Does ZOS really listen?

emeraldbay · June 2016

Torbschka wrote: »

Cant believe anyone is happy about this...

Why you people dont see it? This is only for NEW players.. again people, listen, its for:

NEW PLAYERS, NEW PLAYERS, NEW PLAYERS

Why the hell should any1 with 2-3 max level cahracters care about leveling ? Nothin will change, ecept the fact that u can start in every faction no matter what faction u did choose... woah... AWESOME lol

Okay, but what about...

Old players who want to play with low-level friends in other factions?
Old players who want to do DLC content with friends in other factions?
RPers who don't want to have to create clones of their characters in every faction just to be able to take part in cross-faction RP?

There's plenty for “old players” here, and it's going to alleviate many concerns and complaints people had with the social aspect of the game.

Digiman · June 2016

binho wrote: »

Unfortunately they do listen!
People ask for silly changes and nerf this and nerf that and ZOS does exactly as they ask.

ZOS is trying to please everyone but that's impossible... People are always going to complain and.
I agree with u OP, but unfortunately more and more I'm starting to believe that ZOS didn't "break" this game... We "the players" are the ones ruining it cos we're never happy

Learned @Wrobel basically listened to the minority like Fengrush and King Richard for advice about the Sorcerer class instead of reading the larger amount of helpful threads that offered suggestions and feedback.

That was just lazy and stupid. So it's unsurprising that you feel they don't listen and when they do it's the vocal minority who are the loudest.

If it wasn't for other developers that make this game visually amazing and the quests entertaining and rewarding I would of left.

Tinolyn · June 2016

Well, I do know they listen, even if it does take them longer than I'd like.

I received a ZOS message after complaining about technical issues with the 64 bit client asking me to check it out after the most recent update. They did fix much of what was causing me trouble, so I have to give them acknowledgement for that.

As to things I'd like to see in the game, I don't tend to give my opinion on what I want to see, unless it's a real annoyance. I'm much more concerned with them listening when it is something that affects playability, rather than cosmetics or "this would be great if you could" sort of things.

Naslu · June 2016

ZOS is listening to the statistic numbers they have and based on that they make the decissions. You have to keep in mind that in this game you have three factions of players:

1. The Elder Scroll player who enjoyed the past titles with that name, priority questing
2. PVP players
3. Endcontent pve players

Now in order to bring the 1st group more into the aspect of a mmo the decission on making "one tamriel" is a logical step to secure the future of this game, cause this group has some serious problems to integrate their way of gaming into 2nd and 3rd group. Keep in mind thats the biggest group of all 3.

The 2nd and 3rd group are the gamers who actual post on forums, testing stuff out and bringing new ideas to several aspects of the game. This type of gamers came from other mmo`s in where questing 10-20% of content was single player based in order to learn mechanics and to prepare for the endgame. This two groups are the minority here.

Thornen · June 2016

Digiman wrote: »

binho wrote: »

Unfortunately they do listen!
People ask for silly changes and nerf this and nerf that and ZOS does exactly as they ask.

ZOS is trying to please everyone but that's impossible... People are always going to complain and.
I agree with u OP, but unfortunately more and more I'm starting to believe that ZOS didn't "break" this game... We "the players" are the ones ruining it cos we're never happy

Learned @Wrobel basically listened to the minority like Fengrush and King Richard for advice about the Sorcerer class instead of reading the larger amount of helpful threads that offered suggestions and feedback.

That was just lazy and stupid. So it's unsurprising that you feel they don't listen and when they do it's the vocal minority who are the loudest.

If it wasn't for other developers that make this game visually amazing and the quests entertaining and rewarding I would of left.

Wrobel reached out to these guys because they play stam sorc, understand the class and have some of the largest ESO stream numbers, did he take their advice...not really. Fengrush even talked about this on one of his streams saying like what was the point of reaching out if they just going to go ahead and put hurricane in as the big stam sorc fix anyway.

