ESO Forums seem to be filled with fake news

jaye63 · May 2017

The devs dont write well. They're devs and coding is their language. So when they say *we're nerfin X because ... and the % will be this now* people panic because the technical numbers arent as bad as the english they use to describe the nerf says *we're nerfing X and all your builds will be borked*

I know this sounds silly, but the actual version of what they're doing sounded much worse in their PTS Notes than it actually was. Still pretty bad, but the communication of it was BAD. And not meant to say it in a derogatory way. Communicating the dev view to a player view loses a LOT in translation. If they could have a player dev explain it from a player view as well, this miscommunication would happen a lot less.

Players put a lot of time, effort and money intoo the game and easily become horrified by the aspect of that effort time and money being for naught. I know... I was one of the *WTF ZOS?!?!* people.

AhPook_Is_Here · 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.

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.

I guess the real question here is why do you believe any of it? Posts here, media there, everyone has an agenda and they want you on-board paddling furiously in the same direction. That's life, you should only believe the things you know yourself, the rest is just entertainment.

Rouven · May 2017

Learn to people.

Serious, this is the same scenario as sitting in a bar 20 years ago. The sky is falling, this mayor is going to ruin us, the streets are all crap and full of potholes because the weather used to be so much better but now that has gone to sheogorath now as well.

So people are people, just now you are exposed to more than the 20 you used to know in your bar. John would always exaggerate, Bob is a foulmouth and Jason seems to try to hit on you when he had 4 beer.

The term fake news itself falls into the same hysteria category in my opinion btw.

Biro123 · May 2017

These forums are(this community is?), quite honestly a terrible advertisement for the game...

I mean, just look at them a few weeks ago..:

Sustain nerfs, game broken, leaving, blah,blah,blah.

Sorcs not nerfed - nerf sorcs, sorcs op.. blah,blah,blah

Warden o/p, P2W class, game now P2Win... blah, blah, blah..

Its very quiet now on these subjects... Its the same every patch notes... ZoS's changes are generally pretty good, but this community reacts as if its the end of the world and they haven't got a clue. Then realises they were wrong and goes quiet, then next time, they only remember the past forum rage (and forget that it was unjustified) - and continue to think ZoS havn't got a clue and immediately start to complain about the next patch notes without even thinking about them. Every Single Time.

Most of it is just blind, unthinking rage.

mewcatus · May 2017

Before every huge change, there will come the prophets. After it, they will leave. Just like a petulant child.

Rouven · May 2017

mewcatus wrote: »

Before every huge change, there will come the prophets. After it, they will leave. Just like a petulant child.

Yeah duh, but one time you might be right and then you get the ultimate reward of saying ... I told you so.

vyndral13preub18_ESO · May 2017

mewcatus wrote: »

Before every huge change, there will come the prophets. After it, they will leave. Just like a petulant child.

Now I'm really confused. If they stay and say they don't like it, they are crying like children. But if they don't like it and leave they are pouting like children.

randomkeyhits · May 2017

The thing is, almost every MMO forum I've seen is exactly the same.

The same complaints
The same praise
The same vitriol
The same insightful comments
The same gifs (literally!)

Even the same people, many of us play most of the different MMOs at various times.

@OP If this is your first MMO then you've just seen a representative slice of every forum. Sorry to say it but you'll just have to get used to it....

colig · May 2017

You have a valid point, though I feel your title missed the mark. No one here is pretending to be a journalist, so calling it 'fake news' seems a stretch.

Nickernator · May 2017

Try to seperate an opinion from a fact.

DaveMoeDee · May 2017

OP misunderstands what fake news is.

The beliefs about the coming nerfs was genuine. It may have been wrong, but that is not "fake news". Fake news is just fabricated stories. Don't conflate a mistaken analysis with fabricated stories.

There are actual examples of fake stories in the forums where someone makes something up and people believe it and start posting that.

OldGamerESO · May 2017

@Judgedread101071, @souravami : I feel like pulling this thread into a debate on dps gain/loss will derail the original intent of my thread. I am not claiming that a maximum dps player would have an increase in their dps. As has been stated, that is an impossibility given the changes. Prob a 3-5K decrease is expected for most people who are hitting those high numbers. The reason why my dps went up is because I am a "potato" and have non-optimal rotations, I don't animation cancel and I try to keep bar swapping to a minimum. I generally am happy being around 25K on a vet dungeon boss. I am guessing my dps went up because when I spread out my dps CP a lot more due to diminishing returns and include the direct damage and weapon stuff, more into thaumaturge, etc. The end result is my dps seems to be higher for the same effort. I am no theory crafter and my reflexes are slow (I really am old BTW) so keeping dots up + staggering light/heavy and 1 spammable is the best I can do.

