ESO Forums seem to be filled with fake news

OldGamerESO · May 2017

It seems increasingly hard to rationalize the difference between the hysteria on the forums and the reality in the game. It feels very similar to arguments people have with politics, where their particular bias colors their interpretation of events. The bias on these forums seems to be so heavily anti-ESO/ZeniMax that any positive posts are overrun with an angry mob shouting them down.

A perfect example is the CP and sustain changes in the last patch. I really did think the sky was falling. All of the posts about ESO "being ruined" and it becoming "heavy attacks online" seemed very persuasive and I expected to be miserable after the patch. So how do I explain that the exact opposite happened... I love the changes. Every single one of my characters seem substantially better after I reworked all my CP, tweaked my rotations and changed some glyphs, poisons and potion usage. I love the fact that I have been given a disincentive to piling all my CP into 3 perks. My characters seem much more resilient now even though I don't have more than 50 in any one perk. My DPS chars in most cases have higher DPS than before and with no sustain issues at all. Vet Dungeon bosses die just as fast as they did before. I can solo the same world bosses in the same amount of time (or better) now. Normal trials seem even easier now. I can't speak to veteran trials because, like 99.9% of players, I don't do them. I was doubting my sanity so I have been chatting with my guild mates about their experience... and wow, it turns out they feel the same way I do! I heard a couple of gripes about a few things (Templars losing major mending for example) but that was always followed up with "it didn't seem to make a big difference". In general everyone seems very happy with the patch and the changes.

So how come we were led to believe that ESO had become at best unenjoyable and at worst unplayable? Was this hysteria manufactured in order to create some sort of bargaining power with ZeniMax? That people claim to be quitting over these changes seem ludicrous. My guess is that if someone is leaving over these changes then they were just looking for an excuse to quit a game they stopped enjoying a long time ago.

I am sure the reaction to my post will be to either ignore it or tell me how wrong I am. Perhaps what I have learned is that the forums aren't really a useful place to discuss the game. It is too bad, because I seem to remember a time when it was different on the forums.

P.S. After reading these responses I guess I should not have used the term "fake news". It seems incorrect to characterize posts on the negative aspects of the patch as "fake". I guess I need a word that describes "exaggerated the negative experience to the average player". I also concede that some of the PTS complaints had the desired effect of changes that made the release more palatable. And finally I acknowledge that the increase in my own dps had to do with the CP changes being good for my own loose and non-efficient rotations. DPS is provably lower for perfectly efficient rotations/gear/buffs than before. I still stand by my point that there were too many exaggerations about how bad things would be for the regular player and that there is a vast gulf between the doom-sayers and reality for most players.

Darlgon · May 2017

Hit Developer Tracker button only.

Only read the green text.

Ignore rest of forum posts.

Play game.

You will be happier, just based on your thread title.

Beardimus · May 2017

Sadly @darlgon you are spot on. Alot of alarmist posts, moaning etc and mis truths.

When i joined it was all people helping each other etc and a mega resource. (it still is, you just have to cherry pick)

mrm8029 · May 2017

Darlgon wrote: »

Hit Developer Tracker button only.

Only read the green text.

Ignore rest of forum posts.

Play game.

You will be happier, just based on your thread title.

Excuse my ignorance, but what's this Developer Tracker button? I think I'll give a shot at less forum lurking and see if my sanity improves.

Edit: What do you know, it's right there at the top. (:

Morgul667 · May 2017

Lots of drama fueled by fear of change and zos lack in the communication department

Ostaradoe · May 2017

It's known as a 'Mono-thought-clique' where the loudest and boldest posters, usually with a high post count, become the authority and everyone who wants to be seen as part of the cool squad echo what they say, add to it, and allow it to taint their view of the game until they only see the negative.

It happens on every well used forum everywhere of any subject.

Once you recognise it, you can sort the helpful advice from the mono-thought and take what you need without getting caught up in the hysteria

idk · May 2017

Darlgon wrote: »

Hit Developer Tracker button only.

Only read the green text.

Ignore rest of forum posts.

Play game.

You will be happier, just based on your thread title.

More than not it seems people create a thread to rage and rant.

