Would you sacrifice 6 months of content for 6 months of pure optimisation?

Zhoyzu · February 2019

Yes

i stopped playing for 3 years. i thought that was enough time for ZoS to fix lag for more than 4 people on the screen at the same time, Infinite loading screens, memory leaks, a functioning group finder (which they actually got working in those three years), and ultimately a game worth paying 15 dollars a month for.

Evidently, they need more time.

Dark_Lord_Kuro · February 2019

Yes

Yes undrer certain condition
They take away the 2 dongeon pack of tgat year because the are just a poor excuse for a dlc

And the dlc before and after are zone dlc/chapter

But honnestly it doesnt work like that
Story writer, zone/character desingner and the one who make the music still need to work and no they probably dont know anything about fixing a server its not their job

LiquidPony · February 2019

No

Ertosi wrote: »

Why not? We've already sacrificed 6 months of substantial content for an "overarching story", with the rest of this year likely to follow the same trend.

Unlike previous years, this year's first quarter brought no new game systems or crafting. Look at everything each recent year's first quarter brought, comparing similar features, and a pattern of diminishing yearly content becomes apparent. Add in each year's second quarter and the content gap widens even further:

I was bothered enough by the lack of substantial new game systems coming to ESO this year that I cancelled my sub for the first time; even emailed explaining that was the reason why. From their reply of "[…] sorry that you feel the story this year is not worth the price of admission.", as well as how much they are hyping it, it's clear they view story as being equivalent to new features. I disagree for a few reasons:
New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

New stories already came with each new zone, so it's nothing new. There was already a continuing plot and we already saw reoccurring characters between them.

It takes much less overall work to make stories which fits with their trend of maximum buck intake vs minimum effort output.

I say all of this because we need to be ever cautious of this trend of lessening effort being put into the game.

We should all be quite cautious of telling them they have a free pass to not bring any new content if they focus on optimizations. Based off of their past choices, they're likely to take advantage of it, making lots of hype of all of the stuff "being fixed" but in the end we'll find the game barely moved forward and with nothing new to show for it.

What you've failed to consider here is that there is not a 1:1 value comparison between "Feature A introduced in Update 17" and "Feature Z introduced in Update 20".

For instance: I could not possibly care less about the Outfit System. I've played this game since beta and I have literally never once used the outfit system. I have no idea how it works. For me, the rework of all racial passives, the update of a bunch of outdated sets, etc. are far more valuable than the Outfit System.

And even where the mapping appears to be 1:1, it's not really that honest. I'm willing to bet that the console community is *far* happier with the revamped Guild Trader UI *with search* than they were the "minor UI improvements" of prior patches.

MartiniDaniels · February 2019

Yes

LiquidPony wrote: »

Ertosi wrote: »

Why not? We've already sacrificed 6 months of substantial content for an "overarching story", with the rest of this year likely to follow the same trend.

Unlike previous years, this year's first quarter brought no new game systems or crafting. Look at everything each recent year's first quarter brought, comparing similar features, and a pattern of diminishing yearly content becomes apparent. Add in each year's second quarter and the content gap widens even further:

I was bothered enough by the lack of substantial new game systems coming to ESO this year that I cancelled my sub for the first time; even emailed explaining that was the reason why. From their reply of "[…] sorry that you feel the story this year is not worth the price of admission.", as well as how much they are hyping it, it's clear they view story as being equivalent to new features. I disagree for a few reasons:
New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

New stories already came with each new zone, so it's nothing new. There was already a continuing plot and we already saw reoccurring characters between them.

It takes much less overall work to make stories which fits with their trend of maximum buck intake vs minimum effort output.

I say all of this because we need to be ever cautious of this trend of lessening effort being put into the game.

We should all be quite cautious of telling them they have a free pass to not bring any new content if they focus on optimizations. Based off of their past choices, they're likely to take advantage of it, making lots of hype of all of the stuff "being fixed" but in the end we'll find the game barely moved forward and with nothing new to show for it.