MidknightWolf · June 2016

The_Rooster24 wrote: »

Tonight we got a big nothing from E3, but we did get hear someone from the office say they listen. That truly frightened me. Some people post great suggestions and ideas on these forums. Others simply post irrelevant or uneducated thoughts. I'm not sure which one I will fall into for this, but what I do know is what I can plainly see, and what I can see is the opposite. ZOS if you do anything well besides making a beautiful, player engaging and great game it is certainly not listening to your community. There have been countless polls about what people don't want and do want to see changed to the game, and nearly 100% of the time you do the opposite of the poll. Now I realize these polls are not "official" , but they do offer insight from the players that care enough to vote and actually read your forums. I can think of a couple off the top of my head: aoe caps, adding traits to VMA's ridiculous rng layers as well as the undaunted chests and scaling items in already scaled dungeons to name a few. If you were smart you would of already added some of the elite players in the game to your staff much like other MMO's do on regular basis to actually know what people want to see put into your game as well as what needs to be addressed. But instead you continue to ignore the people that put time to test what is broken and essentially do your job for you only to again ignore their warnings. I hope you do start listening, but until that day comes do not suggest that do this, because it is very clear to a lot of your biggest fans what the truth actually is.

The fact is ZOS does listen and they listen well. They just dont cater to the people who put up suggestions with out any statistical backing or facts. They dont listen to people who are lazy and dont want a challenge. They do a fabulous job balancing the game, but would be better if they balanced PVP separate from PVE.

Drakoleon · June 2016

Sure they do!
They fixed LAG!
They fixed RNG!
They fixed Loot/Rewards especially for the endgame chars!
They fixed loading screens its so much better after DB!
They fixed skill bugs=exploits! They fixed hacks!
They didnt add more content (more bugs) until they fix all above

I would add more but its a waste of time anyways

W0lf_z13 · June 2016

as @binho said, they do listen... but alot of the times what they fix is what not the majority wants ... the people that get reked by a class skill and scream "THAT IS OP!! NEEDS NERF!!!" ... but they have also listened and made some good changes... I'll use a minor (to some) example... The WW ult Berzerker.... many people wanted to see the Berzerker have black fur ... ZoS gave us that ... [p]

With every bigger decision though you will not please everyone.... u'll make some happy but p!ss off alot of people at the same time

Chillic · June 2016

Marto wrote: »

ZOS WANTS to listen... but when the forum is full of complaining, and full of feedback that either contradicts the core aspects of the game or contradicts itself... I can't imagine any developer being able to act on such feedback.

There is plenty of constructive feedback that they either ignore, or do nothing about. They may want to listen, but I don't think it means they are hearing their community and they are terrible at communication. Don't get me wrong, there is a lot of dumb *** on these forums, but that has nothing to do with the ability of this dev crew or its management. I am not sure which is to blame but every DLC is riddled with bugs and not only bugs. Such as the vamp passive being reduced to ignore 50% of the sneak penalty. They say it is a bug, but the tooltip was changed as well, so not a bug. Many changes have been made, some good and some bad but this game has changed direction too many times to think their management has any clue what they are doing.

I unsubbed my account last night because the direction this game is going is just not for me, seems great for new players though.

vyrusb23 · June 2016

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT B

EXHIBIT AOE

Because General Discussion polls represent a huge amount of the player base ......

Lava_Croft · June 2016

Torbschka wrote: »

Cant believe anyone is happy about this...

Why you people dont see it? This is only for NEW players.. again people, listen, its for:

NEW PLAYERS, NEW PLAYERS, NEW PLAYERS

Why the hell should any1 with 2-3 max level cahracters care about leveling ? Nothin will change, ecept the fact that u can start in every faction no matter what faction u did choose... woah... AWESOME lol

I really like story and leveling in MMOS, but heres the thing: ONCE, now its just a torture to leveln an alt and this wont change anything. I'm so *** disappointed and most of u guys even say that its great, I cant belive it.

