Should Zos use surveys in addition to community leaders for feedback on features?

Tapio75 · October 2014

Things like guild summit are a great way to get feedback from players but the playerbase that actually is represented is quite low...

What is your opinion about Zos using surveys in addition to directly get feedback about upcoming features, how players feel about stuff.. That sort of thing.

In my opinion, a survey that is directly on the launcher would atract large numbers of players to give some statistics that could be used to direct where the game is going. Carefully made surveys would be quick to make and playerbase represented would be larger in general. I think surveys would be good idea to get statistics about what players think about many things in game.

Elloa · October 2014

Sometimes it can be misleading. Zenimax need to be careful the way they get their feedback, especially it's always those that are unhappy that are the most vocal. It's well known.

Maybe a small survey in the PTS like we had in the beta could be a nice idea.

BRogueNZ · October 2014

meh

LonePirate · October 2014

Don't get your hopes up on surveys or anything similar. ZOS only cares about the opinions of raiding guilds. Nobody else matters to them.

Ourorboros · October 2014

"Community leaders"? Who the [snip] are they? I must have missed the election. If we have such leaders, they must be self-appointed or hand-picked by ZOS, both of which would mean they don't represent the player base. That discounts any input they have since it amounts to personal opinion or at best a consensus of their guilds and friends only. The problem with using polls or forum posts is determining how closely any results or comments represent player base. It limits input to those who respond or get involved. Who represents what is likely the vast majority of players who never look at forums or could give a flip about polls?

[Moderator Note: Edited per our rules on Cursing & Profanity]

AlexDougherty · October 2014

In a word, maybe.

It kind of depends on the poll, and how many people took part, and if it was biased. Plus numerous other factors.

Some of them give good feedback, others are as useless as a Chocolate Torch (Chocolate Teapots are edible, but a torch would be useless and dangerous to eat).

Tapio75 · October 2014

In general, they should use as wide range of means to gather feedback, direct /feedback, Forums, Polls, Ingame surveys and activities. Instance usage and maybe other sources as well.

Surveys and polls can be difficult to make in a way that they give actual good statistics but i think they would add a reasonable good layer to get statistics that would be combined with other sources to get somewhat accurate feedback.

Rune_Relic · October 2014

Provided they are mailed to "all" users....like they did in beta...I have no issue.
Would be nice to have a developer post before to discuss questions on the agenda though.

stumpy999 · October 2014

Community leader? What or who is that?

AlexDougherty · October 2014

stumpy999 wrote: »

Community leader? What or who is that?

Guild leaders mostly.

stumpy999 · October 2014

Ah ok, that tallies up with the podcast on ESO 1.5 , Zeni staffer basically said - You are the 1% that matters, over 80% of the rest are just sheep and don't care.

So we will talk to you.

Now he may be right, and probably is. However I do wonder if we all understand the voice that these folk have and how to lobby them?

Given that Zeni will not listen to us but only the select few, how do we lobby those few?

So which guilds are important? How do we join to get heard etc..

AlexDougherty · October 2014

stumpy999 wrote: »

Ah ok, that tallies up with the podcast on ESO 1.5 , Zeni staffer basically said - You are the 1% that matters, over 80% of the rest are just sheep and don't care.

So we will talk to you.

Now he may be right, and probably is. However I do wonder if we all understand the voice that these folk have and how to lobby them?

Given that Zeni will not listen to us but only the select few, how do we lobby those few?

So which guilds are important? How do we join to get heard etc..

Not sure which guilds are the most important, it's probably a matter of numbers.

But most MMOs give Guilds a disproportionate voice, they represent a large chunk of the players (maybe even the majority in some game), and are easy to listen to (they just have to say to guild leaders what does your guild think about this/that), and the guildies feel they are being treated special.

Problems only occur when Guild leaders stop listening to the guild members, get arrogant, and start making up the answers themselves. Fortunately when that happens, the guilds disintergrate as members leave en mass to form new guilds (this has already happened in ESO several times btw).

