Crazy thought.

Epicasballs · August 2019

Given the amount of changes to the game, and the changes promised to come, I have an idea. Stop updating the live game. Continue to make changes on the pts until you've worked it all out. It would allow a much longer testing period. I think the majority of fans of ESO would understand. Be open about the changes, the direction you want to go and listen to feedback. Communicate with your playerbase and keep them updated on the process. Making huge sweeping changes every 3 months with a 4 week test period, especially when things change within those 4 weeks, only results in uproar and things being neglected until the next cycle. Release new content but until you've done the full audit, and the community has a grip on the new vision for this game, then implement those changes. Not one piece at time over a long period. Do it all at once.

This has been done my other MMOs. Servers went offline for months in other MMOs while massive changes were made. Here you can keep the live servers up while updating the pts and continue to receive feedback on those changes. I do think this dev team is on the right track but the implementation of these changes within the current pts cycles is the wrong way to do it.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

SassiestAssassin · August 2019

Don’t think that sounds crazy at all.

Longer testing periods before updates is needed IMO. Maybe then you wouldn’t have the problem of adjusting tools before making sure it fits the content.

4 weeks is a joke, especially when they slip in big changes in the last patch notes. It makes the Live server feel like a scaled up experiment for a patch, rather than selling a thoroughly vetted product to customers.

Also, more dev commentary on the changes/a sense that they actually listen to the feedback given. If the changes are supposed to be a first step in a shiny new combat vision, give us an outline of what’s going on.

Anyways, they should doing Live bug fixes at least quarterly, bigger combat updates every 6 months maybe?

SodanTok · August 2019

Stupid idea. Better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO have shorter or no 'testing' periods. Everyone figured by now that testing environments are nearly useless to get anything but basic idea of how changes impact players or game.

validifyedneb18_ESO · August 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

Stupid idea. Better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO have shorter or no 'testing' periods. Everyone figured by now that testing environments are nearly useless to get anything but basic idea of how changes impact players or game.

spoken like a person who doesn't do UX/design work
also, while I dont really play or enjoy ESO anymore, most MMOs have massive balance and user experience problems. Wow has historically only ever won out because they have highly refined core gameplay loops that are grindy but also very well tuned skinnerboxes.

jcm2606 · August 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

Stupid idea. Better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO have shorter or no 'testing' periods. Everyone figured by now that testing environments are nearly useless to get anything but basic idea of how changes impact players or game.

You literally said it yourself, better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO. ESO is the epitome of stupid when it comes to balance, so don't you think they should spend more time to perfect changes on the PTS, rather than roll them out on live to maybe address them 3 months down the road?

jcm2606 · August 2019

SassiestAssassin wrote: »

Don’t think that sounds crazy at all.

Longer testing periods before updates is needed IMO. Maybe then you wouldn’t have the problem of adjusting tools before making sure it fits the content.

4 weeks is a joke, especially when they slip in big changes in the last patch notes. It makes the Live server feel like a scaled up experiment for a patch, rather than selling a thoroughly vetted product to customers.

Also, more dev commentary on the changes/a sense that they actually listen to the feedback given. If the changes are supposed to be a first step in a shiny new combat vision, give us an outline of what’s going on.

Anyways, they should doing Live bug fixes at least quarterly, bigger combat updates every 6 months maybe?

Quarterly isn't even as often as it should. Games with way more content to juggle are able to do weekly bug and balance patches, there's no reason why ESO isn't able to.

At the least, bug fixes need to be moved over to weekly maintenance periods. It actually makes genuinely no sense why they push bug fixes onto the PTS, forcing them to wait weeks for feedback, when they could push it to live and have instant feedback when they need it. The work is already done, it's just a matter of pushing it to live.

SassiestAssassin · August 2019

jcm2606 wrote: »

SassiestAssassin wrote: »

Don’t think that sounds crazy at all.

Longer testing periods before updates is needed IMO. Maybe then you wouldn’t have the problem of adjusting tools before making sure it fits the content.

4 weeks is a joke, especially when they slip in big changes in the last patch notes. It makes the Live server feel like a scaled up experiment for a patch, rather than selling a thoroughly vetted product to customers.

Also, more dev commentary on the changes/a sense that they actually listen to the feedback given. If the changes are supposed to be a first step in a shiny new combat vision, give us an outline of what’s going on.

Anyways, they should doing Live bug fixes at least quarterly, bigger combat updates every 6 months maybe?

Quarterly isn't even as often as it should. Games with way more content to juggle are able to do weekly bug and balance patches, there's no reason why ESO isn't able to.

