MidknightWolf wrote: »

willlienellson wrote: »

ZOS Focuses way too much on the feedback of elite "celebrity" gamers while they roundly ignore player consensus and feedback on the forums as a matter of course. It's a problem.
Original Post Below:
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Apparently, right now, a select elite of ESO youtubers like Sypher and Deltia, etc are meeting in person with Zenimax after being invited to the headquarters.

While these youtubers provide a service with their content, they hardly represent the ESO player base neither formally nor informally. They most often represent each other. They represent a micro-industry that operates along side ESO. If anything in-game, they represent a small minority of elite guilds that don't experience ESO like the rest of us and are not good representatives.

Please allow me to explain and provide examples.

PvP: I'm not suggesting any of the specific youtubers or "celebrity players" cheat (although some do and have been banned for it), but they also don't experience playing against cheating, or even against OP players, in the same way. Members of this class of ESO players avoid combat with each other. Many of the known cheaters in this game belong to the same guilds as these elite celebrity ESO players. That doesn't mean the celebrity youtubers are cheating, but it usually means the cheaters don't fight against them. This results in this group having an unrealistically casual viewpoint on cheating as something more benign than it is.

Exploits/Secrets: And exploiting game glitches is the cousin of cheating. Things that aren't working as intended, but are unlikely to get you banned, are passed around as open-secrets within the group and become staples of builds, but are not shared publicly because they don't want them fixed.

Here are two examples of fixed exploits that people weren't getting banned for, that I think I can provide since they no longer work.

1) You could double enchant Flanking Set jewelry with a total of 6 jewelry glyphs instead of 3.
2) You could glitch out Hist Bark set to give a dodge bonus even after you took the set off.

So while you were making the hard choices about how to enchant your jewelry, some players were not. When you were spending 3000 stamina to cast Shuffle, or wearing 5 pieces of Hist Bark, others were dodging with neither.

I'm not accusing anyone of doing these things, but I know the people who did do these things are embedded within that small community. So, at it's most benign, this colors the feedback and impressions of the players in that community which are passed on to Zos as apparently about the only feedback they are actually interested in.

Powercreep: Even if none of the youtube celebrity player cheat, or exploit, or take advantage of tricks....the higher ceiling of performance that is enjoyed on average in these communities is exacerbating the power creep problem in this game. Members of this sector of the community are always the first to say, "This game offers me no challenge. VMA is too easy. This is too easy. That is too easy".

Balancing: Their opinion of balance rarely reflects the community because they rarely face players utilizing abilities to their maximum effectiveness due to the fact that players within this class avoid fighting each other. This is the only game I've ever played where friends cannot play against each other. I've had several of the people I consider members of this niche group actually tell me point blank, "Friends don't kill each other in PvP. I'll give you a pass and you give me a pass. Stop fighting against me or I'm taking you off friends list".

Instead of two great players with great builds fighting each other and learning that certain abilities are indeed out of balance, they pass by each other, high-fiving one another as they farm the pugs from each others alliances and convince themselves that the game is perfectly balanced but THEY are individually "Gods of PvP".
These players don't have experiences in the game that would allow them to adequately represent the larger player base.

The resources were used to have this elite youtube gathering session at Zenimax would have been better spent reading the forums, selecting a few issues with broad community consensus, and then having an internal meeting on how to best address those concerns. But that's too much to hope for.

Yes, I'm painting with a broad brush. There are exceptions to every rule and I'm not trying to disparage anyone specifically. I don't blame anyone for accepting the invitation. This is a rebuke of how Zos operates.

I subscribe to Deltia's channel, I like his content, and his personality. But I don't like him as a representative of ESO players.

If you like their videos, that's fine. If you run their builds, that's great. If you think I'm full of crap, that's okay. And Zos can invite whoever they want on a sleepover.
But, if you've ever wondered why this game is balanced around the top 1% of players and the roleplayers being bought off with mount reskins with everyone in the middle ignored, THIS IS WHY.

[Edit to remove mention of moderator actions and political references]

Try not to hate. These streamers have a very good understanding on the math, algorithms, and mechanics behind each and every ability and class. They have a vast amount of knowledge. My good friend craz got hired to be a developer because of her math skills and abilities to revers engineer. These streamers are selected because by watching their streams, ZOS has realized that they have great knowledge of the game and know the ins and outs of PVP (the largest part of the game that needs most improvements.) And yes, also to say thanks to them for spending hours upon hours of their time free of charge promoting their game. Dont hate, try to understand.

LrdRahvin wrote: »

srfrogg23 wrote: »

willlienellson wrote: »

ZOS Focuses way too much on the feedback of elite "celebrity" gamers while they roundly ignore player consensus and feedback on the forums as a matter of course. It's a problem.
Original Post Below:
_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Apparently, right now, a select elite of ESO youtubers like Sypher and Deltia, etc are meeting in person with Zenimax after being invited to the headquarters.

While these youtubers provide a service with their content, they hardly represent the ESO player base neither formally nor informally. They most often represent each other. They represent a micro-industry that operates along side ESO. If anything in-game, they represent a small minority of elite guilds that don't experience ESO like the rest of us and are not good representatives.

Please allow me to explain and provide examples.

PvP: I'm not suggesting any of the specific youtubers or "celebrity players" cheat (although some do and have been banned for it), but they also don't experience playing against cheating, or even against OP players, in the same way. Members of this class of ESO players avoid combat with each other. Many of the known cheaters in this game belong to the same guilds as these elite celebrity ESO players. That doesn't mean the celebrity youtubers are cheating, but it usually means the cheaters don't fight against them. This results in this group having an unrealistically casual viewpoint on cheating as something more benign than it is.