Story - same, quests - same, every other things - same, why the *** are u hyped for this, most of us have already seen everything in ESO with their first character.

I wanted them to alk about ENDGAME stuff- this is actual for "OLD" players who have supported that game from start:

1. Arenas
2. Battlegrounds
3. Raids
4. New Dungeons
5. Housing
6. etc

Yeah, now I can grind from lvl 1 at the Druegh spot in EP, I'm so happy -.-

ESO is all about new players and not about long term commitment. It's a model more akin to a single player game, where you buy the game, play it for a few months and then move on to the next new game. In that regard ZOS is right when they talk about ESO not being a 'classic' MMO because those 'classic' MMOs actually want to build a long term relationship with their players by focusing on providing fun end-game content instead of focusing on ways to lure in more new players.

STEVIL · June 2016

I believe the following:

1 - A smart company uses mass public venues and press events not to reach out to their hardcore endgame existing customer base but to new players and to players of other similar games. As such they emphasize every "newbie friendly" "wide open" and implementation of "lore stuff" that can draw people in. Had the stuff yesterday been all about endgame or PVP or trials etc i would have written it off as bad move.

2 - A smart company realizes the small percentage of hardcore posters on forums do not represent the main player base of a living game. Listen to the noise, sure, but always take it with a grain of salt. A good example IMO was the outrage in PTS over enchant nodes AFTER they announced the "listened and changed" returning potencies to the wild. The noisy kept insisting on "going back" but with the massive change in the leveling and progression the new 50/50 scaled runes works to serve the new progressions better than the old system would. Old way was fine for old progressions under vr, but not for Cp-based progression gear needs. HAD ZOS just listened to that thread, the majority of nodes for runes in the game right now would not serve the characters levels in play.

3 - A smart game company listens to data, not internet posts from folks where some of them have an agenda and lots of time. What players say/yell/poll/rage online is basically small potatoes as far as veracity compared to what they DO in game. ZOS has the data and can use online posting as an additional data point but realizing it is very unreliable.

YFMV

Xylphan · June 2016

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Rayya_Blackheart wrote: »

KoshkaMurka wrote: »

Well, its obvious that the game has some serious issues, but...
Imo people on this forum are very judgemental compared to some other mmo forums where people defend stuff like P2W features and other unacceptable things.

We should go hang out on the League of Legends forums together! That's where the real entertainment is.

LoL community is very... Interesting in every aspect.
But thats a moba not an mmo.

Yeah. Interesting in the same way as getting your twig and berries taken off by a hay-baler is interesting. :P

khele23eb17_ESO · June 2016

I doubt they listen. They didnt even list broken light weaving as a known issue in the patch notes.

Volkodav · June 2016

Oh,this is the flip side to the other positive threads about what is coming.Dang it.I was hoping to add something here,but since I dont have anything negative to say,..I wont.

Torbschka · June 2016

Lava_Croft wrote: »

Torbschka wrote: »

Cant believe anyone is happy about this...

Why you people dont see it? This is only for NEW players.. again people, listen, its for:

NEW PLAYERS, NEW PLAYERS, NEW PLAYERS

Why the hell should any1 with 2-3 max level cahracters care about leveling ? Nothin will change, ecept the fact that u can start in every faction no matter what faction u did choose... woah... AWESOME lol

I really like story and leveling in MMOS, but heres the thing: ONCE, now its just a torture to leveln an alt and this wont change anything. I'm so *** disappointed and most of u guys even say that its great, I cant belive it.

Story - same, quests - same, every other things - same, why the *** are u hyped for this, most of us have already seen everything in ESO with their first character.

