Why does ZOS refuse to listen and not even talk with it's community?

  • yodased
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    What i am confused by is the level of expectation from players. What other industry has its consumers pissed off about not being "listened" to?

    Do people go to *** forums and demand their air jordans be more representative of personal beliefs?

    Even allagorical industries in entertainment, are you writing to paramount because the movie producers arent answering your request for et 2: back on the bike.

    They are a business. They have bosses who dictate what gets made and what gets tossed. Look at how many smart people with great ideas have moved on or been fired.

    Champion system lady: gone.
    Spellcrafting dude: cya.
    2nd in charge: okbai.

    The continued expectation of behavior changing is silly. They will milk you for your cash and will keep the bare minimum systems updated, until people stop giving them money.

    If you want to use outrage as entertainment, have fun i guess, but to expect anything else than status quo and them be upset when they dont change really is on you.

    Want actual change? Hit em where it hurts, but you cant because the silent majority is paying them bills.
    Tl;dr really weigh the fun you have in game vs the business practices you are supporting.
  • jaws343
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    Revokus wrote: »
    Lake wrote: »
    rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

    And from a few days ago...

    ngqKySA.png

    Not sure where he thinks people are saying the game is dead tbh ? At least I haven’t really seen people say that since before console launch and before one tamriel..

    Cyrodiil is sure dead compared to before but I don’t know why he would make a tweet like that in 2018 for the general game.

    I am pretty sure there is a post like every month declaring the game dead.
  • Jaraal
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    yodased wrote: »

    Want actual change? Hit em where it hurts, but you cant because the silent majority is paying them bills.

    I see this sentiment a lot, but in reality, it doesn’t work that way. Loss of revenue doesn’t cause them to invest more money and time into fixing things. It just causes them to divert even more resources to something else that is more profitable.
  • Salvas_Aren
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    At least the mods keep closing unwelcomed topics. :trollface:
  • Beardimus
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    Revokus wrote: »
    Lake wrote: »
    rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

    And from a few days ago...

    ngqKySA.png

    Not sure where he thinks people are saying the game is dead tbh ? At least I haven’t really seen people say that since before console launch and before one tamriel..

    Cyrodiil is sure dead compared to before but I don’t know why he would make a tweet like that in 2018 for the general game.

    Really? People go on about it all the time on here with their glorious quitting threads etc
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  • Callous2208
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    Beardimus wrote: »
    Revokus wrote: »
    Lake wrote: »
    rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

    And from a few days ago...

    ngqKySA.png

    Not sure where he thinks people are saying the game is dead tbh ? At least I haven’t really seen people say that since before console launch and before one tamriel..

    Cyrodiil is sure dead compared to before but I don’t know why he would make a tweet like that in 2018 for the general game.

    Really? People go on about it all the time on here with their glorious quitting threads etc

    I see very few quit/game is dying threads tbh. At least in comparison to most mmo forums. Now performance issue and crown store rage threads...lots of those bad boys. Which is pretty telling imo.
  • Kuramas9tails
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    SaltySudd wrote: »
    Gina just commented on a visual bug thread for a Crown Store costume, so hopefully she comments on one of the many performance related threads or even this one.
    @SaltySudd

    I reported several bugs and none have been fixed. Patch after patch and nothing.

    I remember I actually had to post on the forums that no one was responding to my report I sent in a month prior and someone from the forums tagged someone from ZOS and then they transferred me to someone else only for them to not help me at all.

    ZOS only fixes what they want to fix and sadly, the only fixes they are doing are for the next DLC.
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    • Callous2208
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      SaltySudd wrote: »
      Gina just commented on a visual bug thread for a Crown Store costume, so hopefully she comments on one of the many performance related threads or even this one.
      @SaltySudd

      I reported several bugs and none have been fixed. Patch after patch and nothing.

      I remember I actually had to post on the forums that no one was responding to my report I sent in a month prior and someone from the forums tagged someone from ZOS and then they transferred me to someone else only for them to not help me at all.

      ZOS only fixes what they want to fix and sadly, the only fixes they are doing are for the next DLC.

      I reported a bug that was preventing me from buying crowns and crown crates and got a response and fix immediately. The money was out of my account before I could even open the email. :D
    • Revokus
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      Beardimus wrote: »
      Revokus wrote: »
      Lake wrote: »
      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      And from a few days ago...

      ngqKySA.png

      Not sure where he thinks people are saying the game is dead tbh ? At least I haven’t really seen people say that since before console launch and before one tamriel..

      Cyrodiil is sure dead compared to before but I don’t know why he would make a tweet like that in 2018 for the general game.

      Really? People go on about it all the time on here with their glorious quitting threads etc

      I meant more on youtube etc the general idea of the game has become really positive on social media compared to wow for example with tons of videos about people quitting the game. But sure there is always quitting posts on the forums but they don’t mean much tbh.