At the least, bug fixes need to be moved over to weekly maintenance periods. It actually makes genuinely no sense why they push bug fixes onto the PTS, forcing them to wait weeks for feedback, when they could push it to live and have instant feedback when they need it. The work is already done, it's just a matter of pushing it to live.

Weekly bug fixes are absolutely ideal. We can only dream...

akray21 · August 2019

Testing needs to last longer and be more robust than it is currently. PvP PTS events would help, they could offer up crows/rewards for logging into the PTS and going into Cyrodiil.

Marginis · August 2019

While in theory I agree with this, part of the benefit of releasing the content and changing it rapidly as opposed to slowly, is that it allows better response times and better iterations. Some things become apparent in live very quickly, where it might be easily missed in the PTS as the PTS behaves differently from live. Here are some examples I think help illustrate this point:

-PTS is exclusively for PC, whereas live exists on console as well as PC.
-A lot more players are on live. Mechanics that involve guilds, markets, or more niche content are very likely to be overlooked on PTS.
-Only certain players use the PTS. These players are likely to be different in their views and how they play than live-only players.

This means that bugs or other flaws will be missed will be missed on PTS regardless of time. If we didn't get the rapid updates, we would be stuck with those flaws for a lot longer. The community may even adapt to those flaws, and when those flaws are fixed, the playerbase will be angry, as we see now with some of the changes to longstanding content.

I'm not saying there aren't inherent problems with the methods ZOS uses, but I would like to point out that I don't think sitting on updates for longer is the best solution in this case.

Muzzick · August 2019

Not a crazy idea but I'd also worry they could make things even worse, it could always be worse...

SodanTok · August 2019

jcm2606 wrote: »

SodanTok wrote: »

Stupid idea. Better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO have shorter or no 'testing' periods. Everyone figured by now that testing environments are nearly useless to get anything but basic idea of how changes impact players or game.

You literally said it yourself, better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO. ESO is the epitome of stupid when it comes to balance, so don't you think they should spend more time to perfect changes on the PTS, rather than roll them out on live to maybe address them 3 months down the road?

No? Waiting long as ESO does is exactly reason for the balance issues. PTS shows jack **** how things impact game and most of the time as PTS goes stuff is worse than week1 balance wise. Only the most obvious bugs and imbalances get caught here, rest is just mindless back and forth between people thinking one thing will be too bad or too OP on live and most of the time they are either wrong or ignored because ZoS (rightfully) wants live results before changing stuff anyway.

If this patch got rolled in 3 weeks ago on live we could have already had patch (if ZoS was actually doing patches on live not just everything on PTS) fixing the most notable issues.

Jeezye · August 2019

Actually having a PTS that is permanently running parallely to the live serves sounds great, IF player feedback was actually taken seriously.

There's a HUGE theorcrafting base of players on the forums that know every mechanic to the greatest detail and are ready to share thoughts and shape the game better than most devs probably can. If their voice was heard, a permanent PTS sounded great.

With the current functionality of forums, class reps and ingame reportin tools, nothing aint gonna change

Darsaga · August 2019

I agree something needs to be different but the answer is not a constant active PTS. There is no incentive they could make to get enough traffic on the servers to actually test everything. Live is the best test environment.

What needs to be done is ZOS actually listen to the (correct) players not class mains (there is almost always deep rooted biased by these people) or irrational people. Within the first launch of patch notes the glaring issues are usually called out and for the most part are correct. That is why we end up in a loop where a skill ends right back where it started. Get those items adjusted then release the PTS for 1-2 weeks, this should be ample time to address/find serious bugs. Then go live. Alot of the exploits are found on the PTS because of how much time we get with it. They do not get reported (because the people want to exploit the on live) then they get exploited for months on live while we wait for ZOS to wake up.

Now here is where this system does not work (because ZOS doesn't do weekly anything accept crown store). After the update has been placed live it should get weekly updates with SMALL changes to glaring problems/bugs and the quick fixes. Not wait another 3 months and fix everything at once with over corrections, because the next update is being pushed to PTS soon.

This really should not be an issue unless the same team is working live and the future update, and if that is the case, it is once again proof of poor logistics and resource management.

TheHsN · August 2019

He is right I don't wanna change the race and build and skils every 3 months
I spend a lot of gold and time and money to build a character than just can play with it 2 months ....with all lag and bugs...

I'm with him 100 percent

Rungar · August 2019

you have a new designer. You have to let him complete his work.

your not going to have a brand new guy come in and do nothing?