I wanted them to alk about ENDGAME stuff- this is actual for "OLD" players who have supported that game from start:

1. Arenas
2. Battlegrounds
3. Raids
4. New Dungeons
5. Housing
6. etc

Yeah, now I can grind from lvl 1 at the Druegh spot in EP, I'm so happy -.-

ESO is all about new players and not about long term commitment. It's a model more akin to a single player game, where you buy the game, play it for a few months and then move on to the next new game. In that regard ZOS is right when they talk about ESO not being a 'classic' MMO because those 'classic' MMOs actually want to build a long term relationship with their players by focusing on providing fun end-game content instead of focusing on ways to lure in more new players.

wow, this is really trash for us players and we have again the lost potential

eso could be so easily be absolute top pvp mmo out there, but they obvisouly wanna take another route

Rohamad_Ali · June 2016

Yolokin_Swagonborn wrote: »

EXHIBIT A

EXHIBIT B

EXHIBIT AOE

The General People's court finds the defendant ZOS , Guilty of TL:DR in all 3 counts .

mtwiggz · June 2016

No.

tinythinker · June 2016

Just because people don't post (regularly) on these forums or participate in forum polls doesn't mean that they don't care.

As for whether ZOS listens to players:

If there is a lot of feedback on something *you* want from in-game reports, official forum posts, Reddit threads, and other sources that is workable within the parameters and priorities of the design and production schedule at ZOS, and that something is then implemented, then ZOS listens.

If there is a lot of feedback on something *you* want on the one or two public spaces you look at, but it doesn't match the majority of the overall feedback received or it isn't workable within the parameters and priorities of the design and production schedule at ZOS at this particular time, and that something therefore isn't implemented, then ZOS never listens.

Pomaikai · June 2016

While they may listen, they absolutely DON'T communicate worth a damn.

DaveMoeDee · June 2016

May ZOS isn't listening to the OP, but the One Tamriel is clearly an example of them listening to players. The same for the removal of VR. These "they don't" listen posts contribute nothing.

Possibly worse are the "they don't communicate" posts. If they tell us their plans, certain people take it as a promise and rant when that plan doesn't pan out. If they keep their cards close to their chest until they are ready, people complain about not knowing what is coming.

Pomaikai · June 2016

Have they listened to our complaints about the rampant cheating and exploiting going on in the game right now? Probably.

Have they COMMUNICATED to us, their paying customers what they consider to be cheats and exploits? Nope.

Have they COMMUNICATED to us, their paying customers what the consequences are for cheating and exploiting are? Nope.

SaibotLiu · June 2016

The forums dont represent the playerbase. They represent the players who felt like crying on that day. Also, you dont listen to 'elite' players because they represent an even smaller minority than the whingers do.

Rohamad_Ali · June 2016

SaibotLiu wrote: »

The forums dont represent the playerbase. They represent the players who felt like crying on that day. Also, you dont listen to 'elite' players because they represent an even smaller minority than the whingers do.

When you're right you're right . <shrug>

There's obviously 6,995,000 that are not utilizing the forums here .

potirondb16_ESO · June 2016

The_Rooster24 wrote: »

Tonight we got a big nothing from E3, but we did get hear someone from the office say they listen. That truly frightened me. Some people post great suggestions and ideas on these forums. Others simply post irrelevant or uneducated thoughts. I'm not sure which one I will fall into for this, but what I do know is what I can plainly see, and what I can see is the opposite. ZOS if you do anything well besides making a beautiful, player engaging and great game it is certainly not listening to your community. There have been countless polls about what people don't want and do want to see changed to the game, and nearly 100% of the time you do the opposite of the poll. Now I realize these polls are not "official" , but they do offer insight from the players that care enough to vote and actually read your forums. I can think of a couple off the top of my head: aoe caps, adding traits to VMA's ridiculous rng layers as well as the undaunted chests and scaling items in already scaled dungeons to name a few. If you were smart you would of already added some of the elite players in the game to your staff much like other MMO's do on regular basis to actually know what people want to see put into your game as well as what needs to be addressed. But instead you continue to ignore the people that put time to test what is broken and essentially do your job for you only to again ignore their warnings. I hope you do start listening, but until that day comes do not suggest that do this, because it is very clear to a lot of your biggest fans what the truth actually is.