      I suspect it’s because of the ESO fam marketing campaign bringing every casuals they can to the game and everything you see from them is positive they are not allowed to say negative things about the game or they will lose support from ZOS. ESO official posts are full of them on twitter for exemple. Sure they must all like the game but they are often casuals and roleplayers that like fluff and don’t care about bugs and performance.
      Edited by Revokus on January 4, 2019 6:11PM
      Playing since January 23, 2016
    • Rain_Greyraven
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      Honestly...who would want to deal with the perpetually outraged douchenozzles on this or any game forum?

      People in any professional position are acting very intelligently to not engage, because they will get hammered with faux outrage by the machine of internet drama.
      Edited by Rain_Greyraven on January 4, 2019 6:38PM
      "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

      ― Robert E. Howard


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    • Sandman929
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      Honestly...who would want to deal with the perpetually outraged douchenozzles on this or any game forum?

      People in any professional position are acting very intelligently to not engage, because they will get hammered with faux outrage by the machine of internet drama.

      That explains the common practice of customer service representatives simply walking away from any complaint.
    • Alinhbo_Tyaka
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      Beardimus wrote: »
      Revokus wrote: »
      Lake wrote: »
      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      And from a few days ago...

      ngqKySA.png

      Not sure where he thinks people are saying the game is dead tbh ? At least I haven’t really seen people say that since before console launch and before one tamriel..

      Cyrodiil is sure dead compared to before but I don’t know why he would make a tweet like that in 2018 for the general game.

      Really? People go on about it all the time on here with their glorious quitting threads etc

      I wouldn't know how many are actually posted with how quickly ZOS tends to lock and delete them. I can understand ZOS doing this but it makes me question if they are paying attention to the why and using that as feedback for the game itself.

      I spent 30+ years in software development. Admittedly most of my customers were of higher technical skills than the general ESO population but customer communications were important as were the reasons they used our products or stopped using them and using a competitors. When bugs were reported they were tracked and responded to as to whether they were accepted, rejected, more information required or other reasons that let the customer know what happened with their problem. If or when they were fixed this was also noted in the patch notes. The same process was used for product improvement suggestions. In none did we commit to when a potential code change would be implemented just that we would look into it if there was a future release. The key was making sure the customer didn't believe their problem ended up in the circular file before anyone had evaluated it. There is no reason ZOS couldn't use a similar process so the customer at least has an acknowledgement that their problem was actually looked at and not just thrown into junk mailbox.

      Another thing we used the customer reported problems and suggestions for was determining what to include in new releases. By having the aggregate numbers for each problem or suggestion we could go to our customer base during user group meetings and to our support folks to determine what items were highest priority so those could be worked into the product plan. While asking the EOS user base directly for specific input wouldn't be practical there is no reason the community managers, class reps and a cross section sample of players couldn't be queried to get a feel of what known items are the highest priority or have the broadest base of support for resolving. The decision of what ZOS intends to resolve could then be communicated when they have their new release dog and pony shows. Again this would show ZOS paid attention and took some steps to resolve the problems most affecting the player base.
    • Rain_Greyraven
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      Sandman929 wrote: »
      Honestly...who would want to deal with the perpetually outraged douchenozzles on this or any game forum?

      People in any professional position are acting very intelligently to not engage, because they will get hammered with faux outrage by the machine of internet drama.

      That explains the common practice of customer service representatives simply walking away from any complaint.

      Your'e not wrong.

      And the reason is they see the metrics, they see the numbers and it doesn't Jibe with the supposed "Mass Exodus" that are supposedly effecting these games.

      I have seen it time and time again from the other side: X player screams on the forums about how broken the game is, and claims he never plays he just hangs out on GF to vent, but if you look on the Customer service side of his account, he logs in constantly and frequently hits the cash shop.

      I think a mistake is for the Community managers to not call that out when it happens.

      Jeff Kaplan at Blizzard use to be notorious for that, and every single time it shut the faux outrage down, but that was old Blizzard not the current woke Blizzard.

      Don't look for any of this to change on either side any time soon.
      "Civilized men are more discourteous than savages because they know they can be impolite without having their skulls split, as a general thing.”

      ― Robert E. Howard


      So you want to be a game developer? Here is the best way to go about it.
    • Shantu
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      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      Seems like pretty transparent communication with the community to me. What more do we need to know?
    • Suddwrath
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      When bugs were reported they were tracked and responded to as to whether they were accepted, rejected, more information required or other reasons that let the customer know what happened with their problem. If or when they were fixed this was also noted in the patch notes. The same process was used for product improvement suggestions.

      Many other MMOs have a section in their forum where an official thread of known bugs is listed and regularly updated. It would be nice if ESO had a similar thread rather than just a section for users to report bugs (usually without ever receiving a response from ZOS).
      While asking the EOS user base directly for specific input wouldn't be practical there is no reason the community managers, class reps and a cross section sample of players couldn't be queried to get a feel of what known items are the highest priority or have the broadest base of support for resolving.