The point is that all the "sky is falling" threads didn't differentiate between changes most felt by the best end-game players and what a normal person might expect. There were posts from people on PTS saying they were running out of stamina in delves, that they could make it through their rotation twice before being out of resources, that they were dying to trash packs and that they couldn't tank anymore.. etc. Any regular player would read all that and think the game would be unplayable after the patch.

And yes, I guess I should not have used the term "fake news". I think it was wrong of me to characterize the 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".

Judgedread101071 · May 2017

@OldGamerESO

Thx for clearifying that.
As far as i am concernerned I only commented on your "dps gain" which to me looked like you were trying to say that this is something it's gonna happen in general and to everyone.
Sorry if i misunderstood your post.
And whether you believe it or not I DO like it when people enjoy the game.
What i don't like is when people say that there is nothing wrong with it.
The only tool for us players to let the devs know that we are not happy and inform them about the problems in this game is this forum.
And it's kind of furstrating when most of the post in here are treated like they are coming from whining babies!
Even when they make valid points and present facts.
I have been playing the game since beta.I have endured every stupid decision ZOS made and found ways to work with whatever was given to me.
Trust me when i tell you that this time they went WAY overboard and I have the feeling that if they don't do something fast they are going to loose a lot of their players.
But then again i might be wrong.
Time will tell.

JinMori · 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.

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.

While i do agree with the statement that just saying, the people who only say, the game is doomed is not helping anyone, i also have to say that disregarding everything the playerbase has said about how negative these patch changes are, it's just as bad. (I saw many more posts about how negative the changes are compared to how good tha changes are, you clearly are in the minority).

You didn't really brought in any numbers, you just posted your opinions on the matter without any real evidence, that's fake news, you are doing exactly what you are preaching against.

The cp changes overhall were a good thing, they increased build diversity, by reducing diminishing returns at lower points, and massively increasing them at higher points, so now you can spend on more passives.

The changes to spear shards/orbs are ***, the fact that it restores resources based on which of your pool is lover is absolute *** (in percentage), it also restores much less, since now it's tied to player level instead of max resources, and not only that, it has a shared cooldown. The changes to battleroar etc are also very bad. This homogenizes the classes, taking away from the class defining abilities is a very bad idea.

It's mathematically impossible that you are doing more dps now then before (that is if you were already doing your rotation almost perfectly), so i think you are deliberately hiding information from us to make your point, the possibilities are a few:

1: You were a light attack spammer, in that case, your damage can only increase thanks to the cp changes and the light attack damage increase.

2: you now have better gear, in that case of course you damage is better.

3: you've become a better player and your rotation has improved

4: You are not being honest.

Also, it's thanks to all the feedback that players gave that they made a few tweaks to some mechanics, for example, heavy attack now changes faster, and restores about 30% more resources, so you should actually thank us, the ones who brought the feedback to zenimax, because if we didn't the situation right now would be much worse.

Gilliam the rogue, alcast etc... made excellent points on why these changes are crap, you should probably listen to them, instead of making up evidence without any numbers.

CapnPhoton · May 2017

People who are angry are louder. Whether its justified or not depends on the issue. If you are enjoying the game and do not have the same issue, you can simply not respond and ignore. Some people are just looking for an audience.

Galwylin · May 2017

OldGamerESO wrote: »

It seems...

I'm going to stop you right there because no one wants to read that again. Basically and as nicely as I can put this, you and the people that believe this stuff are just foolish to the point of almost comical if you think the complaints did nothing to make this wonder world you find yourself in possible. Completely off your rocker. Did you even read the PTS notes when they first came out and compare them to what we actually got. Does nothing stick out to you?

Not all complaints are listened to. The change they wanted to do to a dragonknight's dragon blood a patch or two ago was much worse than what this one did. Nightblades at least got some benefit restored to leeching strikes (the former siphoning strikes). There are some changes they make to the game that seem idiotic. Although they make more sense if you look at the classes with a sorcerer's bar in front of you. Then, sure. Makes sense. Not saying that's what happened but it couldn't have been from playing some of these classes.

