Understand your technical knowledge when making complaints

Zolkoe · April 2018

"Upgrade your servers, ZOS"-type complaints are super helpful, too. Those complaints are usually tied to a specific problem (at least I haven't seen one without the context) so the devs have all the information a simple customer can provide. Which is, there is a problem with X aspect of the game.

I don't need to be a tech expert to realize something is wrong as I don't need to be a cook to tell the food I got tastes bad.

Recremen · April 2018

Zolkoe wrote: »

"Upgrade your servers, ZOS"-type complaints are super helpful, too. Those complaints are usually tied to a specific problem (at least I haven't seen one without the context) so the devs have all the information a simple customer can provide. Which is, there is a problem with X aspect of the game.

I don't need to be a tech expert to realize something is wrong as I don't need to be a cook to tell the food I got tastes bad.

No, "upgrade your servers" would be like telling a cook to "upgrade your pots and pans". You don't actually know that's the issue as the consumer, you just know you don't like the food.

Zolkoe · April 2018

So you don't question the customer's right to complain, you just tell them how they should word it. At this point it is as useful as pointing out the grammar errors in them.

If several people who ate the same food tell the cook to upgrade his pots and pans that's enough feedback to him to start to investigate.

Slick_007 · April 2018

Zolkoe wrote: »

So you don't question the customer's right to complain, you just tell them how they should word it. At this point it is as useful as pointing out the grammar errors in them.

If several people who ate the same food tell the cook to upgrade his pots and pans that's enough feedback to him to start to investigate.

you sound like one of those customers who call tech support really angry and borderline abusive and then has to eat humble pie when tech support prove its a pebkac issue.

upgrade your servers - is such a waste of time reporting. If i was ZOS, those reports go in the bin and are immediately forgotten about forever.
upgrade your server, this is what im experiencing - much more helpful and dont automatically go in the bin.

Simple. Can you see the difference?

Chaos2088 · April 2018

So you are saying we all should know how severs and I.T work?

exiars10 · April 2018

@Anotherone773

I would give you gold if possible. Just my 2 cents.

In the last two weeks, my Catalyst drivers are only crashing with ESO, and game completely ignores FRTC since then so I use txt file to manually set it. I don't know what happened as no other game crash it except MKX. So I'm not the only one with that problem.

Zolkoe · April 2018

Slick_007 wrote: »

you sound like one of those customers who call tech support really angry and borderline abusive and then has to eat humble pie when tech support prove its a pebkac issue.

Yeah, well, you know, that's just, like, your opinion, man. I think I sound like the customer who is always right. Can you see the difference?

Slick_007 wrote: »

upgrade your servers - is such a waste of time reporting. If i was ZOS, those reports go in the bin and are immediately forgotten about forever.
upgrade your server, this is what im experiencing - much more helpful and dont automatically go in the bin.

You must have missed my comment about the experience that "upgrade your servers"-type complaints are usually tied to a specific problem. Therefore your little analysis is flawed in this aspect. Anyway complaints being ignored and "going in the bin" are not too customer friendly, either. Shall I produce a detailed solution to the problem in my complaint, as well?

zyk · April 2018

@ZOS_BrianWheeler has said in the past that throwing hardware at the problem of AvA performance won't fix it. With that said, I think ZOS constantly evaluates its hardware performance and upgrades as needed.

I think I can relate to the OP. I've cringed at some popular myths. The worst was that the game processes particles server-side.

A couple of years ago, I would /headache at the demand players made to shut down the game for an arbitrary period -- such as 3 months -- to fix it, as if it was a ship that needed to be dry docked for repairs.

I'm not really judging though. I know I've been guilty of speculation too. I think most of us have opinions about things we don't quite understand.

With that said, I'm highly critical off ZOS in regards to AvA performance. IMO, they should be more transparent about performance and security to help minimize misunderstandings.

themaddaedra · April 2018

DeadlyPhoenix wrote: »

But see the problem is, I do know my stuff... I know exactly what I'm talking about....

See the problem lies with their tonal converter box setup in a sub-omnimatrix tetrahelix configuration. Making the quantum fluctuation dampener misfire and cause problems with the geonetforce discombobulator.

Omg i didn't even know anything about discombobulator but it's is my fav word now i'm gonna use it everywhere i can. Sounds like a machine that generates shiney chrome bo*bs rolling down from a disco roof.

Turelus · April 2018

I made the joke on Twitter a few weeks back but if the internet has taught me anything it's that all the worlds issues can be solved if you just upgrade the servers.

