Can we please have maintenance and guild trader switchover times so that they don't overlap?

Epona222 · June 2016

I am getting a message that I am trying to use an outdated client and it won't let me log in... ffs.

Epona222 · June 2016

I waited all this time and now cannot log in. Zeni, I really enjoy running a guild, but I hate going through this or similar every Monday. Please Please do something to change it and make our experience better. Please.

Vindemiatrix · June 2016

Glad I waited for coffee. Came online just as I finished that post.

Epona222 · June 2016

I now can't get into the game and the thread I was looking at was shunted off to tech support - has anyone here managed to log in yet?

baratron · June 2016

My patch is at 83%.

The first 'patch' was just updating the Launcher - it now has a "Run 64 bit client" option. The second patch for the game itself only downloads after you've closed the Launcher and reopened it a few times.

AlnilamE · June 2016

Yes, please.
I was able to check before leaving for work. Not anymore.

And now I can't even bring my laptop to work because it doesn't have "real" DirectX 11 so it won't play the game anymore. It played it at low settings, but I could at least log on and do admin stuff.

Epona222 · June 2016

At least my patcher is now downloading and installing something - it already stalled once and is now going again after a restart.

@ZOS_JessicaFolsom - please, please, please, can you give feedback to those that make the decisions that it is causing serious disruption to GMs and Officers of trade guilds to have maintenance at the same time as trader switchover, I run a trading guild because I like to do so, but today has completely done my head in, sitting here for hours waiting to see if our bid won, panicking because the launcher wasn't working - this isn't fun! Playing a game should be fun, running a guild should be FUN! Please feed back to whoever decides these things that the timing of trader switchover is NOT fun, that waiting to get back into the game after maintenance when the launcher is playing up and you still don't know whether you got your bid is NOT fun. It's the opposite of fun.

Epona222 · June 2016

I'm still not in game due to launcher issues, if our bid didn't win we won't get anything now - it's not my fault because I have done as much as I possibly can, but it's my name at the top of the roster.

Something needs to change Zeni.

EDIT: Finally made it in game - won our trader bid, but if we hadn't I wouldn't have been able to do anything about it, could really do without this much stress caused by maintenance overlapping with trader switchover.

treborrealb14_ESO · June 2016

Also @zos Can we also fix the broken bug that causes Keeps to never switch owners in PVP? cause if we lose a guild trader we like to use the back up in PVP and sell our stuff.

Stop ignoring this issue

ElfFromSpace · June 2016

code65536 wrote: »

What ticks me off is that we've communicated to ZOS before that this was an issue. And then they go ahead and make this a regular thing?!

We've been communicating this issue to ZOS for well over a year. Yet they don't acknowledge that it's a real issue or if they do they say a vague "We want to give little guilds a chance" This current system is hardest on the little guilds. We have an old but updated thread on guild issues overall:

tiny.cc/esoguild

Epona222 · June 2016

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

What ticks me off is that we've communicated to ZOS before that this was an issue. And then they go ahead and make this a regular thing?!

We've been communicating this issue to ZOS for well over a year. Yet they don't acknowledge that it's a real issue or if they do they say a vague "We want to give little guilds a chance" This current system is hardest on the little guilds. We have an old but updated thread on guild issues overall:

tiny.cc/esoguild

This sort of rubbish isn't giving a chance to little guilds - heck, I run a "little" guild (in terms of our turnover isn't that high), and all it does is wreck the start of my week.

nine9six · June 2016

The fact that you even have to make a thread like this is a facepalm.

I agree with the proposed change.

Rickter · June 2016

/signed - it was a very inconsiderate change in regards to the trade bidders/guilds. i get they moved the times to accommodate the "player feedback" they received but they really should have had some insight into the NA trade communities. my officer that handles my guild's trader has been hurting. It's a little heart breaking seeing her having to wake up earlier and earlier when she has a life outside of this, let alone having to worry about the trader getting sniped. and its also somewhat contributed to the last two weeks of Requiem not having a trader. im not saying ZOS are a bunch of ***, they just need to address this properly very soon - which im confident they will.

JarlUlfric · June 2016

Preach, @Epona222 ! We've been asking for this for well over a year and a half now and nothing has been changed so far. I guess we do get kinda lucky when they don't do maintenance one week but the time is still a pain in the backside to deal with. It ends up where one of my officers has to be borderline nocturnal to be able to make it to the switch over.

hjmgamerb14_ESO · June 2016

This time conflict between maintenance and trader bids is ridiculous, inconvenient for EVERY guild trying to get a trader, and just plain stupid and lazy on ZOS's part. I can wait out a week with no trader on some of my guilds but its effing annoying, and then it just pumps up the cost of the traders so the little guilds have no chance.