What you've failed to consider here is that there is not a 1:1 value comparison between "Feature A introduced in Update 17" and "Feature Z introduced in Update 20".

For instance: I could not possibly care less about the Outfit System. I've played this game since beta and I have literally never once used the outfit system. I have no idea how it works. For me, the rework of all racial passives, the update of a bunch of outdated sets, etc. are far more valuable than the Outfit System.

And even where the mapping appears to be 1:1, it's not really that honest. I'm willing to bet that the console community is *far* happier with the revamped Guild Trader UI *with search* than they were the "minor UI improvements" of prior patches.

Level up advisor and skill advisor are probably rocking features, cause nobody in this game can surpass 10k dps until he googles some build and starts to understand how this game works

essi2 · February 2019

Zenimax would move ZOS on to a new project and 'End of Life' ESO if they ever took any amount of time off from making payed content.

Luigi_Vampa · February 2019

zvavi wrote: »

NA people please refrain from answering, it is an EU problem.

So NA people would be out 6 months of content because the EU servers suck? I'll pass.

Starlight_Knight · February 2019

Yes

Yes because its a bloody scam atm the amount of lag and broken queues.
No money in fix's though... this isnt a game made for enjoyment its a game made to make money.
MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! if they could find a way to fix bugs and lag AND charge for it.... maybe they would..
But only if it was easy and they could go to the pub early.

Ertosi · February 2019

Yes

Tandor wrote: »

Ertosi wrote: »

Why not? We've already sacrificed 6 months of substantial content for an "overarching story", with the rest of this year likely to follow the same trend.

Unlike previous years, this year's first quarter brought no new game systems or crafting. Look at everything each recent year's first quarter brought, comparing similar features, and a pattern of diminishing yearly content becomes apparent. Add in each year's second quarter and the content gap widens even further:

I was bothered enough by the lack of substantial new game systems coming to ESO this year that I cancelled my sub for the first time; even emailed explaining that was the reason why. From their reply of "[…] sorry that you feel the story this year is not worth the price of admission.", as well as how much they are hyping it, it's clear they view story as being equivalent to new features. I disagree for a few reasons:
New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

New stories already came with each new zone, so it's nothing new. There was already a continuing plot and we already saw reoccurring characters between them.

It takes much less overall work to make stories which fits with their trend of maximum buck intake vs minimum effort output.

I say all of this because we need to be ever cautious of this trend of lessening effort being put into the game.

We should all be quite cautious of telling them they have a free pass to not bring any new content if they focus on optimizations. Based off of their past choices, they're likely to take advantage of it, making lots of hype of all of the stuff "being fixed" but in the end we'll find the game barely moved forward and with nothing new to show for it.

They're bringing plenty of new content into the game, it's just that you don't consider things like battlegrounds, additional zones, or a new skill line to be content.

@Tandor Maybe read someone's post before knee-jerking out a snarky reply that completely misrepresents what they said? I literally stated that things like battlegrounds and new skill lines are important content.

Ertosi wrote: »

[*] New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

Luigi_Vampa · February 2019

Starlight_Knight wrote: »

Yes because its a bloody scam atm the amount of lag and broken queues.
No money in fix's though... this isnt a game made for enjoyment its a game made to make money.
MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!! if they could find a way to fix bugs and lag AND charge for it.... maybe they would..
But only if it was easy and they could go to the pub early.

Every game is a game made for money. What are you even talking about? Major companies don't spend money making a game just for fun.

StarOfElyon · February 2019

No

SgtSilock wrote: »

The question is simply as above, would you rather have silky smooth performance after 6 months of pure dedication to optimizing, or 6 months of more content?

Does content include fixing broken mechanics and worthless passives and morphs? If so, then no.

Ertosi · February 2019

Yes

LiquidPony wrote: »

Ertosi wrote: »

Why not? We've already sacrificed 6 months of substantial content for an "overarching story", with the rest of this year likely to follow the same trend.