      I would love it if ZOS sent out a survey to a random/stratified sample of players. They had a system implemented back in the beta where we would get a survey in our email, and I believe that would be a great way for players to give their feedback again today.
    • DedEmbryonicCell19
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      Gamers are the most ungrateful people around .. no developer owes you anything, not even a hello ..

    • Sandman929
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      A lot of gamers seem to forget that they are customers, and rather they act like they're pals with devs and even more so with forum staff, almost like they're doing us a favor by selling this service and we shouldn't expect a quality product or timely responses to issues. These people leap to the defense of bad practices when it comes to customer service.
    • Hippie4927
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      Shantu wrote: »
      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      Seems like pretty transparent communication with the community to me. What more do we need to know?

      If I remember correctly, that clip is taken out of context. One would need to see the whole convo to understand what Rich meant. He was NOT saying that the poster didn't need to be playing the game.
      PC/NA/EP ✌️
    • valeriiya
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      Hippie4927 wrote: »
      Shantu wrote: »
      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      Seems like pretty transparent communication with the community to me. What more do we need to know?

      If I remember correctly, that clip is taken out of context. One would need to see the whole convo to understand what Rich meant. He was NOT saying that the poster didn't need to be playing the game.

      This was his response to someone asking if an issue was ever going to be fixed. Read the whole Q & A and that's exactly what it was. Then he posts a year end review here about how great everything is while over on Twitter he's rolling his eyes and posting about the game.
    • DedEmbryonicCell19
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      Sandman929 wrote: »
      A lot of gamers seem to forget that they are customers, and rather they act like they're pals with devs and even more so with forum staff, almost like they're doing us a favor by selling this service and we shouldn't expect a quality product or timely responses to issues. These people leap to the defense of bad practices when it comes to customer service.

      There is a difference between helpful criticism and throwing a 3 year old tantrum ..

      Do you know how hard it is to fix a game of this size? Fixing one thing can break 1000's of other things ..

      May not be as easy as everybody expects, funny how everybody becomes an expert on the subject ..
    • Hippie4927
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      valeriiya wrote: »
      Hippie4927 wrote: »
      Shantu wrote: »
      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      Seems like pretty transparent communication with the community to me. What more do we need to know?

      If I remember correctly, that clip is taken out of context. One would need to see the whole convo to understand what Rich meant. He was NOT saying that the poster didn't need to be playing the game.

      This was his response to someone asking if an issue was ever going to be fixed. Read the whole Q & A and that's exactly what it was. Then he posts a year end review here about how great everything is while over on Twitter he's rolling his eyes and posting about the game.

      Link? Because my memory of the convo is different from your's.
      PC/NA/EP ✌️
    • Sandman929
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      Sandman929 wrote: »
      A lot of gamers seem to forget that they are customers, and rather they act like they're pals with devs and even more so with forum staff, almost like they're doing us a favor by selling this service and we shouldn't expect a quality product or timely responses to issues. These people leap to the defense of bad practices when it comes to customer service.

      There is a difference between helpful criticism and throwing a 3 year old tantrum ..

      Do you know how hard it is to fix a game of this size? Fixing one thing can break 1000's of other things ..

      May not be as easy as everybody expects, funny how everybody becomes an expert on the subject ..

      As a software engineer, I do appreciate the complexity of bug fixes on a large codebase. What isn't complex, or difficult, is making customers feel confident that their issues are being heard and updating them on the status of bug fixes.
    • wenchmore420b14_ESO
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      Communication and customer feedback is not a priority of the Marketing Dept.........
      “When the people that can make the company more successful are sales and marketing people, they end up running the companies. The product people get driven out of the decision making forums, and the companies forget what it means to make great products.”
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    • Elsonso
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      yodased wrote: »
      What i am confused by is the level of expectation from players. What other industry has its consumers pissed off about not being "listened" to?

      Do people go to *** forums and demand their air jordans be more representative of personal beliefs?

      Even allagorical industries in entertainment, are you writing to paramount because the movie producers arent answering your request for et 2: back on the bike.

      They are a business. They have bosses who dictate what gets made and what gets tossed. Look at how many smart people with great ideas have moved on or been fired.

      The continued expectation of behavior changing is silly. They will milk you for your cash and will keep the bare minimum systems updated, until people stop giving them money.

      If you want to use outrage as entertainment, have fun i guess, but to expect anything else than status quo and them be upset when they dont change really is on you.

      Want actual change? Hit em where it hurts, but you cant because the silent majority is paying them bills.

