With Morrowind came sustain changes, but a new and nostalgic zone to explore + a new class, so all-in-all a "plus" with regards to generating interest and raising game population.

But HotR? 2 difficult and useless dungeons (with regards to rewards) and a slew of changes that seemed like buffs but resulted in feeling like nerfs to most people's gear/skill setups. HotR is a typical expample of a developer being out-of-touch and disconnected from their player base.

Ozstryker wrote: »

Ohh another "the game is dying" thread..

Except this one is based on *steam numbers.... hmmm, cue the expert analysis of allll the reasons this game sux..

So much salt in this thread, and sooo predictable...

The facts are, there's loads of people in-game, mmo's change, and this is a business.. if it don't suit, and you don't like the game the way it is, you know you can leave!.. right?

On your way out send me your purple and gold mats, they're selling like crazy... go figure eh'

Well, maybe because turning ESO into Heavy Attacks Online wasn't the best idea.

Because it gets boring as ***. Once you play other games you realise how bad it really is
And after you spent all your money on housing and never being satisfied because of the limitations you only log on for raids.

And for PVP, I used to love it but since the latest update there is literally only 1 populated but unplayable campaign left on EU while we have 5 empty campaigns. #ZOS

altemriel wrote: »

people come and go, fans stay

Except when you play since 2014 and realise it's only getting worse each patch.

I've spent two years in this game for what that's worth and after speaking to my long term buddies, the sustain changes in PvE were really the beginning of the end and they just quit. The nerfs to hard won gear with lack of New great gear I think also contributed to this decline. It's not surprising to me. I think the problem stems from from lack of developer and community engagement.

Raraaku wrote: »

I think if the Devs established a direct line of communication with the community would be huge. I'm not talking about, leave your questions and if you're lucky enough you might get an answer on ESO Live. I'm talking about an active Q&A discussion with the player base on a regular basis, or even just taking part in discussions on the forums. I think that you can feel a noticeable difference in a community in which developers are actively interacting with their players compared to that in which there is virtually no discussion or acknowledgement from the developers and only the community manager interacts with the players because that is there job.

I am actually so glad that the devs in this game have their own vision of the game and don't just follow what's popular on youtube or the forums. You can't develop a game with thousands of voices talking, or listening to angry mobs. And players are the worst when it comes to designing game rules. (because they want to win the game!)
In my opinion game developers these days listen way too much to what people on the internet say and the quality of many games suffers from it. But they have no choice because as you see here if you don't do what the internet mob wants you'll have storms of outrage on the forums and social media which is bad for business.
The internet was supposed to be used for an exchange of ideas, but looking around on these forums all you see is hostility and demands that the designers do what the players or some content creators say. Maybe we should just leave the game designers to do the game designing? Because playing a game doesn't automatically make you an expert in game design and not following the ideas of some youtube creator doesn't mean the actual game developers are idiots.

PepterKleptic wrote: »

• Devs take EZ path to balance, nerfing good gear instead of buffing underperforming, forcing people to change instead of making them want to experiement

This is what I mean. Look at a game like diablo 3 where the devs are too afraid of outrage to nerf anything: Do you really want sets that increase damage by 3000% and enemies with 2109000% health? (I'm not making these numbers up btw) That's what power creep looks like and what this game is trying to avoid. But people are outraged because their damn numbers go down a bit.

Kneighbors wrote: »

Raraaku wrote: »

I think if the Devs established a direct line of communication with the community would be huge. I'm not talking about, leave your questions and if you're lucky enough you might get an answer on ESO Live. I'm talking about an active Q&A discussion with the player base on a regular basis, or even just taking part in discussions on the forums. I think that you can feel a noticeable difference in a community in which developers are actively interacting with their players compared to that in which there is virtually no discussion or acknowledgement from the developers and only the community manager interacts with the players because that is there job.

Unfortunately the latest PTS event showed quite the opposite relations. Landing such a massive change on the last day was huge. I can only imagine the feelings of the guy who bought infused mothers sorrow sword for 300k from me day before 3.1.5 patch notes. I imagine the same guy is a determined player who was testing stuff on PTS for his future build.

Overall it feels that many players take the game much more seriously than devs do. Testing tens of sets, running hundreds of parses.. They invest huge amount of time into understanding the outcome of devs nonchalant quick decisions. Making most important changes on a last day is simply a spit in the face.