Voxicity · May 2017

You're kinda right to be honest

Radinyn · May 2017

My messege to the trolls - you spam that you will leave etc. and you fill the forum with fake news and hate. If you want to leave - then leave, goooo! I'm not holding you! Go! You don't have to sit here! You can try to do other funny things like cutting yourselves with soap.

Seri · May 2017

My experience is it's very content-specific. Overworld everything dies to a few light attacks so it's irrelevant. Vet dungeons aren't much different, other than COS and ROM which are still doable, although my friends have commented they need to be a bit gentler on resources.

OldGamerESO wrote: »

I can't speak to veteran trials because, like 99.9% of players, I don't do them.

For the vet trials, IMO it's noticeable - probably one of the only spots it's noticable, because of the fight lengths (also I wanna dispute that 99.9% figure but that's not the point of this thread). I've done vSO with an end-game guild and vAA with a more relaxed guild. We didn't finish the vAA one due to too much DPS loss (and much heavy attacking). My other group got through vSO, also with many complaints about running out of resources. The fights were longer and I had issues (as healer) with magicka (still more changes to do I guess). I guess if there is a plus side, it's that I didn't need a magicka dump for hard-mode though.

danno8 · May 2017

OldGamerESO wrote: »

... after I reworked all my CP, tweaked my rotations and changed some glyphs, poisons and potion usage.

Yes, after doing this you should find you can sustain just fine. No one ever argued otherwise. Although I do wonder how you objectively came to this:

My DPS chars in most cases have higher DPS than before.

because every objective test on PTS showed that while sustain can be had, it will drop your DPS by several thousand. For myself at first I dropped around 5k DPS on a test dummy, then after some tweaking and finding the right balance I was able to get my DPS to within 3k of what it was pre-Morrowind.

Also, just to note, if all you do are mainly overland and Veteran Dungeons (particularly release dungeons) then you will find very little difference as stuff dies too fast to have a noticeable effect. IT is the Veteran Trials groups that were hit hard with the sustain nerfs.

Silver_Strider · May 2017

In other news,
The sky is falling
Hell has frozen over
Warden is P2W
Heavy Attacks Online is the greatest MMO expansion since Wraith of the Lich King for WoW.

This is all sarcasm in case it went over your head

Saturnana · May 2017

OldGamerESO wrote: »

It seems increasingly hard to rationalize the difference between the hysteria on the forums and the reality in the game. It feels very similar to arguments people have with politics, where their particular bias colors their interpretation of events. The bias on these forums seems to be so heavily anti-ESO/ZeniMax that any positive posts are overrun with an angry mob shouting them down.

I totally agree with you in that the forums seem more negative, and I think there's several factors at play here.

I assume (since I can't find any real data on this) that the amount of players registered on the forum is much smaller than the actual amount of active players in ESO. Meaning that the forum is basically an over-representation of a smaller subset of players. Because of this, the opinions voiced here do not necessarily represent the overall opinion. And on top of that, as can also be the case in politics, the 'loud few' seem to sometimes out-voice and overrule the 'quiet majority'. So anyone taking just a glance at the forum could get a totally skewed vision of whatever is going on. You experienced that yourself regarding the CP adjustments when you were expecting doom and destruction based on the threads here, only to find something you ended up enjoying.

I do however think of the forum as a useful place to discuss the game. I don't consider rants and vents to be constructive discussions if they're just about spouting venom, and those are generally the topics that attract the most trolls, if not only trolls. Too bad that those are also the most visible threads. On the other hand, I've seen very insightful discussions between people who absolutely did. not. agree. But they managed to discuss the topic respectfully regardless and ended up 'agreeing to disagree'. It doesn't always have to be a fight. I try to ignore the threads that seem to move in that direction, though I must admit that sometimes I just can't help myself.

Turelus · May 2017

I think you can generally tell the difference between actual feedback based on someone who test it and wants to critic the work, and someone who just wants to cry.

If a thread contains the following I generally don't consider it worth taking to heart to much.