Ilithyania · April 2018

im no tech guy, but maybe feed the hamster some skooma.

Nermy · April 2018

I think ZoS just need to l2p...

Bevik · April 2018

I'm no tech but pretty sure it's game engine, netcode and servers all together.

I think those cover everything.

Jade1986 · April 2018

Oh look another person saying its our fault when every other game under the sun works fine.

Seriously, just stop. It is well documented how awful ZoS EU servers are. The datacenters need to be upgraded to handle highe loads, and the servers need to be optimized far better as well.

nuvak · April 2018

Jade1986 wrote: »

Oh look another person saying its our fault when every other game under the sun works fine.

Seriously, just stop. It is well documented how awful ZoS EU servers are. The datacenters need to be upgraded to handle highe loads, and the servers need to be optimized far better as well.

Where does he say that?

His point is, we don't know what causes the problems. If the software is crap and scales badly, throwing more hardware at it will have little effect. So complain about WHAT doesn't work, but don't try to teach them HOW to fix it.

Jade1986 · April 2018

nuvak wrote: »

Jade1986 wrote: »

Oh look another person saying its our fault when every other game under the sun works fine.

Seriously, just stop. It is well documented how awful ZoS EU servers are. The datacenters need to be upgraded to handle highe loads, and the servers need to be optimized far better as well.

Where does he say that?

His point is, we don't know what causes the problems. If the software is crap and scales badly, throwing more hardware at it will have little effect. So complain about WHAT doesn't work, but don't try to teach them HOW to fix it.

Then the logical solution would be

Step one, upgrade and optimize software. It didnt work Proceed to step two. If it did work, win.
Step two, upgrade hardware.

Sixty5 · April 2018

Jade1986 wrote: »

nuvak wrote: »

Jade1986 wrote: »

Oh look another person saying its our fault when every other game under the sun works fine.

Seriously, just stop. It is well documented how awful ZoS EU servers are. The datacenters need to be upgraded to handle highe loads, and the servers need to be optimized far better as well.

Where does he say that?

His point is, we don't know what causes the problems. If the software is crap and scales badly, throwing more hardware at it will have little effect. So complain about WHAT doesn't work, but don't try to teach them HOW to fix it.

Then the logical solution would be
Step one, upgrade and optimize software. It didnt work Proceed to step two. If it did work, win.

Step two, upgrade hardware.

So just go over the games code with a fine tooth code and fix every little inefficiency that causes every little problem on every different type of client side setup that it runs on?

I'm sure that doing that would not take a very long time and cost a lot of development hours.

And I am sure that simply upgrading hardware isn't an expensive process either, after all it isn't like the money ZOS makes for this game doesn't already mostly go to expenses anyway.

The game is built on a modified version of Hero Engine, a product who's last stable release is 6 years old. Even with additional in-house development on top of that, there are going to be limitations to what you can do with something that was never designed to be lightweight to begin with.

reiverx · April 2018

If you're paying for a service and that service is not up to the standards it should be, then people have the right to complain. Trying to shut people down because they don't have some required technical knowledge is asinine.

DMuehlhausen · April 2018

ak_pvp wrote: »

Idk, you'd expect a multi billion dollar company to have their *** together by now, 4 years in.

Blizzard Dwarfs ZoS and they still have major issues sometimes. I actually do work in a similar environment , and support end users connecting to remote servers. The demands people are making are about a helpful or realistic as expecting the flying car to be suddenly on the market tomorrow with no issues.

Turelus · April 2018

reiverx wrote: »

If you're paying for a service and that service is not up to the standards it should be, then people have the right to complain. Trying to shut people down because they don't have some required technical knowledge is asinine.

I think the point being made is that if you're screaming "upgrade your servers" you might consider understanding if that's the issue first.

It's fine to be upset about issues and complain (as long as it's in a constructive and polite way) but just screaming things you think are issues with no understanding isn't helpful.

DMuehlhausen · April 2018

GeorgeBlack wrote: »

I am no technician whatsoever.
I know some games operate smoother. Others not so much.

Now as an expert yourself, what do you make out of that?

Stop whiteknighting.
I like this game that is why I play it. But I dont pretend to not understand why ppl are complaining, and proceed to discredit them like you do, with a topic that only says "I work with PCs"

I also understand that overland content and cosmetics make more money than challenging content or PvP.
How can you be so blind to this fact that explains a lot of things?

