things are right around the corner?

I have to disagree on that.

First up. There were complaints before the event even started. I thought that to be really unfair. PTS or not.

After one day of the event a lot of complaints about drop rates, progression and the competition for mats have been voiced. These have been publicly acknowledged, addressed or clarified and, we're necessary, hot fixed. The first pinned thread on the general forum is just that.

This is a major step up from previous "messes". We shouldn't forget that it is a lot of work by several departments that
They are actually trying to do what they set out to.

Rkindaleft

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Given the overall player reaction to the event so far and its various bugs, I am wondering what happened to our new leadership team that was recently so interested in hearing from players and improving communication. Seems to me that we've gone right back to the old pattern of zos largely disappearing when players react poorly to something. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but with all the hype and marketing around this event, I suppose I expected more of an all-hands-on-deck approach when issues immediately popped up. But I'm sure better things are right around the corner?

I have to disagree on that.

First up. There were complaints before the event even started. I thought that to be really unfair. PTS or not.

After one day of the event a lot of complaints about drop rates, progression and the competition for mats have been voiced. These have been publicly acknowledged, addressed or clarified and, we're necessary, hot fixed. The first pinned thread on the general forum is just that.

This is a major step up from previous "messes". We shouldn't forget that it is a lot of work by several departments that
They are actually trying to do what they set out to.

I agree it’s good they communicated, but why would complaints on the PTS be unfair? The point is to provide feedback on the event before it happens. People made it abundantly clear testing the event on the PTS that the questing areas would become annoying with the massive increase in player numbers and the drop rates weren’t good. That was their feedback, and it should be shocking to no one they were correct.

colossalvoids

The only real change we might see is one when they're back to active development cycles like they were up until what, skyrim parts? Instead of riding the old wave and focusing of maintenance to have stable income or even expecting growth for some reason, maybe they're really believe that marketing is more important than development still, I don't know. Their speech isn't anymore of any value without actions behind it, no matter new folks or old ones, it's the very same company.

Titler01

Lucasl402 wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

They're not going to comment on the event while it's running. Even if they wanted to they couldn't make changes at this point, they'd need time to design and build a new version and schedule the update (including getting console certification) and by then the event would be over anyway. Telling us they know it's not working well without providing a new version would just discourage participation, which would make the problem worse by dragging it out.

The best we can hope for is some sort of post-mortem update where they talk about lessons learned, and then we have to hope they actually implement that for next year's event which is probably already being planned.

Why wouldn't ZOS make any effort to course correct at any given time?

Because even if the Devs wanted too, there will be all kinds of legal and staff cross checking of ideas; when I worked in the industry, events I designed needed a 2 week ahead submission time, and they'd always come back with changes, including down to specific artwork re-designs, to match the overall corporate ideals. Which, in the modern MMO sphere, will include specific engagement metrics tied to FOMO/sales driving ideals...

Sometimes when management really wanted action right here and now, a message would sent down to quickly change things behind the scenes ... but you were always expected to keep a vale of ignorance over decisions, because you didn't want players to work out how to Rules Lawyer you and try and manipulate public perception. That shifting about of event percentage here? That to me looks like an example of where they've quickly realised the event isn't working as they intended, but they've fudged the actual public comments to not openly state this.

Gabriel_H

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Given the overall player reaction to the event so far and its various bugs, I am wondering what happened to our new leadership team that was recently so interested in hearing from players and improving communication. Seems to me that we've gone right back to the old pattern of zos largely disappearing when players react poorly to something. I can't say I'm all that surprised, but with all the hype and marketing around this event, I suppose I expected more of an all-hands-on-deck approach when issues immediately popped up. But I'm sure better things are right around the corner?

The event was planned a year or more ago. Expecting any change in leadership in the last few months to change that just isn't reality.

What overall player reaction btw? The forums? Most people come here to complain, while the majority happily play the game.

Gabriel_H

colossalvoids wrote: »

The only real change we might see is one when they're back to active development cycles like they were up until what, skyrim parts? Instead of riding the old wave and focusing of maintenance to have stable income or even expecting growth for some reason, maybe they're really believe that marketing is more important than development still, I don't know. Their speech isn't anymore of any value without actions behind it, no matter new folks or old ones, it's the very same company.

Marketing gets more players. More players means more money. More money means more resources for development.

valenwood_vegan

Gabriel_H wrote: »

The event was planned a year or more ago. Expecting any change in leadership in the last few months to change that just isn't reality.

I understand how reality works just fine actually. Thank you for your concerns.

Please see my response above to the exact same argument bring brought up already. My post is not about the past, it's about putting their money where their mouth is and issuing a bold response based on the present.

Gabriel_H wrote: »

What overall player reaction btw? The forums? Most people come here to complain, while the majority happily play the game.

I suppose we all see what we want to see, right? I get that you seem to want to find every post complaining about the event and argue with it, and that's fine, have at it. I'm not here to convince you or to go in circles over it. Zos has *my* feedback now and they're free to consider it or throw it in the trash heap. I'm sure they have actual data instead of made up "the majority agrees with me" and you know what, if I'm wrong and the event is a huge success, then I'm wrong and the event is a huge success. I personally still hate it.

Anyway, have fun with the event.

Gabriel_H

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

I get that you seem to want to find every post complaining about the event and argue with it, and that's fine, have at it.

Asking a question isn't making an argument.

valenwood_vegan

Zodiarkslayer wrote: »

After one day of the event a lot of complaints about drop rates, progression and the competition for mats have been voiced. These have been publicly acknowledged, addressed or clarified and, we're necessary, hot fixed. The first pinned thread on the general forum is just that.

As I stated previously in this very thread, "Now I'll be fair on this point and say I posted before today's hotfixes and the stickied post about them, and it's nice to see some minimum steps being taken. But I'm not sure they are particularly responsive to the bulk of the complaints brought up about the event."

valenwood_vegan

Gabriel_H wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

I get that you seem to want to find every post complaining about the event and argue with it, and that's fine, have at it.

Asking a question isn't making an argument.

Seemed argumentative to me, but if it's a real question:

As I stated previously in this very thread, "There are many similar opinions to be found that have been shared on this forum, on reddit, in guild groups and discords, and by streamers. There are conflicting opinions to be found as well. But to deny that there has been significant negative sentiment during the initial days of this event is to bury one's head in the sand."

Arizona_Steve

Gabriel_H wrote: »

Marketing gets more players. More players means more money. More money means more resources for development.

Marketing overhypes the event.
Players join the event based on the hype.
Players get upset by the overpromising and underdelivery.
Players leave the game, sometime permanently.