Exploits/Secrets: And exploiting game glitches is the cousin of cheating. Things that aren't working as intended, but are unlikely to get you banned, are passed around as open-secrets within the group and become staples of builds, but are not shared publicly because they don't want them fixed.

Here are two examples of fixed exploits that people weren't getting banned for, that I think I can provide since they no longer work.

1) You could double enchant Flanking Set jewelry with a total of 6 jewelry glyphs instead of 3.
2) You could glitch out Hist Bark set to give a dodge bonus even after you took the set off.

So while you were making the hard choices about how to enchant your jewelry, some players were not. When you were spending 3000 stamina to cast Shuffle, or wearing 5 pieces of Hist Bark, others were dodging with neither.

I'm not accusing anyone of doing these things, but I know the people who did do these things are embedded within that small community. So, at it's most benign, this colors the feedback and impressions of the players in that community which are passed on to Zos as apparently about the only feedback they are actually interested in.

Powercreep: Even if none of the youtube celebrity player cheat, or exploit, or take advantage of tricks....the higher ceiling of performance that is enjoyed on average in these communities is exacerbating the power creep problem in this game. Members of this sector of the community are always the first to say, "This game offers me no challenge. VMA is too easy. This is too easy. That is too easy".

Balancing: Their opinion of balance rarely reflects the community because they rarely face players utilizing abilities to their maximum effectiveness due to the fact that players within this class avoid fighting each other. This is the only game I've ever played where friends cannot play against each other. I've had several of the people I consider members of this niche group actually tell me point blank, "Friends don't kill each other in PvP. I'll give you a pass and you give me a pass. Stop fighting against me or I'm taking you off friends list".

Instead of two great players with great builds fighting each other and learning that certain abilities are indeed out of balance, they pass by each other, high-fiving one another as they farm the pugs from each others alliances and convince themselves that the game is perfectly balanced but THEY are individually "Gods of PvP".
These players don't have experiences in the game that would allow them to adequately represent the larger player base.

The resources were used to have this elite youtube gathering session at Zenimax would have been better spent reading the forums, selecting a few issues with broad community consensus, and then having an internal meeting on how to best address those concerns. But that's too much to hope for.

Yes, I'm painting with a broad brush. There are exceptions to every rule and I'm not trying to disparage anyone specifically. I don't blame anyone for accepting the invitation. This is a rebuke of how Zos operates.

I subscribe to Deltia's channel, I like his content, and his personality. But I don't like him as a representative of ESO players.

If you like their videos, that's fine. If you run their builds, that's great. If you think I'm full of crap, that's okay. And Zos can invite whoever they want on a sleepover.
But, if you've ever wondered why this game is balanced around the top 1% of players and the roleplayers being bought off with mount reskins with everyone in the middle ignored, THIS IS WHY.

[Edit to remove mention of moderator actions and political references]

Yes, Zenimax should have invited me to come play test their game.

I probably would have turned them down because I just don't have that kind of free time on my hands, thanks to family and work, life in general... But, the thought would have counted, at least

I was part of the invite only Psijic Order alpha server that had several really big guilds in other games brough on to test stuff pre-pre-launch and I can confirm it wouldn't matter at all. ZOS doesn't pay any more attention to invited testers than they do to the forums.

This is all just PR and playerbase placating.

Deltia wrote: »

[snip]

• PvE class balance should be based around top players, unless you really enjoy hearing that "no, your stamina templar isn't going to make it for vMoL, that's on Zos, but you still can't come in" or "you're a magicka DK, so you'll never get 600k on vMA". I wouldn't mind seeing diversity in the top endgame raids, but what we got with Housing is quite the opposite.
• PvE content balance should be based around target completions, and that's why they have forums, Reddit, polls and whatever else they're using. If people are getting absolutely r3kt by world bosses, they can lower the difficulty of specific bosses to increase said "target completion" (which is basically how many % of the players can actually defeat a world boss based on certain numbers and group compositions)
• PvP is an absolute pain to balance since you can't work solely based on numbers, and this is where (surprise!) community feedback is often taken into account - prime examples being proc sets, jesus beam & destro ult nerfs.

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

There seems to be a misperception that this PR exercise is to make the game more playable. It's not.

People with loud voices and influence are being pampered and flattered so they can keep the hype train going for morrowind. In the same week we had the Superbowl advert, Facebook advertising and numerous puff piece "news stories" this is another part of the marketing strategy.

All the 'delegates' will be sympathetically listened too and token changes made. They will leave with a feeling of personal investment in ESO and a desire to keep the game going, and will use their influence at a time many new players may be considering the game.

Zos will do some low-key self promotion (e.g. tweeting pics of developers and players at a round table) to imply they listen to their players and it is no big deal.

They could have involved more players for far less cost using teleconferencing, but that wouldn't serve the real purpose of this exercise. Unfortunately too long with ZOS is making me very cynical.

hamgatan wrote: »

Jim_Pipp wrote: »

People with loud voices and influence are being pampered and flattered so they can keep the hype train going for morrowind. In the same week we had the Superbowl advert, Facebook advertising and numerous puff piece "news stories" this is another part of the marketing strategy.

*mic drop*

^ THIS. EXACTLY.

Pamper those with the largest follower communities, get them raving about how awesome housing is.. followers be like.. well housing must be awesome then because <insert name here> said so.

Marketing through influence. As i said above putting them on a pedestal.. to become second tier Zenimax salespeople.

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

hamgatan wrote: »

Appreciate what they do for the game, but I don't appreciate the god-like status you're conveying on them because its ruining it for the other 90%.

Noone from ZOS is conveying them a "god-like" status. The only ones who are in the position to do that is their audience. That's, basically, us.