Finally, I have games I play where I get a producer's letter here, a roadmap there, state of the game over the hill, etc. Almost every single game I play, there's some form of constant communication with the players and that's monthly in some cases. What do we get from ESO. Oh, a new item for sale and the Overpriced Store. Look, crowns are for sale to spend at the Overpriced Store. They take a week. A week! To even recognize a broken system in their own game.

I've changed my playstyle also. But ESO Devs act like they are mute. So we have just assumed they're also deaf so have to respond like a car crash to make sure they hear anything. And they still have trouble figuring it out. But we can all look to more sneaky bosses, I guess.

ZOS_Bill · May 2017

We have had to remove some comments that were going off topic into politics and a few for baiting. Remember that disagreement is fine if it is kept constructive and civil. Please take a look at the forum rules before deciding to comment.

Tholian1 · May 2017

The title of your thread is inaccurate. The forums are filled with subjective opinions.

Mojmir · May 2017

Lol

Jammer480 · 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.

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.

Actually, I did want to read it again... cuz it's spot on.

s7732425ub17_ESO · May 2017

They significantly buffed the CP system to compensate for the sustain changes. Had they not done this, the sky would be falling super hard.

SydneyGrey · May 2017

People who are happy with the game don't usually post threads about how happy they are. People who are unhappy (or who think they might be in the future after a patch) rush on here to scream and whine and declare the game is "ruined." Meanwhile, the happy people are busy playing the game.

Rohamad_Ali · May 2017

It's a forum not a news page . It's filled with opinions . Even if we don't agree with all of them it does not make someone else's opinion any less true to them . I think some of us love the game so much we've become less objective and some people hate the game so much they should of left years ago . But that's just my opinion , not news .

Phinix1 · May 2017

"Fake news is a type of yellow journalism that consists of deliberate misinformation or hoaxes spread via the traditional print, broadcasting news media, or via Internet-based social media. Fake news is written and published with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically, often with sensationalist, exaggerated, or patently false headlines that grab attention."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news

I'm not sure how opinions contrary to one's own constitute misinformation, a hoax, or journalism for that matter, nor how anyone posting them gains financially or politically. Clearly this is the wrong term. I believe what you really meant to say was "ESO ALL forums seem to be full of TROLLS, as many of the extreme views are not rational or based on experience but rather INTENDED to upset people.

That said, the sustain changes WERE too much.

Judgedread101071 · May 2017

SydneyGrey wrote: »

People who are happy with the game don't usually post threads about how happy they are. People who are unhappy (or who think they might be in the future after a patch) rush on here to scream and whine and declare the game is "ruined." Meanwhile, the happy people are busy playing the game.

Yet here you are!
So which type of people that makes you?

DaveMoeDee · May 2017

SydneyGrey wrote: »

People who are happy with the game don't usually post threads about how happy they are. People who are unhappy (or who think they might be in the future after a patch) rush on here to scream and whine and declare the game is "ruined." Meanwhile, the happy people are busy playing the game.

Happy people go to r/elderscrollsonline

Anti_Virus · May 2017

Did somebody say, *puts on Trump Hair* Fake news?

Kay1 · May 2017

"So how do I explain that the exact opposite happened... I love the changes. Every single one of my characters seem substantially better"

Do not feed

STEVIL · May 2017

of course it was not limited to forum either. it feeds from streamers with their fake burials and in-game chat too.

For example: During the PTS in one of the rare moments i paid attention to chat i say one of my guildies telling other guildies how terrible it was going to be now that ZOS was making **ALL** skills scale of character level instead of pools. being locked by NDA i could not counter but i did ask things like" are you sure it was all skills and not maybe just some of the resource ones?" Answer was with certainty and with any doubt expressed and asked for where... followed by several told him who knew and check streamers and yahdee yahdee... finally with a "well maybe they will listen and change by the time it come live" side step at the end...

I knew even then that was not what had been said and was not what was happening on PTS but... no way to counter sky is falling misinformation without at least brushing NDA so... let it go.

While this patch may seem to have been more over the top in terms of outrage and disinformation (or misinformation, depends), that is debatable IMO (with a few notable exceptions.) I have seen it on prior patches too.

STEVIL · May 2017

Judgedread101071 wrote: »

SydneyGrey wrote: »

People who are happy with the game don't usually post threads about how happy they are. People who are unhappy (or who think they might be in the future after a patch) rush on here to scream and whine and declare the game is "ruined." Meanwhile, the happy people are busy playing the game.

Yet here you are!
So which type of people that makes you?

i will go out on a limb and guess they are the type of people who know what the word "usually" means.