Upcoming Patch Highlights & In-Progress Updates

Zed

I hope Zenimax reconsiders. Simply adding a timer isn't going to stop bots from camping bosses. They'll sit there and whack away at it until the timer runs out and people will still complain about not being able to get credit for loot and achievements. And loot timers are never fun for normal players either.

FezzikVizzini

Pre Tuesday patch: Grr..... Those damn boss farmers.... I can't get a kill.
Patch Announced : Great ! I will be able to kill bosses.
Post Patch: Dear CS. How come I can't kill a public dungeon boss even though I have never been in that dungeon ?

I will believe it when I see it. Personally I would not trust these guys to time an egg.

Myxril

Mmm, the entitlement is strong in this thread.

I get the feeling that a lot of the people crying about how it's just soooo unfair and too nerfy to regulate the boss-camping are probably the same people responsible for it; they'll park toon-bots with face-rolled names and powerfarm items, then turn around and sell them in chat to the people who _can't_ farm them because of the original powerfarmers.
How dare ZOS stomp on such a lucrative business. /eyeroll
I'm personally in favor of a slight bump in drop rate, depending on what kind of timer is in place. Otherwise, if the cooldown is too long and the item doesn't drop, then players might be discouraged from dragging their asses back to dungeons repeatedly, only to eventually outlevel or outgear the item(s) they're going for to begin with.

Devilfish85

Just yesterday, I finally let things get to me and joined in the chorus of people complaining about an infrequency of fixes and updates, after I'd otherwise maintained a positive attitude. This new patch/in progress patch not only addresses almost everything I consider an issue with the solo game in some way, if not always MY way... but it shows Zenimax's willingness to take our often-over-the-top feedback seriously. I wish I had held my tongue one more day, so I wouldn't have to write this now. Thanks for the massive upgrade/update, Zenimax team. Sorry I doubted you.

Frough

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Missing Bank Slots, Stored Bank Items, and Skill Points – We're continuing to investigate the issue, and are working on a fix now. As soon as the fix is ready, we will push it out to the live megaservers. Please note: This may result in a second maintenance this week and when we do push the fix, it will not be retroactive. Know that we want to make this right for all impacted—we’re still exploring options to help those who have stored items/gold, and bank slots go missing.

If you don't provide me with everything I had previously you will lose my subscription. You already promised we'd get everything back, here, let me refresh your memory:

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

If they're not needed then how are they getting there things back...the answer is they never will get them back..will they?

We look at character data and history, and are able to see when things were purchased, sold, deleted, etc.

I expect a full return of all items or a free 6 months of game time. That will be about the only thing keeping me from cancelling.

megrampsrwb17_ESO

What about fixing the access code so I can resub please.

Falassion

They should just make public dungeons a daily drop or unique item. That would fix botters and gold farmers.

RKLimes

Fix your economy, make guild stores useful. (even slightly useful would be a massive upgrade.)
Whoever chose the designer of guild stores, chose poorly.

Targanwolf

We need to be able to ignore gold spammers a lot faster.ACTION to eliminate them needs to be more aggressive.

Vez

Mpcolson wrote: »

Carde wrote: »

Public Dungeon & Delve Boss Monsters – Also based on feedback, we will be placing a timer on how often you can get loot from public dungeon and delve boss monsters. This timer is shared across all boss monsters in public dungeons and delves. This will not impact loot timers for quest-specific monsters or overworld group bosses. Watch the patch notes for news on when this change will go live.

I don't think there's a facepalm picture meaningful enough to express how I feel about this. I really, sincerely hope that the loot timer only kicks in after you get the unique item from the boss. Public dungeons don't need to be made anymore useless than they already are.

You cannot be serious. Apparently public dungeons are very useful, they certainly provide plenty of blue drops being pawned all day and night. No one is selling custom made blues, they are selling dropped items to the unaware. And making decent bank as I see it.

I'll be happy to be able to get the drop and maybe a couple soul gems and move along. It's the sins of a few that ruin it for the masses. The BOTS won't have a unlimited supply of these drops anymore.

The bots will literally be the only ones with ANY supply. Everyone else will go from level 1 to 50, getting achievement credit for every public dungeon along the way without ever seeing a unique blue drop from a public dungeon boss. Whereas a bot will still be able to sit at a drop, staking it out AFK for days without touching a keyboard and still raking it in. Lowering the payout frequency from dungeon bosses barely even nudges the value to effort ratio for a bot since bots are putting in ZERO effort to begin with. For everyone else, it's a nerf.

