AuldWolf wrote: »

I think that greed is playing a role. I think that the people at ZOS have the wrong idea about hyper-competitive people. They think those people play just to play. Not so. Hahaha, no. Both of them play to have a hierarchy. If PvP and PvE people lose the casuals whom they lord things over, they leave. So the casuals leave, and then the toxic, competitive people leave.

Question: Why not just stop appealing to the competitive people at all? Drop the dead weight. Lose a few hundred players and gain thousands more. Seems like a no-brainer.

I just think that the people in management positions are misguided and have wrong ideas about things, that they don't understand what a modern MMO actually looks like. They don't get that they'll get more loyal players, more money, and a healthier future just by appealing to casual people. Casual people become loyal to a game because they've been treated right, just as I've been with ESO. I've played a lot of alts, I don't need all this new content, I'm happy to play even without new content every month (or even three). I feel most casuals are the same way. I've also spent a lot of money on the crown store.

This just reeks of mismanagement of the worst degree. It really does. They have this twisted view that PvP players and end-game PvE players will continue to play even if they don't have casuals to lord things over. Like I've said, they leave. They left Champions, after all. And they never bothered with Warhammer Online or Wildstar to begin with because there weren't enough casuals to lord things over.

WoW is really the only ecosystem that keeps casuals around (via Skinner box addiction) for competitive people to lord things over. You can't compete with that. You really can't. Others have tried, and failed.

I'm going to address this passage all at once. Take note that I'm not entirely agreeing or disagreeing, I just want to give my 2 cents from my own observations and experiences (as both a player of many MMORPGs over the last 17 years, and a project director of a small indie project/game), and give a different view point and angle.

I don't believe it is a motivation of greed. Too often players in a games' forums will claim a change is made in greed. From 2010 to now it was a fad to hate on big business, and some decisions made by certain companies didn't help that vision.

However.. lets be realistic. An artist that draws stuff, models characters and objects, and renders the textures over the models doesn't design with making money in mind. A guy coding the numbers that makes an ability do X damage when Y happens modified by Z, doesn't do so with the game making money. The IT guy that runs the server clusters and ensures routers and switches are patched, flashed, and running with up to date stuff, backs up files, and all that, doesn't do so with the idea of making sure the game makes money.

Those are your developers. They pour blood, sweat, and tears to make a game they'd like to play or see other's play. They get a paycheck every month, a salary every year. That doesn't change based on what we buy. What changes is if they have work next year if the game succeeds or fails. These people are motivated only by making a good game that will continue to provide us with something to play, and something for them to continue working on.

The ones in charge of greasing us and milking us for every dime and penny is the financial department. They set the prices, they encourage their PR department (social media, advertising, ect) to do promotions and in some cases will proposes expansions (DLCs, store items, ect) to the developers to make.. IF the management, or producers and directors agree that it will help the project as a whole (make money, not lose business). More likely executives tell the producers to get the finance on board and go about it that way (ZOS is big.. 1000+ employees over a few subsidiaries).

But don't blame the devs for greed. They're not greedy. They're like us. They go to work, do a job, and make a paycheck to feed mouths and keep a roof over their heads. There's no way a botched balance change is caused by greed. Housing is a service we've asked for and the producers wish to provide. That's not greed, that's just business. ESO isn't a charity game. You want a free public game, that's America's Army.

As for a claim of mismanagement, I don't know if that is the case. I can't honestly say that the 'balance' changes are bad. I have to see them in action. Anyone who uses Radiant Destruction and sees a 21% flat damage decrease in patch notes is going to be miffed. If they don't look at the broader picture.

Our builds are not based on one skill or passive. We have dozens of passives, and 10 skills and 2 ultimates that make our build. We can derive those skills from a variety of trees. From what I've seen, how we do things in the current game will change in the next update.

This is NOT a bad thing. The challenge of ESO is and always was to make a build, see if it works and improve on it. If there is NEVER a change up in how skills are performed the game will Stagnate. When I came back a month and a half ago. I had one concern. The game had been in a state for a while that everything had been figured out. I could go on Youtube, find a playstyle that I wanted, and just copy a build.

And why not? The theorycrafting had been done. Parses made. And analysis completed. What could I contribute? Well I found some stuff that wasn't measured and test already, but it was very small. This patch allows me to be in the thick of finding a couple of new builds. For players coming back, for players just getting into the CP 160 range. This is a great time to play. Things are being shook up. There'll be a few new builds to figure out. For a game like ESO, this is what it is all about.

Those players who like stasis, and convenience will be rattled. Its unfortunate. Well unfortunate that they feel that way. But they have to understand that if you're wearing the same gold gear with the same build you've had for months.. what's the purpose of playing? The bar either has to go up, or the event itself needs to change. Stagnation leads to boredom, boredom leads to playing something else.