Aznarb · August 2019

SodanTok wrote: »

Stupid idea. Better games with better balance and bigger changes than ESO have shorter or no 'testing' periods. Everyone figured by now that testing environments are nearly useless to get anything but basic idea of how changes impact players or game.

100% agree. Their is not enough people on PTS to collect any serious data.
They need to put change in live at one point and see how it evolve and then adjust if needed.

Juhasow · August 2019

One of those ideas that sounds great on paper but sucks in reality.

Epicasballs · August 2019

Ultimately we'll have to be patient while they do gear and passives audit before they can step back to get the whole picture. They've already done skills and racials so it'll be another 6-9 months before we see this vision come to life. I guess we'll just have to be patient. I do think when all is said and done we end up with a better product than the one we now have. Hopefully anyways.

Barbaran · August 2019

or...OR... Again a crazy thought.....
Work on server performance... INSTEAD of new content for a patch or two.
Your playerbase is dwindling because people can't play with the gross lag, not because lack of content...

Mind.......blown

Jodynn · August 2019

Barbaran wrote: »

or...OR... Again a crazy thought.....
Work on server performance... INSTEAD of new content for a patch or two.
Your playerbase is dwindling because people can't play with the gross lag, not because lack of content...

Mind.......blown

Again, different teams, different skill sets; they are working on it while the combat team is working on their stuff, I know that might be difficult to understand if you don't have the perspective of how coding or structured teams work, but they don't have the knowledge or experience, or breadth to do so; therefore, complaining here, isn't going to help unless you have any substantial evidence you can supply as to what causes lag, and it should be posted on a different forum.

Epicasballs wrote: »

Given the amount of changes to the game, and the changes promised to come, I have an idea. Stop updating the live game. Continue to make changes on the pts until you've worked it all out. It would allow a much longer testing period. I think the majority of fans of ESO would understand. Be open about the changes, the direction you want to go and listen to feedback. Communicate with your playerbase and keep them updated on the process. Making huge sweeping changes every 3 months with a 4 week test period, especially when things change within those 4 weeks, only results in uproar and things being neglected until the next cycle. Release new content but until you've done the full audit, and the community has a grip on the new vision for this game, then implement those changes. Not one piece at time over a long period. Do it all at once.

This has been done my other MMOs. Servers went offline for months in other MMOs while massive changes were made. Here you can keep the live servers up while updating the pts and continue to receive feedback on those changes. I do think this dev team is on the right track but the implementation of these changes within the current pts cycles is the wrong way to do it.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

No, terrible idea.

Progression comes with changes, changes might be ill receieved by some and happily received by others.

I would prefer a rolling release for live, as in, each update would be in Live.

You would have infinitely more feedback, however I understand why some would hate this and so PTS is their solution, so instead of instant, it has weeks of testing.

You can't spread the testing out further because that would make the game stagnant or changes too large all at once to those on live.

What would be better if they had a grasp of what their game is and if they actually played it; if they do play it how do some of the changes get justified?

Also, I know there are class representatives but I don't know them nor do I know that they will represent me as I need, there needs to be more voice than just forums that each and every patch I seem to be ignored; if there was a robust voting system that would focus on actual changes and actual feedback and PROOF they are responding, caring, and listening to their community, I think that would have a much more successful PTS we could all agree on.

Epicasballs · September 2019

Amidst another round of sweeping changes I feel this idea is more relevant now than it was in U23.

Nordic__Knights · September 2019

Add longer testing and get console players a way to join in im on ps4 and i know a lot that would help test if given an way other then getting an pc and starting all over as like myself their all 1300 or about cp players that know the game too but yes spending more time on testing each change while giving feedback would be great and if testing was on all platforms not only would it add #s for testing bigger group play things it give everyone somewhere to go to see that pain points are being looked at already and be happy knowing an fix once settled upon will be an 1 time fix not 3 parts with no change

Cadbury · September 2019

The only way I could see this working is if ZOS pulled something similar to the shutdown and reboot of Final Fantasy 14 into A Realm Reborn. But in this day and age, I doubt any MMO development would do this.

MCBIZZLE300 · September 2019

Epicasballs wrote: »

Given the amount of changes to the game, and the changes promised to come, I have an idea. Stop updating the live game. Continue to make changes on the pts until you've worked it all out. It would allow a much longer testing period. I think the majority of fans of ESO would understand. Be open about the changes, the direction you want to go and listen to feedback. Communicate with your playerbase and keep them updated on the process. Making huge sweeping changes every 3 months with a 4 week test period, especially when things change within those 4 weeks, only results in uproar and things being neglected until the next cycle. Release new content but until you've done the full audit, and the community has a grip on the new vision for this game, then implement those changes. Not one piece at time over a long period. Do it all at once.