That's a very good question. It's possible some of the disconnects are caused by routing tables getting bad information out there in the world that ZoS has no control over. One minute your connection is good going through no more than 10 hops to the server. Then suddenly your route gets changed and you going through Zimbabwe to Australia, back through Russia and Germany to get to a server in say Spain and you live in France or something. There are millions of things that can be causing the issue. You can't just look at it normally and see the exact problem immediately.

Danikat · April 2018

It's called the Dunning-Kruger effect. In brief people who know very little/nothing about a subject are actually more likely to think they know everything about it, because they are unaware of how complicated it is and how much there is to know.

(And at the other end of the scale people who are very good at something or know a lot about it have gotten used to it so that they forget how difficult it actually is - hence people thinking "learn to play!" is actually useful information.)

eso_nya · April 2018

But if i spout some tech mumbo gumbo i catched up on password swordfish i sound smart! And ppl with even less understanding than me will think im smarter than the devs!

They should really run a firmware upgrade on the ldap, impelement a propper portforwarding into the bios, install some ecc ram into the vmdks and finally teach the game engine to calculate the ackermann function on the fibonacci numbers!

anitajoneb17_ESO · April 2018

Turelus wrote: »

I think the point being made is that if you're screaming "upgrade your servers" you might consider understanding if that's the issue first.
It's fine to be update about issues and complain (as long as it's in a constructive and polite way) but just screaming things you think are issues with no understanding isn't helpful.

I'm afraid if we truly want to "help", in that context, the only helpful thing to do is to shut up and wait until ZOS fixes things. Even if we knew the technical aspects of the problem, are we better qualified and capable than ZOS to solve it ? Certainly not.
People ranting don't want to help, they want to rant. That's understandable - to a certain extent.

xenowarrior92eb17_ESO · April 2018

Well I'm gona be that guy who says "I don't have to understand anything since I'm the one who is paying so I'm expecting to get what i paid for!"

Violynne · April 2018

ak_pvp wrote: »

Idk, you'd expect a multi billion dollar company to have their *** together by now, 4 years in.

Microsoft have been around for 30 years and they still have these issues, and last I checked, they have gobs more money than ZoS does.

The issue isn't technology. It's a limitation issue. A system can only do so much before it can do no more.

"More servers" won't help the issue because we're not playing on servers. We're playing on virtual platforms, where multiple servers work to render the virtualization.

Many MMOs use this method because it's the most effect way to utilize a server's full potential while balancing the load.

Anyone who's worked directly with AWS (Azure, Apple, et al) knows how this works.

You can throw more servers at the "problem", but this still won't fix it because the virtualization is limited.

Think of it this way:
You own a gorgeous $3.2 million Bugatti Veyron. It can suck up its gas tank in as little as 9 minutes pushing nearly 250 miles an hour.

Want go faster? Tough luck. You can't. Throw on more cylinders for more power adds weight, which slows the car down.

Honestly, the way some of you carry on is embarrassing to witness.

Thank goodness the OP brought some common sense to the forum. Enjoy your awesome!

danno8 · April 2018

"And any man who knows a thing, knows he knows not a damn, damn thing at all "
-Knaan

Feric51 · April 2018

I just want them to check the specs on their rotary girders....

Elsonso · April 2018

Anotherone773 wrote: »

Sixty5 wrote: »

IT Tech here.

You are never going to convince someone who doesn't know a thing about networking or hardware constraints that they know nothing about them.

Anyone with a shred of knowlege just ignroes them anyway.

I know for a fact that the server system could be better. They just dont want to invest in new server hardware. Probably using a standard rack system instead of a blade server. Or they could be using cheap blades or not enough blades. I know the technology is there and i know its not customers having crappy computers.

No. You should know what hardware they are using before you make anything like that statement. I don't know what they are using today, either, but I know what they were using when the EU server was moved to Germany.

Merlin13KAGL · April 2018

Resource$ go one of two directions.

While it's quite obvious that a fair amount of resources go into creating crown items, it's significantly less obvious what resources go into diagnosing and correcting ongoing issues.

Either the talent is present to determine actions to correct some of these issues and it's not being allowed to (resources/priority not allocated to these fixes).
Or the talent is not present (in enough quantity) and resources are not being directed towards acquiring that talent.

Transparency goes a long way, even if there's limited understanding of the technical aspect by the average person.

"We're working on it" does not always suffice, while indicating detail about specific directions for proposed fixes will at least give an inkling of hope. It may even spark useful suggestions from people in the field. Without detail, well, everyone's guessing.