Now if a balance change is bad its bad. We'll see how 'bad' they are when we get them to live and the general public of thousands of players gets their hands on them and figure it out. Some abilities will likely be bad. Others won't be. Those that are good will be used in builds. Those that aren't will be discarded. That's no different then the last pass.

Some of you will say that they should fix abilities, not merely change them up. You're not wrong. Not wrong at all. But that is an opinion. For example, they could make Frost Staffs equal to Fire in DPS. They could have totally done that. But the devs decided to make it a tanking weapon. Why did they do this? Maybe the warden class is coming. But I fail to see why its only a Warden thing. I spoke with some friends about this change and immediately they came to some conclusions about possible builds with the existing classes. Will they work? Maybe, maybe not. We'll have to see.

Some are jaded enough to say that particular change will fail. I don't think so. I think much of it will lie in the execution and build around abilities and gear sets. I mean in this game, the only tank used to be Dragon Knight at one point. Now all 4 can tank. Some of it took balance changes, some of it took player ingenuity, much took both. So we'll see how the PTS pans out. And it is going to PTS to see if it results in what the devs want.

Finally I think its interesting that you used WoW in an example. One thing interesting about WoW, is their changes in design decisions. We all know WoW as the Super Large Casual Friendly MMORPG.

Many of you don't realize it didn't start that way. In 2004, WoW was a punishing game. Elite mobs, dungeons with mechanics, ability rotations were all very new to the MMORPG genre. As an EQ player going to WoW. It was an eye opener. It was easy to adapt to, but it was definitely new. Eventually WoW got easier, and that's when it gained in popularity among the casual player (a term I do not like to use because of where it come from but I won't go into that here to avoid derailing).

Fast forward to Legion. WoW's latest expansion. They've decided to make the game harder again. There's content locked behind premade group content, much like how the game used to be. You're average player either needs to be carried, get better, or simply understand that they will not have access to the entire story of an expansion the same way as before.

They didn't do this out of greed. They didn't suddenly derp out either. It was a soundly made decision with a reasoning. The reasoning being simple. They want to make the game they want to make. Not the game that will get them the most subscribers. Does that even sound like WoW to any of you?

Why this decision? Why now?

From experience, developers and producers wish to make the piece they wish to make. Making a game is like a movie or painting. Yes you can make the soulless piece of crap that is cheap to make and everyone will gobble up.

Or you can put some soul into the creation and actually have something that has more essence than something that simply exists to make money.

ESO is NOT a soulless piece of crap made to make money. You can hear it in the music. You can see it in the attention to detail of the environment. Everyone of my friends who plays ESO or has played it has remarked about how beautiful and detailed the world is. From the music, the the visuals, and most of all the writing. The lore and Story. There is a ton of non-game related writing and narration in the game that goes well beyond simply making a buck.

That's something we'd have to begrudgingly agree with. There is things in this game that simply doesn't exist in other games of the same genre. Executives want to make a profitable business. Producers want to make money and look good while doing it. Nothing will change that fact. Their impact happens when they strip the soul from a game by restricting the developers. Which I haven't seen evidence of.

So I don't believe our developers of ESO are trying to focus on a small group of competitive players. They seem to wish to make the game they want to make. Much like the developers of WoW are starting to do. Sometimes players like a vision, many times they don't. Either because they don't understand it, or simply don't like changes.

From what I've read in these forums for the last month. The players here hate change with a passion. Well they don't hate it. They fear it. They fear the fact that they may have to make changes, changes they aren't prepared for. When many times that players complain, they sensationalize, berate developers, or even have agendas to squeeze every personal advantage they can.

I've played MMOs for 17 years. I've been through buffs and nerfs, both minor and major. I've seen game systems change drastically, and I've seen them stagnate into death. Changes are part of the game. Some are good, some are meh, and some are bad. If they're not bad enough to make the game boring or annoying, I continue. Otherwise I move on. Even if changes are good I may move on anyway to try something else.

I never get emotionally attached to a game or a character in a game. I play a game to have fun. Not to be a second life or job or existence. And I only play a game made by a group that I believe is honest and competent. I love seeing posts of players claiming a company is ripping them off, who's greedy, and who's incompetent. And will do it for moths at a time. You'll see it here. There's posters who have been playing the game since it came out and complain that they've been ripped off the entire time. Why should I take them seriously.

That's akin to a guy eating at the same burger joint every week, despite getting charged extra for food he didn't order and getting explosive diarrhea every time. But eats there once a week for years. Like a burger joint, you can quit a game and move on elsewhere if they are getting dishonest and cannot deliver a good product. I know this because I've dumped other MMOs for those reasons.

