ZOS is a company. They exist to make money. It doesn't matter how much passion or creativity devs have, they can't do whatever they want. They get to offer input of course but at the end of the day they make what someone tells them to. The more success the product has the more investment there is, and this applies to parts of the game as well as the game as a whole. So if the cash shop makes money on a weird looking guar, look for several more weird looking guar on the way. If people spend more time solo questing, look for a shift to emphasize that content. What gets the most positive attention/played time is what they think will make them the most money.

Bad press is also a factor. Many of the things that got the game savagely trashed in 2014 through professional and player reviews became top priorities for the devs, because bad press and negative word of mouth hurts sales and lowers profits. Not to mention it hurts professional pride. Loudly complaining works when the volume gets high enough for long enough. However, childish harassment doesn't help. Consistently and clearly calling out what is wrong does. People who consistently yet constructively criticize the game are doing a service for all players. Those who rant like an angry toddlers undermine them, as do the "love it or leave it" and the "leave Brittany the devs alooooooone" crowds. There is plenty of room for constructive praise and constructive criticism. Respect those who offer either and let them do their thing.

Case in point: Many players have been mad and very vocal about the combat team's choices for a long while and feel like that team is out touch. ZOS had added a special forum to get feedback but it didn't work out and they scrapped it. That left the PTS. Players felt the feedback threads for class changes on the PTS were unclear about reasons for the changes so the devs started adding explanatory spoilers. Which then caused players to wonder "What are you smoking?" and to continue to feel that devs didn't get where players were coming from. So this year ZOS asked players to nominate people to be class representatives, and those reps were remotely connected to the combat team lead for some back and forth at the first official meeting. We now have a summary of what was discussed and we know that, while the devs may still make combat decisions we don't like, at least they are actually "getting" what is bugging so many players. The summary list of issues raised and heard was really decent, with back and forth and devs asking follow-ups for clarifications. And this whole process involved years of criticism by players.

Criticism may sometimes come with a bitter edge to it but the devs are professionals and can handle a little frustration. Yet mockery and abuse shouldn't be tolerated (and some players see as a hobby). If you are bugging ZOS employees on their personal accounts because you want "X" to change in ESO, spamming ESO Live with "nerf" comments, etc. that's counterproductive. If you are insulting or threatening them it's harassment. But if you are posting on page 87 of the tenth forum or reddit thread of the year on an issue offering your view or responding to someone else on the matter, that's fine. Keep the issue visible. Players who are tired of seeing the issue over and over again can get over it or have fun teasing about it ("hey, new ESO drinking game, every time you see a thread about..."). I commented on several "state of PvP/AvA" threads last week. Wasn't surprised or bothered to see them, just reminded folks that the issues are always the same and not to expect too much to change anytime soon. But I was glad to see people still complaining. The day no one does is the day no one is left in Cyrodiil.

Another former LOTRO player here. I was just telling someone last night that ZOS has begun to remind me too much of Turbine in terms of the quality of their customer service and how the game’s performance continues to decrease with every update rather than improve.

Once you (as a company) reach the point where a considerable majority of your customers are against you, you are done. ZOS isn’t there yet, and there’s still time to re-evaluate and change their methodology, but time isn’t in their favor. My biggest fear is that longevity is not even what ZOS is after, but rather they intend to simply milk the game for as much profit as they can for a few years and then walk out, as Turbine did.

Aurielle wrote: »

I agree that some of the vitriol goes a bit too far. The developers are human, and they make mistakes. I don’t fault them for that at all.

That being said, when I’m paying for a service, I do expect it to function at a certain level, and for issues to be addressed in a timely fashion. It’s really frustrating to see Crown store related issues fixed rapidly, while we enter our fourth consecutive week of frequent crashing in Cyrodiil and FPS stuttering everywhere on console.

You know what happens when game developers prioritize the cash shop over performance? Long-term, loyal customers leave. Turbine is another MMORPG company that did not prioritize performance; I left LOTRO after eight years of paying a subscription on top of cash store extras because they did not fix their massive FPS drops and memory leaks.