      ZOS has it good, in one respect. In a lot of cases, customers do what you have suggested and just wander off. The business has to survey, or guess, what is wrong, and may or may not fix it right, or in time. Players are telling ZOS what is wrong on the forum. All ZOS has to do is decide which if these things are representative of the larger player base, and which ones are snowflakes that can be safely allowed to melt.

      When the silent majority is still paying them, one has to wonder whether the issues presented by the vocal minority are the problem... or whether the problem is the vocal minority. From this perspective, it is often hard to tell.

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    • Salvas_Aren
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      It's also hard to tell who is a player and who is a payer.

      I play this game for free now. My last crown purchase dates back to the first week of January '18. I will leave it in this state and continue playing.

      Letting my account and my crowns rott would not improve my situation. Will I buy the next chapter? I seriously doubt that.
    • frostz417
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      rich-lambart-attitude-problem.png

      Wow..
    • Nogawd
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      Gamers are the most ungrateful people around .. no developer owes you anything, not even a hello ..

      Yeah and the forums are setup to encourage their whining. You can't tell them to "shut up" without being reported as some kind of bait or troll.

      When in fact they should do just that, shut up and go somewhere else.
    • Jaraal
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      SaltySudd wrote: »
      When bugs were reported they were tracked and responded to as to whether they were accepted, rejected, more information required or other reasons that let the customer know what happened with their problem. If or when they were fixed this was also noted in the patch notes. The same process was used for product improvement suggestions.

      Many other MMOs have a section in their forum where an official thread of known bugs is listed and regularly updated. It would be nice if ESO had a similar thread rather than just a section for users to report bugs (usually without ever receiving a response from ZOS).
      While asking the EOS user base directly for specific input wouldn't be practical there is no reason the community managers, class reps and a cross section sample of players couldn't be queried to get a feel of what known items are the highest priority or have the broadest base of support for resolving.

      I would love it if ZOS sent out a survey to a random/stratified sample of players. They had a system implemented back in the beta where we would get a survey in our email, and I believe that would be a great way for players to give their feedback again today.

      They have an even better feedback system: the test server.

      Spend some time reading the threads in the test server section (if you haven't been actively participating in it for years, like many of us have), compare the general feedback with the patch notes, and see how often ZOS does exactly the opposite of the vast majority of players recommend. Speed nerfs, shield nerfs, sustain nerfs, etc, etc, etc...... virtually nobody supported these changes, except a few fringe players with antiquated systems who couldn't target, felt they should be able to kill everybody, regardless of skill..... but I digress. The point is, they have access to more feedback than they can handle, months before they actually implement these sweeping, all or nothing changes. It's as if they can't afford to (or don't have the human resources to) make small, incremental tweaks, so they try to kill flies with a sledgehammer, hoping they fix everything at once. But what ends up happening the majority of the time is they go too far overboard, and nobody is happy.

      So, rather than an email survey, maybe they should make a public survey thread. Ask players "How are we doing, do you support this change or that change, how satisfied are you with our level of attention to bug and combat fixes" and the like. However, transparency and communication are clearly not their strong point, so you can bet that nothing of the sort will be coming any time soon.
    • eso_lags
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      valeriiya wrote: »
      I thought @ZOS_GinaBruno was still on vaction because there are 10 different threads going about PvP performance and she hasnt posted in any of them but I just saw her pop up in one regarding something from Crown Store, what a surprise!!


      ZOS_GinaBruno wrote: »
      Hi everyone. First of all, you aren't wrong. We agree we haven't been communicating as much as we should on this matter (among others) and for that, we apologize. There really is no excuse.

      She never comments on pvp performance threads. none of them do. find one where they did in the last year. you might find it, but you wont find 2 or 3.. But pve issues, you can find plenty of those with comments from zos. Real information about what they are doing. There are new performance threads every day, multiple, and they all go ignored.
    • eso_lags
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      Gamers are the most ungrateful people around .. no developer owes you anything, not even a hello ..

      What are you doing here if you arent a gamer? oh wait....

      What a stupid comment. Yes they do owe us, everything they have. We pay them. Most people arent unreasonable and just want answers. There are always going to be stupid people who act like children, but most of us are rational. But we also dont want to get walked on.

      Players like you could never understand because your expectations are lower than our expectations. And thats not even a bad thing, im happy you can have fun in this game questing or doing dungeons or role playing or crafting or whatever.

      But for those of us who want to play the game in one of the many ways it was intended, such as pvping in cyrodil, we have the expectation that its going to work and major issues arent going to persist for years. Old issues stay and new issues arise. And cyrodil is just my problem, there are plenty of other things happening and we get no communication from zos on any of them.

      Again, we pay them. We buy the game, pay for a sub, pay for more dlcs in the form of chapters, and most of us buy things off of the crown store since zos gives us barely any choices in game when it comes to costumes and mounts. When people spend a lot of money to keep something going they should be able to get some updates. "Gamers are ungrateful" lol what a joke.
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