To put it shortly, I don't take such posters seriously. They're here and playing. Its nowhere near as bad as they claim. This excuse of not having another game to play or its the only ES MMO.. BS, all of it BS. There's hundreds of MMORPGs. If we were talking about MMOFPS, they'd have a point, there's only 3 of those.

This isn't to say the game is perfect. Oh its got its issues. Some even a bit annoying (enough that if another MMO proves to be interesting in comparison with such issues, I'm jumping ship). But as I said, if the game is fun enough to ignore them, I'll do so. My issues are mainly with the server lag and the fact that abilities go off key release and not keypress. Other than that, its all design decisions, much like I don't like some pit falls in Mario Bros, but they're there, they're part of the game. Just got to deal with them. That's where most 'balance' issues are in ESO.

As for the patch notes on the PTS. I like them. They change enough up in the game that it will make things interesting. Housing looks good I suppose, but over all there's a couple of nice fixes and change ups that I like. I don't like everything. Like the switching up of skill orders seems weird. But its whatever. Seems more like a new player issue that ultimately won't affect me. Couple bugs and exploits fixed which is good too. And a few bones thrown to ESO plus members that I like.

Overall people are making mountains out of molehills. The patch will be decent. Not a catastrophe. And those players don't believe it will either. If they did, they'd have quit ESO and made those statements on another game's forums and left ESO behind. But they're here, they're playing, and will continue to play because the game is fun. They just can't bring themselves to admit it.

Narvuntien wrote: »

Seems good to me.
But perhaps I am the kind of casual player this appeals to.

I got raged at by a guildmate because I play Bow gank NB.... I posted I was super happy that I used my one undaunted key on a chest and got Kragh Shoulders... hmm that Pen... first time. Then they had a go at me for not playing full meta and that I should be doing 40K damage 1 shotting people with monster helms and dual swords. Can't you just let me be happy for one second *sigh*.

Also I play MagDK so yay buffs. I am Dragonmage so seems good to me.

ohh oh and crafting bonuses for master crafters.

A few issues in your post, you do not know how much any dev is pouring into this game, you do not know there exact pay or if they get bonuses, and what do you mean they are like us? Lol no just no, people working for big companies like this make more money then your average joe, to me it seems your more focused on hyping them up then actual facts, of course this does not mean no devs do not pour allot into the game I am sure many do but all of them? That is something you cannot know.

You do not know anything in your claims here, I am not saying you are wrong but lets not jump to assumptions here, another problem is you only talked about one change which was the ice staff taunt you did not mention any of the real issues of the changes, no one is really upset about the frost staff change, only some, many see its benefits.

Just the housing for me...I love housing and the ability to craft stuff to put inside it is something I like to do when I don't feel like questing or have a small window of time to play.

Haven't been playing long enough for end game PVE, and I rarely PVP, so I barely read up on the balancing notes.

"Laughable"
I don't consider housing to be playable content and there's no real balance happening. I think it's really a way to get more on the crown store. Most will pay real money for these houses they will rarely be in.

Sylosi wrote: »

SirAndy wrote: »

Most people will adapt, just like they did after every other update since long before launch.

Most people since launch "adapted" by leaving the game...

Just popped on to see how things are going, not played for a couple of months and can see no reason to return.

So your post is some what true.....................

Technical difficulties w/ phone.

I can't really vote because I am only happy with some changes, playing PVP only and not really having much to interact with in PVE. The housing of course is the big update, and looks interesting but looks incredibly expensive.

The changes to pets is what I'm very happy about, its a shame that the Daedra Monster helm did not get the same treatment on health though, he dies just as easy in PVP. Even though the Pets health has been buffed by quite a bit, pets put an enormous strain on the caster for magika, especially if you have the clan fear heal and the matriarch heal. It would of been nice to see the pets damage uped a bit, or even their abilities changed. Its also great to see the Storm Attronarch being able to contribute to your pets when you activate your ultimate

MY DK just got changed back to Stamina build with the Blackrose in tail. Now she needs to be changed back to a Magika one :'(

I went on ESO Cyrodiil last night for about half an hour, laggy maps, abilities are not showing you casting them because its so laggy, (you can't even see the electric coming out of your staff) Can't place your ultimates where you want to because you can't see where your placing it because of the animations not showing up properly. Generally too many people in one campaign. Needless to say I came off and went on GTA. Even though their Heist missions take a long time to load at least they don't lag.

Riejael wrote: »

Overall people are making mountains out of molehills

Then progresses to write a 2300 word essay to say

Riejael wrote: »

As for the patch notes on the PTS. I like them. They change enough up in the game that it will make things interesting.

Backlash: This ability and its morphs now deal moderate damage when they are initially applied to the enemy. This damage does not contribute to the copied damage delivered at the end of the ability’s duration.
Radiant Destruction: Decreased the damage from this ability and its morphs by approximately 21%.

just delete the magplar

Hopefully it's goodbye stuck in combat