Monsoon

Thanks for the small update but you guys are aware that the MAC client is unusable in Cyrodill for more than 5 minutes right? Looking at the mac tech support and you will see that the whole forum is filled with crash reports. 50% of the game is not playable for us. It has been a week I have been unable to go to Cyrodill...which is why I bought the game

ETA on memory leak fix?

shaun101ab14_ESO

I think the biggest probably with Public Dungeon Bosses is that fact that they melt in seconds when a handful of people are fighting it. Instead of putting a timer on them, make their health scale depending on the number of people around, that way there is an actual fight and people can get their needed hits in.

awkwarrd

100% appreciate the communication efforts

derpmonster

Rothguard wrote: »

Thank you for fixing the boss's in public dungeons. I requested this back in beta and I don't care who you *** off doing this! It's way too easy of a gold farm.

So in your mind the solution to them being easy is to make people not want to bother with them at all?

Instead of increasing how difficult they are to kill? If there are 20 people around waiting to kill a boss it should spawn with 120k hp and 1 shot anyone who is not specced as a tank backed by a healer.

Putting a loot timer on them is an absolutely lazy way of "fixing" the problem that is only going to make the game worse than it was before the fix. And it doesn't even fix the problem. If 5 people are near the boss it's still going to die instantly as it spawns. It's still going to be hard to get credit for it. So in the end this fix isn't a fix at all.

Korusus

I like the change to public dungeons. But we still need to buff the bosses, at the very least scale them to the number of people in the vicinity. If you happen to be in there with 10 other legitimate players (not bots), well guess what...the boss is still gonna die fast and easy, farmers or no farmers.

Also -- lol at the people complaining about not being allowed to farm bosses. Do you really think they were ever intended to work that way? More likely that the betas just never reach the critical mass of people necessary to really show what the downsides to the public dungeons were. Let's not pretend like the bots were the full extent of the problem.

Verranicus

derpmonster wrote: »

Rothguard wrote: »

Thank you for fixing the boss's in public dungeons. I requested this back in beta and I don't care who you *** off doing this! It's way too easy of a gold farm.

So in your mind the solution to them being easy is to make people not want to bother with them at all?

Instead of increasing how difficult they are to kill? If there are 20 people around waiting to kill a boss it should spawn with 120k hp and 1 shot anyone who is not specced as a tank backed by a healer.

Putting a loot timer on them is an absolutely lazy way of "fixing" the problem that is only going to make the game worse than it was before the fix. And it doesn't even fix the problem. If 5 people are near the boss it's still going to die instantly as it spawns. It's still going to be hard to get credit for it. So in the end this fix isn't a fix at all.

Farmer spotted.

byghostlightrwb17_ESO

shaun101ab14_ESO wrote: »

I think the biggest probably with Public Dungeon Bosses is that fact that they melt in seconds when a handful of people are fighting it. Instead of putting a timer on them, make their health scale depending on the number of people around, that way there is an actual fight and people can get their needed hits in.

then the gold sellers will just hire more farmers and we will see even bigger crowds than we do now. My idea of a good time fighting a boss is not to get one or two swings in, just enough to get loot. Adding more hitpoints just magnifies the problem. They have to find a way to make farmer/camping an unattractive and unsuccessful operation. If it means i can only kill the boss once an hour or something, then so be it, at least that one time will be fun and not frustrating.

nudel

That language is a little fuzzy. Since it states 'public dungeons and delves', I'm interpreting 'delves' as any dungeon that is
-- not instanced
-- has a non-quest achievement boss
-- is not topside
I would really love to be wrong about my interpretation of 'delves' here. If not, then this is more of a nerf on legitimate players than bots. Let's say the timer is 20 minutes...hell even 15. I can easily reach another dungeon in less time without even quick traveling. Since this timer is universal, I could come to the end of a second dungeon and be unable to complete it b/c my timer isn't up yet from the first.

To all those praising this change, this isn't honestly going to curb botting. If anything, it makes botting the only means of reliably getting the boss' named loot. The harder you make it to get something through the normal course of play the more likely people will cheat the system to get it. If normal players don't have a hope of getting rare tempers/ tannins from their own drops, they will instead turn to buying gold from the goldsellers and using it to buy the tempers/ tannins from the botters. If anything this is a boon to goldsellers and botters.

I'm all for making each named boss loot unique so you can only pick up one from each boss. That would at least still allow you to kill other bosses afterwards without having nothing to show for it. Also botters would be unable to get that rare loot from the boss b/c they could only pick up one. But this change. Honestly, no matter how long the timer, it's not gonna put a dent in botting. And if it's any longer than 5 minutes, it's punishing legitimate players.

derpmonster

Verranicus wrote: »

derpmonster wrote: »

Rothguard wrote: »

Thank you for fixing the boss's in public dungeons. I requested this back in beta and I don't care who you *** off doing this! It's way too easy of a gold farm.

So in your mind the solution to them being easy is to make people not want to bother with them at all?

Instead of increasing how difficult they are to kill? If there are 20 people around waiting to kill a boss it should spawn with 120k hp and 1 shot anyone who is not specced as a tank backed by a healer.

