I hope part of the way forward is taking a more collegial attitude on the forums. Allegations that developers do not read the Forums, "hate" certain types of players, or classes conveyed by spiteful and provocative, insulting language just muddy the waters. The way forward begins not with Wrobel or anyone else explaining themselves, but with constructive feedback and behaving as gentleman and women. I hope your thread heads in that direction!
Once that culture has changed on these forums, we can begin the important work of improving the game.
Take a look at the game and you'll see even more players who simply don't care and keep playing.
I won't argue ZOS need better communication, but just because we (the vocal forums community) think something should be doesn't mean it should be or that it's best for the game.
If ZOS were to listen to the forums then we would see every single class have the ability to one shot each other because everyone demands their class should be buffed and anything that beats them should be nerfed.
There are some good posts now and then which give good structured feedback about how ZOS could make changes to the game, but most are just "rahhh rahhh X is horrible!" "waaa waaa Y killed me" "Booo hooo you nerfed Z so I can't win every fight any more".
Adapt or die, if you have a good idea post it in a way other that throwing personal insults at the lead developers and asking for them to be fired.
@yodased I can't comment on console or EU, but PC NA zone chat is certainly outside of my 2500 member 'community'. There are a HUGE amount of players that quest, roll alts well before reaching v16, and are perfectly content and pay ZOS money. No one is forgetting that. But when the forums are plastered with the disdain I'm addressing, when /zone chat is plastered with it, when every single stream that ZOS does is plastered with it, at one point do you move beyond the generalized "can't make everybody happy" or "gamers just being gamers and exaggerating" straw-man arguments and realize there are inherent problems in the foundation?
Yes, you did in fact miss the many many constructive sections on the forums over the past two years.I shouldn't need to coddle or hold someones hand to identify an issue. I spent about 9+ months being friendly and defending ZOS, there's zero need for fruitless mollycoddling at this point. This isn't a thread making the case for why there should be disdain, this is a thread identifying that it already exists and questioning what ZOS' intentions are for addressing it.ebethke_ESO wrote: »Is this just a venting thread? Did I miss the section with constructive feedback?
Sometimes I wonder why we don't see ZOS interacting more with us on the forums, then I come to these types of threads where people treat them like trash. It's a shame that some of our community think that raging is the best way to get things done.
People saying 'you have no clue about the big picture', mhm, but it's really not hard to tell from the forums. The AOE caps poll had +-4000 people voting. You'd never have half that vote nowadays.
To be honest, I kinda expect this game to revert into a "Skyrim online" or simliar. As in a couple of new PvE DLC's every year with mostly solo content. There's still a market for that, due to being TES franchise. Also cheap to maintain even if you dont win any awards lol.
Just feel they wont be able to deliver the game they set out to make. This was suppose to be a kinda top 10 MMORPG with PvX content including AvAvA and endgame PvE. Competing with games like WoW, SWTOR, Lineage and Tera. But seems they lack the expertise, staff, finances and likely support and understanding from higher management to run that kind of machinery.
They're not even using the cash shop to full potential and missing out on so much revenue. Stuff like barber, race change and ofc good looking costumes, hair styles, alliance change, weapon skins and similar regenerates so much micro transactions in online games. It should have been in-game 1 year ago.
I personally think ESO will keep going for many years to come, but as a more modest game. I also doubt Wrobel will still be able to handle combat, itemization, classes, CP and skills in the future. That just nuts for one person, even there's more staff involved. He must be so burned out that guy, kinda understand why he's not getting PvP combat.
The path forward is dev turnover which happens in all MMO's. I'm not asking for anyone to be fired, but when a lead dev in charge has come out and said that these abilities in game are 'his children' and it is clear that he does not have a clue about SO MANY vital game mechanics, we will not see any meaningful progress until a change is made. The combat team has spent countless hours creating these systems (aoe caps, abilities in general, ideas of resource sustain and max dmg) and they can't see the forest for the trees. New blood will come in eventually as profits wane or key members ask for higher salary and only then will we get innovative ideas. But what do I know, maybe the higher ups have come out and said, "balance this game around solo PVE at all costs," and then I can understand some of the changes and lack of changes.
GrumpyDuckling wrote: »I certainly wouldn't want to be a member of the team who is responsible for balance. It's just too difficult when I try to realistically think about the task of balancing everything as a whole.
However, because it's necessary to strive for balance, perhaps the combat team could implement a system that removes the 4 classes that we currently have (Templar, Dragonknight, Nightblade, Sorcerer) and instead allows us to choose 3 of the 12 skill lines for building our character.
Then, the issue is not about balancing classes, but instead, about balancing skill lines. This would drastically reduce the amount of work for the combat team and also give players more options. Then we wouldn't have whole groups of people complaining that their entire class feels useless to them (as we currently have with Templars).