But that is the issue, players using PTS to get a head start, it is the players fault to think PTS is set in stone to what live will be. ZoS is not to blame for that players wasted time and resources at all.
I am not taking ZoS side at all but people getting salty over last minute changes because they wanted a head start, they put themselves in that situation not ZoS. Maybe a lesson is learnt, those players testing PTS for their own gain most likely didn't report some bugs too, which then leads to people whining some bugs were not fixed, they look at how many people log an issue for a bug during testing, the bugs that have the most reports take priority over bugs only reported by few. (Well that is usually the case so don't take my full word on that last part.)

All I can see too is this follow the leader attitudes, oh this popular person hates this and hates that, we hate it now too rawr rawr blah blah. I would guess that a lot of the people that hated the changes did not even have BiS gear nor did they do end game content, they saw their favourite streamer or favourite popular player angry or annoyed at something so they was too, because that is what fans are like. They want to be like the person they are a fan of so they copy said actions.

Again not taking any sides, but it IS the players fault for using PTS to predict the next BiS, then to go and farm and buy that said gear before the patches go live is just plain dumb and stupidity, never take a test environments stats over a live environment as changes can and will happen last minute, businesses are destroyed over stupid stuff like that. I would hate to think some of these people work in development environments. Stupid is as stupid does.

TazESO wrote: »

Be nice to Gina and that team, and identify and give feedback to community ambassadors as well.

They are your voice into ZOS, and critical to the game's success.

I agree, every now and then we get a reply from @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_GinaBruno or an insight from @ZOS_RichLambert and im greatful for that but apart from that it's mostly indian ZOS-Bots telling us to keep it civil when voicing our frustration.
Take the PVP-Dev for example, does he even play? If so, why weren't the added campaigns removed after the event? Instead of adding back almalexia to give us an additional dead campaign?

And sorry to say but the community ambassadors are a farce par excellence.

I've recently gone back to Guild Wars 2 after a three year break brought on by a variety of reasons. I'm quite amazed by how much has changed and the 8 months I've spent in ESO has highlighted a number of things.

Where to begin? Here's my reasoning after 8 months in ESO in no specific order...

• Too many meta altering changes in too short a space of time. In a nutshell everything since the lead up to Morrowind has left me with the impression of minimal progress on every one of the 7 characters I've levelled to CP315. That's not a good thing.
• I still haven't found a non-trade guild that I can call home. Granted the onus is on me to do so but nothing in game pulled me in enough to dedicate and represent a guild. Without one running certain content becomes a PITA.
• Too many bugs, too few fixes. Too much emphasis on crown related items.
• The nightmare that is Group Finder. Toxicity experienced as a result. Lack of functionality. Bugs.
• Crafting and the ludicrous material requirements for CP160 gear.
• Abyssmal experience that is the trade system.
• Absolute ludicrous pricing for crown items and the supposed expansion that is Morrowind. As contrast, last week I pre-purchased the upcoming GW2 expansion and got the first expansion, 2000 gems ($50 worth), a free character slot and a number of cosmetics thrown in for free. I've used 2/3 of those gems to purchase 2 account bound outfits, a bank stack upgrade and an extra 30 item bank space. I still have enough left over to make a clutch purchase when I want to. I've just set foot into the new OLD expansion which introduced a plethora of awesome things like character gliding, account bound specializations, an entire new zone made up of multiple areas, new weapon skins, new enemies and a metric kitten ton of new things. That is an expansion, unlike Morrowind.
• Trash server performance has sealed it for me. Something is very wrong here.

lordrichter wrote: »

Thunderknuckles wrote: »

I hope ESO doesn't go down similar paths. Now, all that being said, I also have to point out that many players gripe and whine constantly, so it can be tough for the dev teams to sift through all the pure garbage suggestions to find the ones that actually have merit. It's a tough thing they have to deal with and players are a fickle crowd.

ZOS is firmly on that path with ESO. For as much as they want to do their own thing with the game, they are hopelessly mired in business-as-usual as far as how they monetize things, and they already exhibit the Daddy-knows-best arrogance that you describe in so many other games. They love how their hand feels in our pockets and the development team has a good sized ego.

It isn't bad yet. At least, I don't think so. It is only a matter of time before it gets there. Between ZOS and Bethesda, they will tank this game, in the end. Hopefully, I will have a giood bit of fun between now and then.