It is more expensive to attract new customers than it is to keep existing customers happy, and ZOS would do well to remember that. If the freezing in Cyrodiil is not fixed soon, I will absolutely take my subscription money elsewhere.

There is only one problem with Elder Scrolls Online and it's three letters.

Z.O.S.

tinythinker wrote: »

ZOS is a company. They exist to make money. It doesn't matter how much passion or creativity devs have, they can't do whatever they want. They get to offer input of course but at the end of the day they make what someone tells them to. The more success the product has the more investment there is, and this applies to parts of the game as well as the game as a whole. So if the cash shop makes money on a weird looking guar, look for several more weird looking guar on the way. If people spend more time solo questing, look for a shift to emphasize that content. What gets the most positive attention/played time is what they think will make them the most money.

Bad press is also a factor. Many of the things that got the game savagely trashed in 2014 through professional and player reviews became top priorities for the devs, because bad press and negative word of mouth hurts sales and lowers profits. Not to mention it hurts professional pride. Loudly complaining works when the volume gets high enough for long enough. However, childish harassment doesn't help. Consistently and clearly calling out what is wrong does. People who consistently yet constructively criticize the game are doing a service for all players. Those who rant like an angry toddlers undermine them, as do the "love it or leave it" and the "leave Brittany the devs alooooooone" crowds. There is plenty of room for constructive praise and constructive criticism. Respect those who offer either and let them do their thing.

Case in point: Many players have been mad and very vocal about the combat team's choices for a long while and feel like that team is out touch. ZOS had added a special forum to get feedback but it didn't work out and they scrapped it. That left the PTS. Players felt the feedback threads for class changes on the PTS were unclear about reasons for the changes so the devs started adding explanatory spoilers. Which then caused players to wonder "What are you smoking?" and to continue to feel that devs didn't get where players were coming from. So this year ZOS asked players to nominate people to be class representatives, and those reps were remotely connected to the combat team lead for some back and forth at the first official meeting. We now have a summary of what was discussed and we know that, while the devs may still make combat decisions we don't like, at least they are actually "getting" what is bugging so many players. The summary list of issues raised and heard was really decent, with back and forth and devs asking follow-ups for clarifications. And this whole process involved years of criticism by players.

Criticism may sometimes come with a bitter edge to it but the devs are professionals and can handle a little frustration. Yet mockery and abuse shouldn't be tolerated (and some players see as a hobby). If you are bugging ZOS employees on their personal accounts because you want "X" to change in ESO, spamming ESO Live with "nerf" comments, etc. that's counterproductive. If you are insulting or threatening them it's harassment. But if you are posting on page 87 of the tenth forum or reddit thread of the year on an issue offering your view or responding to someone else on the matter, that's fine. Keep the issue visible. Players who are tired of seeing the issue over and over again can get over it or have fun teasing about it ("hey, new ESO drinking game, every time you see a thread about..."). I commented on several "state of PvP/AvA" threads last week. Wasn't surprised or bothered to see them, just reminded folks that the issues are always the same and not to expect too much to change anytime soon. But I was glad to see people still complaining. The day no one does is the day no one is left in Cyrodiil.

Take an awesome...well said!

I tend to think that if there was more responses from ZOS when bugs/issues were brought up then possibly the player base would at least feel confident the issues were being worked on in the back office to get the issues resolved. And I am right there with you that ZOS is a company first, and their first priority is to make money. For example, I think I have seen more legitimate Dev comments (actual Dev commentary and updates about a bug, not "comments removed for flaming/bashing") with a motif purchased in the Crown store over the past few hours than with any of the bug reports threads combined for the past several months (and possibly the last few PTS cycles as well). The reason being, each motif purchase (5000 crowns or around $35-$40) being returned is money the company used to have and might never get again. I just wish ZOS would try and spend as much effort in communicating with the rest of the customer base about known issues that have been happening for some time now as was spent today by ZOS communicating about a Crown Store purchase.

I'd agree with you but i'm too busy being disconnected and dealing with high ping dsync..