RIP X
X is cancer
X is dead
X was nerfed because of Y
PvY was nerfed because of PvZ
Threats to cancel sub unless it's changed
Blaming another group (elites, casuals, PvPers, PvEers etc.)
ZO$
X is Pay 2 Win

TheRealPotoroo · May 2017

Broadly speaking I agree with the OP. I've noticed slightly higher DPS across the board, no doubt because I respecced every character and made use of the front-loading to distribute my points better. My tank does seem to have trouble sustaining stamina though, it feels like the cost of blocking and bashing has been doubled. Against low level NPCs he can poke and sweep with his 1H sword all day, but the moment the shield goes up I suddenly have to become very attentive.

Psylum · May 2017

I think it's just the ebb and flow of people getting tired of the game, but they developed an attachment to the community with in. If I play a game daily for a few weeks I figure I got my moneys worth. 3 years and Im probably far below one cent per hour of entertainment value.
People just move on to different things as more people come in. Some vets see people leaving and think any change Zos made is destroying their social circle/game enjoyment.

BlackSparrow · May 2017

Yep. This is what a lot of us mean when we say this forum has a tone problem.

It's an unfortunate reality that a game forum like this is generally used by the people who are having problems with the game, since people who aren't having problems are too busy playing the game to lurk on the forums. This means that there is a much higher ratio of people having problems here than there actually exists in-game.

Over time, it's become more than that. Bashing the game and the devs is normalized now, and sometimes it's warranted, sometimes not. Some players are just predisposed to expect the worst, so they see every possible problem, even when its effect is narrow or no problem exists at all.

My philosophy is to withhold judgment on something until I've tried it myself. Are Crown Crates too expensive (if you're aiming for top tier, yes, but that's on each player)? Did the latest balance patch break my most affected character (a little bit, but I have enough of a CP cushion to adjust)? Is this a buggy, unplayable mess (no... it was much worse at launch, and even that wasn't unplayable)? Subjective questions have subjective answers, and this forum tends to skew toward the negative by virtue of the angry ones being the most vocal.

So yeah, don't pay attention to the Doom and Gloom and "ZO$ is trying to rob us!" posts. Give the game the benefit of the doubt, and decide for yourself as you play.

Turelus · May 2017

Expanding on my last post, things you can do to see if it's fake news (and this works for non-ESO news as well).

Check where it's coming from, who's saying it, where are they citing from, read what they're citing in full from a couple of sources.

Ask if the poster has an agenda, ie doesn't want their thing changed or wants to be better than the thing they're complaining about.

Google it, seriously if it's an issue Google will have a lot of hits, then you can apply the above to the results.

Use some common sense.

Judgedread101071 · May 2017

OldGamerESO wrote: »

My DPS chars in most cases have higher DPS than before and with no sustain issues at all.

I ll only focus on this my friend.
They eliminated the 25% cost reduction.
They changed magicka steal from 400/tick to 300/tick
they changed orbs synergies to only benefit the one who uses them and not the group as well.
These alone and to their own admision lead to a dps loss and sustainability issues which was their intent in order to slow down the fast paced combat and the pre-Morrowind huge dps.
Now in order to sustain you have to either sacrifice dps by using cost reduction enchants ,or use sets that favour regen which again leads to a dps loss,or if you chosse none of the above you have to use hevy attacks all the time in order to sutain which again leads to dps loss.
The allocation of cp's isn't close enough to compensate for the above nerf neither is the 10 cp you got for your dmg cp trees.
Kindly explain to me how you manged now to have more dps.
Of course the sky didn't fall on our heads and life still goes on but claiming that things are better now (dps wise) is either a false statement or you found a way to exploit.
Will happilly wait for an answer.

cmetzger93 · May 2017

So true. It's always doom and gloom on the forums. Pretty much every game is like that. [snip]

[Edit for Baiting]

vyndral13preub18_ESO · May 2017

I agree. I often think people who disagree with me are fake.

Vipstaakki · May 2017

So what else is new?

Maff · May 2017

This thread is about the bias from people who are critical of the chapter and update, yet mentions nothing about the people who try to shout down anyone who makes a criticism about the game.

Biased.

Dracindo · May 2017

Sorcs are going to get nerfed to the point that Nightblades will be better DD's.

souravami · May 2017

Judgedread101071 wrote: »

OldGamerESO wrote: »

My DPS chars in most cases have higher DPS than before and with no sustain issues at all.