That announcement at E3 has been made because they've lost too many of their playerbase and now needs to rationalise server usage and stuff alike. The issue with that announcement is that it means affecting ressources to that particular issue and not improve the overall gaming experience for the remaining player.

The real issue when @ZOS_MattFiror is making an announcement is that he always get the one that are adressing to the new player-base and the one that are looking for a Skyrim MMO. Last New Year announcement was the same with voice-acting comment and stuff alike while almost Nothing was targeting the player who actively played the game and who had already done all the quest, without the voice-acting that they were to implement.

I won't speak for him and ask why he does that, is it because he wants his developpers to hold the news for old-player, or is it something else... don't know. The Truth is that Thieve's Guild and Dark Brotherhood expansion are both dailies expansion and that while the community might want to get the crafting style and some of the stuff that comes from those expansion, an other part of the community is actually really stress out that this kind of DLC are there to stay and that we can expect more from those in the futur...

Elder's Scroll license is huge but the lack of end-game scenario through the game has always been one of the lack of the license and Inside an MMO it is usually the hardest part. So are they going to flee into the dailies perspective DLC or are they actually going to try something EPIC maybe a new Coldharbor scenario for end-game or I don't know... it will be up to them but truely I'm not yet sure.

Shazgob · June 2016

The_Rooster24 wrote: »

Tonight we got a big nothing from E3, but we did get hear someone from the office say they listen. That truly frightened me. Some people post great suggestions and ideas on these forums. Others simply post irrelevant or uneducated thoughts. I'm not sure which one I will fall into for this, but what I do know is what I can plainly see, and what I can see is the opposite. ZOS if you do anything well besides making a beautiful, player engaging and great game it is certainly not listening to your community. There have been countless polls about what people don't want and do want to see changed to the game, and nearly 100% of the time you do the opposite of the poll. Now I realize these polls are not "official" , but they do offer insight from the players that care enough to vote and actually read your forums. I can think of a couple off the top of my head: aoe caps, adding traits to VMA's ridiculous rng layers as well as the undaunted chests and scaling items in already scaled dungeons to name a few. If you were smart you would of already added some of the elite players in the game to your staff much like other MMO's do on regular basis to actually know what people want to see put into your game as well as what needs to be addressed. But instead you continue to ignore the people that put time to test what is broken and essentially do your job for you only to again ignore their warnings. I hope you do start listening, but until that day comes do not suggest that do this, because it is very clear to a lot of your biggest fans what the truth actually is.

@The_Rooster24
I finally found you on forums Goodtouch, and I couldn't agree more with you. I mean, literally nothing that has ever been said that is a GOOD idea has been utilized. They simply do as they please.

In fact, at this point, I'm almost 100% sure that the goal for Zenimax is: completely get rid of the current end game community for both PvE and PvP and bring in a new generation of gamers who want the game as it is now, a broken, barely functional mess of a game. The community has no say and probably never will until the developers start getting sacked off and new hires come in that actually even mildly know what they are doing. Because as it stands, it's more than clear that their development team have no idea at all what is going on.

As an aside: I also believe the lack of information about ESO at E3 is a possible direct correlation to the fact that MAYBE the higher ups are figuring out the amount of problems and outrage that the development team are causing, and maybe just maybe they are on the verge of actually being replaced with people who listen, possibly even code, if we could ever be so lucky.

Also, for the devs, this isn't dev bashing, look through your forums --- you DO NOT take feedback from the community, and you DO NOT care. Period. Your track record shows this. If they do start sacking, I hope @Wrobel is first, the amount of damage he has done to tanking and this game in general is detestable.