Demolitionary wrote: »

But that is the issue, players using PTS to get a head start, it is the players fault to think PTS is set in stone to what live will be. ZoS is not to blame for that players wasted time and resources at all.
I am not taking ZoS side at all but people getting salty over last minute changes because they wanted a head start, they put themselves in that situation not ZoS. Maybe a lesson is learnt, those players testing PTS for their own gain most likely didn't report some bugs too, which then leads to people whining some bugs were not fixed, they look at how many people log an issue for a bug during testing, the bugs that have the most reports take priority over bugs only reported by few. (Well that is usually the case so don't take my full word on that last part.)

Again not taking any sides, but it IS the players fault for using PTS to predict the next BiS, then to go and farm and buy that said gear before the patches go live is just plain dumb and stupidity, never take a test environments stats over a live environment as changes can and will happen last minute, businesses are destroyed over stupid stuff like that. I would hate to think some of these people work in development environments. Stupid is as stupid does.

While I will agree that there are players who use PTS for personal gain, and players who depend too heavily on PTS for making build decisions, ZOS should know better than to introduce big new combat related changes at release. This community is particularly sensitive to combat changes. A rather vocal portion of this community does not trust the team that does combat changes. Doing these changes at the last second, even if they were the right changes, makes it look like they are being intentionally antagonistic. It simply feeds the mistrust.

From a PR perspective, they should seriously review their internal procedues to see what they can do about future updates.

That is very true.
That reminds me of some nerfs that happened in Guild Wars 1, devs used to play the game, quite often too, in their free time. They knew what changes needed to be done because they played the game too, they nerfed things that needed a nerf, they also kept skills PvE - PvP separated in terms of changes., as in balance changes because of something in PvP never affected PvE version of the skills. The games progression was great. Then, a developer who never played the game was employed, nerfed some skills, made changes to quite a few PvE mobs in high end "dungeons" too, skills that kept the game alive as they were build definers. From my understanding he had a strong don't give two **** attitude. Boom dead game, 70% population decrease. Unsure if that developer got the sack or left straight after the change but, it goes to show that some things, changes to be exact can kill a game. Development that don't play the game are usually to blame, if they don't know their own game, also when Devs listen to players too much.

ZoS are still learning with their wide variety on different players, the thing is, although the game is rated 18, there are many many under that age here, usually the whiners asking for nerf because their meta build did not work against a player or was killed by some way completely fair but no, they are god, the best, something must be OP, no way can they be killed lol Some of the elitist are also young and have the think they are untouchable attitude. But that is something we have to get used to and so does ZoS, which is why they sometimes look like they don't care. But they are listening, sometimes too much, recent nerfs/changes were needed, proc sets for sure. But looking at past changes some are just like OK, that was a weird nerf, but fair enough.

But on topic, I don't see much difference, lots online when I can play in the evening, not seen less as far as I am aware, I have seen many many new players appear to be honest.

FoolishHuman wrote: »

Raraaku wrote: »

I think if the Devs established a direct line of communication with the community would be huge. I'm not talking about, leave your questions and if you're lucky enough you might get an answer on ESO Live. I'm talking about an active Q&A discussion with the player base on a regular basis, or even just taking part in discussions on the forums. I think that you can feel a noticeable difference in a community in which developers are actively interacting with their players compared to that in which there is virtually no discussion or acknowledgement from the developers and only the community manager interacts with the players because that is there job.

I am actually so glad that the devs in this game have their own vision of the game and don't just follow what's popular on youtube or the forums. You can't develop a game with thousands of voices talking, or listening to angry mobs. And players are the worst when it comes to designing game rules. (because they want to win the game!)
In my opinion game developers these days listen way too much to what people on the internet say and the quality of many games suffers from it. But they have no choice because as you see here if you don't do what the internet mob wants you'll have storms of outrage on the forums and social media which is bad for business.
The internet was supposed to be used for an exchange of ideas, but looking around on these forums all you see is hostility and demands that the designers do what the players or some content creators say. Maybe we should just leave the game designers to do the game designing? Because playing a game doesn't automatically make you an expert in game design and not following the ideas of some youtube creator doesn't mean the actual game developers are idiots.

Democracy is never a bad thing. If the majority of your customers are unhappy with a decision, then it's a bad decision. Simple as that.

Some people get tired of playing the same game all the time regardless of the content. I am not one of these people. I will play a games for years. I know plenty of people though that cannot be on the same game for more than a few months to a year and they move no matter what.