Unlike previous years, this year's first quarter brought no new game systems or crafting. Look at everything each recent year's first quarter brought, comparing similar features, and a pattern of diminishing yearly content becomes apparent. Add in each year's second quarter and the content gap widens even further:

I was bothered enough by the lack of substantial new game systems coming to ESO this year that I cancelled my sub for the first time; even emailed explaining that was the reason why. From their reply of "[…] sorry that you feel the story this year is not worth the price of admission.", as well as how much they are hyping it, it's clear they view story as being equivalent to new features. I disagree for a few reasons:
New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

New stories already came with each new zone, so it's nothing new. There was already a continuing plot and we already saw reoccurring characters between them.

It takes much less overall work to make stories which fits with their trend of maximum buck intake vs minimum effort output.

I say all of this because we need to be ever cautious of this trend of lessening effort being put into the game.

We should all be quite cautious of telling them they have a free pass to not bring any new content if they focus on optimizations. Based off of their past choices, they're likely to take advantage of it, making lots of hype of all of the stuff "being fixed" but in the end we'll find the game barely moved forward and with nothing new to show for it.

What you've failed to consider here is that there is not a 1:1 value comparison between "Feature A introduced in Update 17" and "Feature Z introduced in Update 20".

For instance: I could not possibly care less about the Outfit System. I've played this game since beta and I have literally never once used the outfit system. I have no idea how it works. For me, the rework of all racial passives, the update of a bunch of outdated sets, etc. are far more valuable than the Outfit System.

And even where the mapping appears to be 1:1, it's not really that honest. I'm willing to bet that the console community is *far* happier with the revamped Guild Trader UI *with search* than they were the "minor UI improvements" of prior patches.

Those arguments are fair enough, but I challenge you to restructure that chart in a more effective and honest manner. When doing so keep these same factors in mind which I focused on while making it:

All major features from 1st quarter patches must be included.
When comparing features, they must be grouped by similar content from other year's first quarters.
That chart is only including and comparing first quarter content. If you expand to include other quarters' content, it must be done in an equal manner between years.

I'm not saying it can't be done better, anything can be improved, but it is a very objective way of comparing new content releases.

Stx · February 2019

Yes

I returned to the game after missing everything after craglorn. So I still have tons of content to experience, not to mention housing, achievements, motifs and other stuff.

I could play this game for years and probably not finish the content so me personally I would prefer 6 months of focusing on just performance.

MasterSpatula · February 2019

No

[*] New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

This is the most spurious, most false thing stated in this entire thread.

Nothing, none one thing of it, means a damn without story. It's true you can't experience the story if the game's unplayable, but even flawless gameplay would be of no value whatsoever without story.

Tandor · February 2019

No

Ertosi wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Ertosi wrote: »

Why not? We've already sacrificed 6 months of substantial content for an "overarching story", with the rest of this year likely to follow the same trend.

Unlike previous years, this year's first quarter brought no new game systems or crafting. Look at everything each recent year's first quarter brought, comparing similar features, and a pattern of diminishing yearly content becomes apparent. Add in each year's second quarter and the content gap widens even further:

I was bothered enough by the lack of substantial new game systems coming to ESO this year that I cancelled my sub for the first time; even emailed explaining that was the reason why. From their reply of "[…] sorry that you feel the story this year is not worth the price of admission.", as well as how much they are hyping it, it's clear they view story as being equivalent to new features. I disagree for a few reasons:
New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

New stories already came with each new zone, so it's nothing new. There was already a continuing plot and we already saw reoccurring characters between them.

It takes much less overall work to make stories which fits with their trend of maximum buck intake vs minimum effort output.

I say all of this because we need to be ever cautious of this trend of lessening effort being put into the game.

We should all be quite cautious of telling them they have a free pass to not bring any new content if they focus on optimizations. Based off of their past choices, they're likely to take advantage of it, making lots of hype of all of the stuff "being fixed" but in the end we'll find the game barely moved forward and with nothing new to show for it.

They're bringing plenty of new content into the game, it's just that you don't consider things like battlegrounds, additional zones, or a new skill line to be content.