Autolycus · June 2016

While we're at it, let's start doing some actual maintenance. A good start would be patching memory leaks. There are still a plethora of server-related issues present on all platform versions of this game. I actually told a support rep once that they need to start doing real maintenance. She directed me to here.

You guys can formulate your own opinions. As for me, well, I stand behind the concept that telling us what time "maintenance" will be performed is not the same thing as telling us what you're actually maintaining. What are all of these routine "maintenance" sessions for? What are you accomplishing during this time?

On a more related note:

Epona222 wrote: »

ElfFromSpace wrote: »

code65536 wrote: »

What ticks me off is that we've communicated to ZOS before that this was an issue. And then they go ahead and make this a regular thing?!

We've been communicating this issue to ZOS for well over a year. Yet they don't acknowledge that it's a real issue or if they do they say a vague "We want to give little guilds a chance" This current system is hardest on the little guilds. We have an old but updated thread on guild issues overall:

tiny.cc/esoguild

This sort of rubbish isn't giving a chance to little guilds - heck, I run a "little" guild (in terms of our turnover isn't that high), and all it does is wreck the start of my week.

I made a post yesterday that said basically this. I've seen small guilds, including those that I've personally managed, get tossed around and manhandled by bigger guilds for a year and a half now. I've watched people who spend all of their time running content, who have loads of gear to sell to the public, and cannot because of the crappy system we have in place now. ZOS has not given any indication since inception that the little guilds matter in ESO.

There's a lower limit on participation for traders - not small guild friendly.
The vast majority of available traders are all in major cities - creates barriers to entry for small guilds.
Traders that exist beyond the major cities - if you're lucky, there's only one at any given location (or one trader sitting next to a couple of fake traders for which we cannot bid upon).

Nestor · June 2016

More Traders do need to be added. Then an interface like Awesome Guild store where we can save filters or at least use the same filter on each trader (for those times we are looking for one particular thing) would go a long way to helping the Kiosk Economy. I don't think the main hubs need more traders, but the smaller outposts could use one or two more each.

And, with a 24/7 Global Game, it is hard to set a time that works for everyone, but, it would be better to move to a Server Centric timing. For example, Trader Bids close at say 10PM Eastern Time. This would allow 99% of the players in the NA Server to bid on and know if they have a trader before the week starts. Europe, do the same kind of thing. We know that the trader bid process can work without tieing it to maintenance as we don't have maintenances each week.

If they have to for some reason make the Kiosk Changes in the middle of the night, they can do that after the bidding is closed. To that point, has anyone ever been checking out the inventory of a trader during a non maintenance cut-over? What happens?

The time for trader bidding is an arbitrary thing from what I can see, so keeping it in the middle of the night is just being mean, not helpful to anyone involved in the process.

baratron · July 2016

How do you guys feel about maintenance moving to 4 am EDT?

Personally, I'm not that bothered by it, as long as the maintenance is over in time for Guild Trader changeover. The problem is, some weeks the maintenance does take more than 3-4 hours. Also, 4 am EDT is 1 am PDT, which is still a reasonable time for people in North America to be playing.

What would the ideal time for maintenance to be?

Apparently some other MMOs have half an hour of maintenance every day, rather than one big block of maintenance once a week. I'm not sure which idea is better.

Epona222 · August 2016

And we're in the same situation again on the NA server.

Now I'm fairly lucky that I don't have to work Mondays, but today my husband is off work - he knows that I do guild stuff on Monday, but isn't usually around to see it. He just asked me why I was sitting here, looking really fed up and a bit tired. I explained the situation - that I would have to sit here until maintenance is over before I knew whether my guild had won their trader bid. He said "well when will maintenance be over, 1 hour, 2 hours?" I replied "I don't know, there's never any ETA for maintenance, I just have to sit here til it's done"

He looked at my haggard face and his one comment on the situation was "well that's ****ing obscene".

Asata · August 2016

Since you can't see what anyone else bid, what exactly would staying up accomplish? You wouldn't know if anyone beat you, and once you've lost what are you going to do? It's not like you could just go bid on another trader... you'd just be without one for a week.

Am I missing something here that everyone seems to know except me?

ListerJMC · August 2016

Asata wrote: »

Since you can't see what anyone else bid, what exactly would staying up accomplish? You wouldn't know if anyone beat you, and once you've lost what are you going to do? It's not like you could just go bid on another trader... you'd just be without one for a week.

Am I missing something here that everyone seems to know except me?

If your bid didn't win on your regular trader and you're quick enough about it, you can go around to other traders and see if you can find a store that nobody has bid on (so one with no owner) to get as a replacement.

The issue with store bids being won or lost during maintenance times is that your ability to quickly see if there are any stores available in the event of your bid losing is dependent on how fast you can download the patch and get into the game. The fact that the maintenance times don't have a set duration is also an issue, because if you want to have the best chance of finding a replacement you have to wait around for the maintenance to be over, which can take several hours.