Aett_Thorn · October 2014

The problem with polls and surveys is that they can give you wildly inaccurate data unless you are very good, and I don't see ZOS hiring a professional pollster to do these. You'd have issues with sampling biases, poor questions, and issues where if the winner of the poll didn't get implemented because of coding issues you'd have riots. You also have problems if the people using the data you get don't know how to read the results.

Polls and surveys can be useful for determining general directions of games, but they really shouldn't be used for specific stuff unless you know what you're doing.

stumpy999 · October 2014

Also you ask folk on a forum that is populated by people that post, lot's of gamers don't

Tapio75 · October 2014

Well, community leaders are a "shady lot" right now as folks do not really know anything of them..

Community leaders should be selected by a general open vote like they have in EVE Online. At least then people have some degree of say in the matter of who they are and might be better to represent the people who play..

tinythinker · October 2014

It depends on the kind of data they are collecting. Different methods and sampling techniques can work for different needs. Some survey approaches give rough but useful impressions and don't need detailed efforts by social scientists with experience in statistical survey design. Other approaches try to elicit very specific data or try for really high reliability and do need a great deal of input from professionals.

In beta we had a survey add-on that was optional and active in the game and it would pop up with Likert scale questions at certain points, such as "I feel powerful" or "The story is engaging" and you would choose something from the range of "Strongly Agree" to "Strongly Disagree". If you had just been pummeled by a boss on a solo quest, you might select the latter. I didn't mind participating in it, and you could always ignore questions or turn the survey off if it became disruptive.

ThisOnePosts · October 2014

Definitely. I find it laughable that they figure who these community leaders are when the only thing they lead is their own guild. This isn't Congress. Everyone should have an equal say in this game since we all pay the same price to play it (inb4 someone talks about discounts from advanced time purchases --- you know what I mean).

Reilech · October 2014

I dont think, they called the invited ones "community leaders". I do think, most of them were from fan sites like Tamriel Foundry.

Tandor · October 2014

They're not community leaders, they're guild leaders, and I dislike the way that developers rely on a few uber or "special" guilds to influence their thinking.

There could well be a case for having a class representative to lead forum discussions on skill changes etc, and they can come from either the development team or the players, but otherwise surveys are usually the best way of getting maximum player feedback on burning issues.

RSram · October 2014

Surveys work, but a previously stated, the number of replies are important; for example if ESO sends out 750,000 surveys and only 1% reply then the survey is meaningless. If 250,000 players respond, then I would take heed of the complaints or suggestions.

You can't please everyone, so ESO has to stick with what the majority wants while risk losing the minority: who must either comply with the Borg and be assimilated, or cancel their subscriptions and move on to another universe.

R1ckyDaMan · October 2014

Community leaders LOL

Audigy · October 2014

Such polls would make sense during the level up phase after a quest, say if it was too hard, too easy, what could be done better etc.

Same could be done after a dungeon or raid of course but the question is who would really participate there?

I know a few companies that ask for feedback on PTS but none that does so on the live server but there your players play, PTS is only important for the more hardcore players and they cant represent a community.

Personally I would mind answering a survey once a month sent to my mail or ingame but these would not really offer the depth that would be needed to analyze every quest or whole features etc.

If I tick the box "the game is too easy" then ZO wont know what part of it. If I tick the box "not interested in trials" then they wouldn't know why I dislike them and what could change my mind.

Elsonso · October 2014

It seems to me that using /feedback is an effective way to get ideas across. I would place this above surveys because /feedback is pretty much guaranteed to come from someone who cares.

For people who are concerned about the 1% comment from the Summit, there is an easy way to work the system in your favor. Become one of the 1%. Be active in a positive way and tell ZOS what you think without calling them incompetent bumbling idiots. Express your ideas clearly and tell them why, not just what. Don't demand. Don't threaten to quit. Treat them like they care about the game and all of the people who play it.