@Tandor Maybe read someone's post before knee-jerking out a snarky reply that completely misrepresents what they said? I literally stated that things like battlegrounds and new skill lines are important content.

Ertosi wrote: »

[*] New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

Fair criticism, my apologies.

Ertosi · February 2019

Yes

MasterSpatula wrote: »

[*] New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

Nothing, none one thing of it, means a damn without story. It's true you can't experience the story if the game's unplayable, but the gameplay could be flawless and that would be of no value whatsoever without story.

What you say is completely true, but also misses the original point. I did not say story is unimportant. We get story every year; story is nothing new. What I did say was more story does not excuse a lack of other substantial content.

Edit: removed the bait/attack from quote.

Royaji · February 2019

Wrong question. The one you should be asking is "Are you and millions other players willing to keep on paying subscription/buying DLCs at the same rate as before if ZOS were to stop releasing any content and only fixes with them?"

Not seeing a lot of hands here, huh? Sorry, but for the guy who runs the party at ZOS this is the only thing that matters.

Royaji · February 2019

MasterSpatula wrote: »

[*] New real features and content affect and enhance all of your characters (ex new crafting systems, skill lines, battle modes, etc); story can only be freshly experienced once and you take nothing of it with you afterwards.

This is the most spurious, most false thing stated in this entire thread.

Nothing, none one thing of it, means a damn without story. It's true you can't experience the story if the game's unplayable, but even flawless gameplay would be of no value whatsoever without story.

Sorry, games are about gameplay. If you want a good story you can go watch a movie or read a book. A game with rich complex and interesting gameplay and no story (say something like Dark Souls) beats another action-like "game" with even the best story (say something like new GoW) any day.

It is a shame that people who want real games have to sort through all that "story-first" AAA mess that publishers throw out to make some quick cash from the most abundant mass consumer nowadays.

Tigerseye · February 2019

I think different people tend to work on different things?

So, it probably wouldn't be necessary to cease work on one aspect of the game, to sort out another aspect.

...and in fact, if the new content tends to bring in most of the cash, it would make more sense to keep producing it.

So, you could then (in theory...) use some of the money, from that new content, to pay people to sort out the rest.

xaraan · February 2019

No

No.

1. If the game is making money and successful, then they could afford to put money into it and do both instead of pad investors pockets more. (Yes, there are shareholders even though its a private company). They are making the choice of how they want to go about managing the game.

2. This assumes six months of optimization would fix everything that needs to be fixed.

and 3. This also assumes that everyone would just stick around without anything new to do for that length of time and keep paying for things.

Acrolas · February 2019

No

Royaji wrote: »

Sorry, games are about gameplay. If you want a good story you can go watch a movie or read a book. A game with rich complex and interesting gameplay and no story (say something like Dark Souls) beats another action-like "game" with even the best story (say something like new GoW) any day.

"I remember first playing through Demon's Souls back in 2009 and thinking to myself 'this game is awesome, but would be way more awesome with a proper story.' It seemed at the time to be a game heavy with atmosphere, but light on storytelling.

By 'proper story' I meant the way most roleplaying games deliver their narrative; via dialogue, cutscenes and text dumps. Wouldn't it be better, stupid, unperceptive 2009 me thought, if Demon's Souls featured lengthy dialogues with its characters, cutscenes depicting their exploits, and Elder Scrolls style text books to expound its lore?

No, 2009 me. It wouldn't be better. It took me a few playthroughs of Dark Souls before I really understood how elegant the story design is in these games, and how much more interesting this approach is than that employed by most other games in the genre.

In the Souls games, the narrative is woven directly into the world of the game. There are three primary ways the player can access narrative information; through the dialogue spoken by non-player characters, in the descriptions of the items found strewn across the world, and from the visual design of the world itself. Only by engaging with all three of these narrative devices can a player begin to get a wider picture of the game's larger story."

https://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/TomBattey/20140425/216262/Narrative_Design_in_Dark_Souls.php

Starlock · February 2019

No

Considering the game plays fine for everything that I do? Not even a chance. The only places I've noticed performance issues have been in Cyrodill and Trials, neither of which do I bother with on any regular basis.