Putting a loot timer on them is an absolutely lazy way of "fixing" the problem that is only going to make the game worse than it was before the fix. And it doesn't even fix the problem. If 5 people are near the boss it's still going to die instantly as it spawns. It's still going to be hard to get credit for it. So in the end this fix isn't a fix at all.

Farmer spotted.

You might think that and you'd be wrong. Farming in an mmo is just about the most un fun thing I can imagine a person can choose to do.

It's exactly the opposite. I've sat at a boss TRYING to get kill credit only to see it disappear almost instantly as it spawns because they have 0 scaling. It's not the only place where this is an issue. Lets be real, any place the public has access to in random numbers needs to have scaling, right now they don't and it makes these places trivial.

Why should I care about a timer when I can't even get kill credit? The fix does not fix the thing people are complaining about.

But sure. Go on assuming things and go ahead and keep being wrong. I'm sure it works out great for you.

ghoxenrwb17_ESO

nudel wrote: »

That language is a little fuzzy. Since it states 'public dungeons and delves', I'm interpreting 'delves' as any dungeon that is
-- not instanced
-- has a non-quest achievement boss
-- is not topside
I would really love to be wrong about my interpretation of 'delves' here. If not, then this is more of a nerf on legitimate players than bots. Let's say the timer is 20 minutes...hell even 15. I can easily reach another dungeon in less time without even quick traveling. Since this timer is universal, I could come to the end of a second dungeon and be unable to complete it b/c my timer isn't up yet from the first.

It's targeted not only at bots, but also farmers in general. Hopping from public dungeon to dungeon does not sound legitimate. It sounds like farming for loot. A regular player would come across public dungeons as they progress in a zone.

To all those praising this change, this isn't honestly going to curb botting. If anything, it makes botting the only means of reliably getting the boss' named loot. The harder you make it to get something through the normal course of play the more likely people will cheat the system to get it. If normal players don't have a hope of getting rare tempers/ tannins from their own drops, they will instead turn to buying gold from the goldsellers and using it to buy the tempers/ tannins from the botters. If anything this is a boon to goldsellers and botters.

And why do people have to get the bosses' loot? Right now the supply of those boss blues are so high they sell less than green set pieces. Again, a regular player would have outleveled the content rather than caring about some loot from some public dungeon. Again, your logic seems to stem from the perspective of a farmer rather than a regular player.

I'm all for making each named boss loot unique so you can only pick up one from each boss. That would at least still allow you to kill other bosses afterwards without having nothing to show for it. Also botters would be unable to get that rare loot from the boss b/c they could only pick up one. But this change. Honestly, no matter how long the timer, it's not gonna put a dent in botting. And if it's any longer than 5 minutes, it's punishing legitimate players.

Make them unique and BoP. Some of the topside bosses have been dropping unique BoP epics for me, and they literally have a vendor value of 0 gold. I'm rather puzzled why that is not the case for all the world and delve bosses.

It is going to put a dent in botting, when the profit from botting dungeon bosses drop from 3 drops every ten minutes to 3 drops every ten hours. It won't even worth the electricity cost and will as a result kill dungeon bot camping.

Aenima_pt

Good to see the changes, especially the new chest system for group dungeons.

But the timmer for public dungeons is just hurting the real players and does not solve the problem of the bots camping the bosses. No matter what is the timer the bots will remain there, the only ones hurted are the real players that now have one less spot to farm, for those that like to farm.

What ZOS needs to do is placing a GM patrolling the dungeons and see whos botting and whos not, and ban them on the spot.

Elona

Loot timer? Really? So now I have to expend even more time fighting off the bots to kill the dungeon boss to get the blue item and leave? Fantastic. Why not just make the named loot a unique one-time deal tacked on to the achievement of finishing the dungeon and leave it at that?

Korusus

derpmonster wrote: »

Lets be real, any place the public has access to in random numbers needs to have scaling, right now they don't and it makes these places trivial.

Agreed. I still think the bosses need a timer, but that alone won't fix the problem when the real problem is how quickly these bosses die when just a few people are around, let alone with a room full of farmers and bots (whether that is legitimate or not, obviously the developers did not develop their game with the intention of players camping a boss spawn for drops every 2 minutes).

Glissando

"Missing Bank Slots, Stored Bank Items, and Skill Points – We're continuing to investigate the issue, and are working on a fix now. As soon as the fix is ready, we will push it out to the live megaservers. Please note: This may result in a second maintenance this week and when we do push the fix, it will not be retroactive. Know that we want to make this right for all impacted—we’re still exploring options to help those who have stored items/gold, and bank slots go missing."

What does "retroactive" mean in this case? Can someone please explain?