I ll only focus on this my friend.
They eliminated the 25% cost reduction.
They changed magicka steal from 400/tick to 300/tick
they changed orbs synergies to only benefit the one who uses them and not the group as well.
These alone and to their own admision lead to a dps loss and sustainability issues which was their intent in order to slow down the fast paced combat and the pre-Morrowind huge dps.
Now in order to sustain you have to either sacrifice dps by using cost reduction enchants ,or use sets that favour regen which again leads to a dps loss,or if you chosse none of the above you have to use hevy attacks all the time in order to sutain which again leads to dps loss.
The allocation of cp's isn't close enough to compensate for the above nerf neither is the 10 cp you got for your dmg cp trees.
Kindly explain to me how you manged now to have more dps.
Of course the sky didn't fall on our heads and life still goes on but claiming that things are better now (dps wise) is either a false statement or you found a way to exploit.
Will happilly wait for an answer.

If the op is a potato with 15k dps his dps can only go up whatever the change is.
I mean it can't go down any lower, right?

Dasovaruilos · May 2017

First, I agree that there were a lot of exagerated posts.

But you are forgetting two things:

1. The complains DID work. The reworked heavy attacks by A LOT, which decreases the need for a lot of them in the rotation.

2. You said you don't do vet trials. This is exactly where people will feel the sustain changes the MOST.

3. As a healer, the game IS more boring now. They removed even more strategic thinking and group coordination from the healer role. No more Repentance, Orbs reportedly being *** (Vana from Hodor said they won't be using them anymore), Force Siphon / Ele Drain already killed last patch...

So, you can't really say every post was bad because your non-vet trials playstyle didn't get affected.

If people hadn't complained that much, maybe they wouldn't have reworked the heavy attacks timing and more resource returns.

I still wish they reverted some changes specially regarding healing. I want to go back to having one healer run Drain, one Siphon, one running Mystic Orb, one Healing Orb, both still running shards and so on.

Also, the new tanking playstyle for endgame seems A LOT more boring than the last.

So, my point is, some complains worked and some of the complains still stand and are completely valuable.

Abhorion · May 2017

I agree with OP.

I get on the forums and so much hate is spewed about this game or bugs...

Its completely playable, over time things change that is the nature of evolving.

I really haven't ever ran into any of the bugs people go insane over, maybe I'm just lucky..

I enjoy this game, been playing for couple years and when I get bored with content...
Well I play ESO trade mogul simulator and try to make as much gold as I can.

For all those that complain about game.. no one is forcing you to play.

If I don't like something I don't do it, I don't go ranting on a forum about it like a little ***

sadownik · May 2017

@souravami thats exactly my thought. And frankly diluting the term of fake news, tying politics into message about a game on game forums, makes for a very strange mix #iamverysmart and whiteknighting.

Judgedread101071 · May 2017

@souravami
Although i try not to bash ppl or to insault them at some point when someone is saying that things are even better now as far as dps goes the only thing that comes in my mind is the light attack spammers we've all seen and played at some point,in which case they saw a dps increase since light attacks got buffed.other than that it's confusing to me how someone has better dps now.
But i am still waiting for the OP's answer

Chickenstein · May 2017

sadownik wrote: »

And frankly diluting the term of fake news, tying politics into message about a game on game forums, makes for a very strange mix #iamverysmart and whiteknighting.

This.

On the other hand, passing personal experience as "fact" while discrediting other peoples opinions as "fake news" is exactly how real fake news work, so it's a somewhat consistent analogy.

The only thing the OP is right IMHO is that the whining as well as the whiteknighting on the forum has to stop, but that's hardly news.

Cage_Lizardman · May 2017

My dps has dropped by a bit. I used to pull about 24k and it's down to 21k with some more heavy attacks. This doesn't matter a lot to me, and I haven't even bothered adjusting my gear.

Where I see a huge difference though is with the average player in the dungeon finder. I'm now doing 70% of group dps much more often than before. That thing about lowering the ceiling, raising the floor doesn't seem to have happened. Unless the floor is the guy spamming light bow attacks who probably raised his dps by a few hundred, but it's hard to tell.

People running vet trials do not worry me, it's a tiny group and I'm sure they'll adjust, only done one so far myself. But these changes seem pretty rough on newbies and people who suck even worse than I do, and that kinda worries me.