Uryel · February 2019

Yes

Aliyavana wrote: »

No, as my pc isnt a potato and im on a good platform

You obviously don't play on EU server. The server itself is a potato.

There are a zillion optimisations, quality of life and other general improvements that are long overdue. I'm not only talking about the server feeling like they're gonna catch fire any second, but also small things like improving skill descriptions or finally making sure the crown store states precisely if any given item is account-wide or per character...

jainiadral · February 2019

No

zvavi wrote: »

NA people please refrain from answering, it is an EU problem.

So you're asking NA people to give up half a year's content to fix your problems and you don't want us to have a voice in the process? Just checking, because that seems... selfish, to put it kindly.

Anyway, six months is a long time. Three, I'm okay with.

Ydrisselle · February 2019

jainiadral wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

NA people please refrain from answering, it is an EU problem.

So you're asking NA people to give up half a year's content to fix your problems and you don't want us to have a voice in the process? Just checking, because that seems... selfish, to put it kindly.

Anyway, six months is a long time. Three, I'm okay with.

There are new content in every three months right now (3 DLCs per year and a chapter). ZOS doesn't seem to have enough time to fix many known problems during this 3 months... 6 months would mean that they miss a DLC.
BTW PC EU problems are worse since a software update was made 2 weeks ago. That software update will arrive to PC NA next Monday

WildRaptorX · February 2019

Yes

For the survival of this game? 1000%

jainiadral · February 2019

No

Ydrisselle wrote: »

jainiadral wrote: »

zvavi wrote: »

NA people please refrain from answering, it is an EU problem.

So you're asking NA people to give up half a year's content to fix your problems and you don't want us to have a voice in the process? Just checking, because that seems... selfish, to put it kindly.

Anyway, six months is a long time. Three, I'm okay with.

There are new content in every three months right now (3 DLCs per year and a chapter). ZOS doesn't seem to have enough time to fix many known problems during this 3 months... 6 months would mean that they miss a DLC.
BTW PC EU problems are worse since a software update was made 2 weeks ago. That software update will arrive to PC NA next Monday

My issue was more with that poster's insistence that NA players shouldn't have a voice. Nice to know we're in for the same pain on this side of the pond, though

Sounds like fun times are ahead for the entire ESO community. Ugh.

Editing: just saw the posted maintenance window. Dandy.

Zephyris_Kalnoris · February 2019

TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW AND SUBJECT TO THE STATUTORY OBLIGATIONS (AS DEFINED IN SECTION 1), ZENIMAX, ITS LICENSORS AND RESELLERS DO NOT MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES OR GUARANTEES TO YOU REGARDING ANY SERVICE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE QUALITY, FUNCTIONALITY, AVAILABILITY, ACCESSIBILITY OR PERFORMANCE OF A SERVICE. EACH SERVICE IS PROVIDED TO YOU ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS.

IF YOU ARE NOT SATISFIED WITH THE QUALITY, FUNCTIONALITY, AVAILABILITY, ACCESSIBILITY OR PERFORMANCE OF A SERVICE, YOU MAY CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT OR YOUR SUBSCRIPTION OR MEMBERSHIP TO THE SERVICE. AS NOTED IN THESE TERMS OF SERVICE, WHEN YOU CANCEL YOUR ACCOUNT OR SUBSCRIPTION OR MEMBERSHIP TO A SERVICE YOU WILL NOT BE ENTITLED TO RECEIVE A REFUND OF THE FEES FOR THAT SERVICE UNLESS APPLICABLE LAW SUBJECT TO THE STATUTORY OBLIGATIONS (AS DEFINED IN SECTION 1) REQUIRES A REFUND BE GIVEN.

zaria · February 2019

No

Has few performance issues myself. PC-EU.
Had one trial there we had to reset and re form group, HRC and so laggy the first trash pull did not engage

Morgul667 · February 2019

Yes

Yes

Id choose in a heartbeat

wolf486 · February 2019

Yes

Yes, I ignore most new content anyways