MasterSpatula

byghostlightrwb17_ESO wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Timers on loot? Timers? Yet another attempt to avoid hiring some GMs and therefore meeting the very barest minimum levels of customer service.

congrats for missing all the other good stuff they are doing, to concentrate on the one you don't like. More customer service help isnt always the answer: greater systems, greater pools of intelligence to consult (which can only come from time) and a more human approach, would all be better than just increasing the amount.

Oh, horse-hockey! I gave the original post itself an "awesome," because, for the most part, it was. I only typed a reply to one of the two things that are huge problems (The other one is that we're not getting our bank slots and gold back if we lost them. They say they're working on something to give us. I hold out hope for something equitable.)

I don't have a problem with the timers per se. I have a problem with using them as a stop-gap, simple patch for a complex problem.

They're trying to use software to do a person's job. Spammers and exploiters are humans. Software can only do exactly what it's told. Humans are clever and creative and devious. Create a game-mechanic to thwart humans; humans will find a workaround.

The only thing that works against people is people. Human beings with creativity, perception, and judgment. You have to deal with exploiters at the moment of the exploit, not in big batch bans every week or two. Not by getting players to use up their 100 ignores in two weeks. By putting human being in the game to deal with the situation as it is happening.

You say more Game Masters isn't the answer. I've seen no evidence that there are any GMs at all. They aren't there, and the spammers and exploiters know it.

I'm not a black-and-white kind of guy, but sometimes a situation comes up that's black and white. ZOE either puts judges into the game and earns $15/month from us, or they do not put judges into the game and do not earn that $15.

GuntherMT

Frough wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Missing Bank Slots, Stored Bank Items, and Skill Points—we’re still exploring options to help those who have stored items/gold, and bank slots go missing.

If you don't provide me with everything I had previously you will lose my subscription. You already promised we'd get everything back, here, let me refresh your memory:

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

If they're not needed then how are they getting there things back...the answer is they never will get them back..will they?

We look at character data and history, and are able to see when things were purchased, sold, deleted, etc.

I expect a full return of all items or a free 6 months of game time. That will be about the only thing keeping me from cancelling.

Free game time is not adequate compensation for losing all of the stuff that is now missing from my bank, not to mention the 5 bank upgrades that got wiped.

If it's not returned, I certainly won't be subbing, and I'll be requesting a refund for a defective product.

I've been pretty fine dealing with all of the 'typical' early MMO bugs, campers, stuck quests, and even downtime, but the complete loss of 50 bank slots, along with all of the rare/epic/legendary crafting materials and supplies that were in those slots (oh, and the gold in there for use on alts) is a complete product breaker.

Loss of data in this day and age of databases is simply inexcusable.

andrantos

See lots of good things in these patch notes.

I imagine some players will not like the bit about boss mobs and loot - but I think it's a step in the right direction. A change like this will most likely be iterative because it'll either be too much of a nerf or not enough. Looking forward to seeing how this turns out.

I really do like the bit about chests in instanced dungeons. The only group I've been in had one player spending more time hunting down the chests than actually contributing to the group - so I'm glad to see this change (all for one, and one for all!)

Shinoe

I hope the quests "Messages Across Tamriel" and "Motes in the Moonlight" make it to the patch tomorrow...

Dallie

Frough wrote: »

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Missing Bank Slots, Stored Bank Items, and Skill Points – We're continuing to investigate the issue, and are working on a fix now. As soon as the fix is ready, we will push it out to the live megaservers. Please note: This may result in a second maintenance this week and when we do push the fix, it will not be retroactive. Know that we want to make this right for all impacted—we’re still exploring options to help those who have stored items/gold, and bank slots go missing.

If you don't provide me with everything I had previously you will lose my subscription. You already promised we'd get everything back, here, let me refresh your memory:

ZOS_JessicaFolsom wrote: »

Tweek wrote: »

If they're not needed then how are they getting there things back...the answer is they never will get them back..will they?

We look at character data and history, and are able to see when things were purchased, sold, deleted, etc.

I expect a full return of all items or a free 6 months of game time. That will be about the only thing keeping me from cancelling.

Everything here I second. These were your exact words, and near exact words from the email replies I received. The only thing I might caveat is that a month of game time free, plus the money I lost from the slots and deposited gold returned to me immediately is borderline sufficient. You really should go a bit above and beyond on this, and the skill resets, it has set a poor standard of trust and brand quality already.

pjwrwb17_ESO

Any chance of:

1. Text filter on Guild Stores
2. Inventory manipulation between characters more easily? eg. Mail-to-self?
3. Bags (or similar) for ingredients and runes?

Also...just for clarification: are we talking a timer on the named bosses in public 'dungeons' like Dell's Claim etc? If so, great, so long as we can loot it a couple of times.

Finally, account-wide across all bosses...does that mean each character on my account shares one timer across all bosses? Or that each character/boss combination has its own timer?