RAGUNAnoOne · June 2016

They have what my grandparents had, SELECTIVE listening if it is not something they WANT to listen to you may as well be talking to a wall. and even if someone in ZOS does listen the chain of command applies and if someone in charge doesn't want to listen well too bad...

Shazgob · June 2016

MidknightWolf wrote: »

The_Rooster24 wrote: »

Tonight we got a big nothing from E3, but we did get hear someone from the office say they listen. That truly frightened me. Some people post great suggestions and ideas on these forums. Others simply post irrelevant or uneducated thoughts. I'm not sure which one I will fall into for this, but what I do know is what I can plainly see, and what I can see is the opposite. ZOS if you do anything well besides making a beautiful, player engaging and great game it is certainly not listening to your community. There have been countless polls about what people don't want and do want to see changed to the game, and nearly 100% of the time you do the opposite of the poll. Now I realize these polls are not "official" , but they do offer insight from the players that care enough to vote and actually read your forums. I can think of a couple off the top of my head: aoe caps, adding traits to VMA's ridiculous rng layers as well as the undaunted chests and scaling items in already scaled dungeons to name a few. If you were smart you would of already added some of the elite players in the game to your staff much like other MMO's do on regular basis to actually know what people want to see put into your game as well as what needs to be addressed. But instead you continue to ignore the people that put time to test what is broken and essentially do your job for you only to again ignore their warnings. I hope you do start listening, but until that day comes do not suggest that do this, because it is very clear to a lot of your biggest fans what the truth actually is.

The fact is ZOS does listen and they listen well. They just dont cater to the people who put up suggestions with out any statistical backing or facts. They dont listen to people who are lazy and dont want a challenge. They do a fabulous job balancing the game, but would be better if they balanced PVP separate from PVE.

This is untrue. There are plenty of players who DO provide backing, hell, I remember when @Wrobel posted a tanking thread with a bunch of numbers to back his changes, just to have another post how he was wrong and why, detailed it out nicely, made many many valid points, and the very next ESO Live what happened? It was dismissed and basically all the acknowledgement that it got was, 'It had a lot of nice graphs'.

It doesn't matter what you present them, they don't give a ***. Plain and simple.

The_Rooster24 · June 2016

STEVIL wrote: »

I believe the following:

1 - A smart company uses mass public venues and press events not to reach out to their hardcore endgame existing customer base but to new players and to players of other similar games. As such they emphasize every "newbie friendly" "wide open" and implementation of "lore stuff" that can draw people in. Had the stuff yesterday been all about endgame or PVP or trials etc i would have written it off as bad move.

2 - A smart company realizes the small percentage of hardcore posters on forums do not represent the main player base of a living game. Listen to the noise, sure, but always take it with a grain of salt. A good example IMO was the outrage in PTS over enchant nodes AFTER they announced the "listened and changed" returning potencies to the wild. The noisy kept insisting on "going back" but with the massive change in the leveling and progression the new 50/50 scaled runes works to serve the new progressions better than the old system would. Old way was fine for old progressions under vr, but not for Cp-based progression gear needs. HAD ZOS just listened to that thread, the majority of nodes for runes in the game right now would not serve the characters levels in play.

3 - A smart game company listens to data, not internet posts from folks where some of them have an agenda and lots of time. What players say/yell/poll/rage online is basically small potatoes as far as veracity compared to what they DO in game. ZOS has the data and can use online posting as an additional data point but realizing it is very unreliable.

YFMV

I do believe this is not about damn runes. Your part of the problem. You hear ZOS doesn't listen and you think oh what about runes. I never said Tamerial one was bad but this is not new news. I don't care about the ragers or the uneducated people on these forums. I care about the people who do the math, the people who test their game, and the people that are willing to put in the work.

nimander99 · June 2016

I've been requesting this for quite some time... And in Twitch yesterday I was saying the one announcement I hoped would come is World Scaling. So yeah, made my month with that announcement. Now I just need to hibernate till the fall.