This has been done my other MMOs. Servers went offline for months in other MMOs while massive changes were made. Here you can keep the live servers up while updating the pts and continue to receive feedback on those changes. I do think this dev team is on the right track but the implementation of these changes within the current pts cycles is the wrong way to do it.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

They should just put it all back to the elswyer patch in my opinion. That was as close to balanced as ive seen for PVP, PVE damage was high but who cares. Most people cant even complete end game PVE content with high damage.

starkerealm · September 2019

It's not a terrible idea with some minor tweaks. But, there is a problem.

Content does need to come out on schedule. You really can't walk away from that for an extended period. We, as forum goers, can understand the reasons, but the average player, a content freeze looks like the game is dying. So, stuff needs to come out.

So, the idea balance work could be handled outside of that, isn't completely crazy. So, the game gets balance passes on the PTS, and none of that makes it into the live build.

The problem is, that's separate project fork. It's a pain in the ass to try to reunify forks under the best of circumstances. And when one of those forks has been tinkered with, frequently, without regard to the other branch... it's a nightmare. Especially if the internal documentation is even a little incomplete.

If you were setting up the project to begin, you might be able to set up the combat systems as a separate database, and then have ability to swap out that database, between different variants. Potentially on the fly. I have no idea if ESO is set up for that, and I kinda doubt it. Downside to this approach is that your options in creating new abilities that the original team didn't think of, will be extremely limited, without having to rework the entire database and the API.

It's a cool idea, and probably one that someone should remember for later, but probably not something that ESO can do.

LuxLunae · September 2019

Epicasballs wrote: »

Given the amount of changes to the game, and the changes promised to come, I have an idea. Stop updating the live game. Continue to make changes on the pts until you've worked it all out. It would allow a much longer testing period. I think the majority of fans of ESO would understand. Be open about the changes, the direction you want to go and listen to feedback. Communicate with your playerbase and keep them updated on the process. Making huge sweeping changes every 3 months with a 4 week test period, especially when things change within those 4 weeks, only results in uproar and things being neglected until the next cycle. Release new content but until you've done the full audit, and the community has a grip on the new vision for this game, then implement those changes. Not one piece at time over a long period. Do it all at once.

This has been done my other MMOs. Servers went offline for months in other MMOs while massive changes were made. Here you can keep the live servers up while updating the pts and continue to receive feedback on those changes. I do think this dev team is on the right track but the implementation of these changes within the current pts cycles is the wrong way to do it.

@ZOS_BrianWheeler

ROFL I said this a long time ago.. in fact I wanted them to make an incentive for playing the pts

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/485979/i-really-love-the-playerbase

Just for laughs you gotta read this one

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/484032/i-accept-the-patch-changes-because

Note the dates...

starkerealm · September 2019

LuxLunae wrote: »

in fact I wanted them to make an incentive for playing the pts

I've seen games before offer minor goodies for playing on the PTS during a testing cycle. Cosmetic pets are the ones that immediately come to mind.

chetter_hummin · September 2019

Devs cant make their plans by comunnicating with player base just because this is impossible. How exactly u want that is beyond SF. And please dont say the forum comunnity is the player base, because it s not. It s only a very vocal minority. There are so many players that dont have forum accounts and those who have and just dont post. I really think ESO has more than 20/30 players that open thread posts and whine everytime a PTS patch comes out.

The player base is much larger than the forum whiners and it s kinda obvious that they are, in their huge majority, not whiners. Otherwise they would have a forum account.

U dont even care about comunity anyway, because there are some peeps that enjoy a harder game, especially pve, where a lot of vet content is a joke. U care about your only demands against nerfing. And u have the vanity to make Devs listen to u.

zsban · September 2019

starkerealm wrote: »

It's not a terrible idea with some minor tweaks. But, there is a problem.

Content does need to come out on schedule. You really can't walk away from that for an extended period. We, as forum goers, can understand the reasons, but the average player, a content freeze looks like the game is dying. So, stuff needs to come out.

So, the idea balance work could be handled outside of that, isn't completely crazy. So, the game gets balance passes on the PTS, and none of that makes it into the live build.

The problem is, that's separate project fork. It's a pain in the ass to try to reunify forks under the best of circumstances. And when one of those forks has been tinkered with, frequently, without regard to the other branch... it's a nightmare. Especially if the internal documentation is even a little incomplete.

If you were setting up the project to begin, you might be able to set up the combat systems as a separate database, and then have ability to swap out that database, between different variants. Potentially on the fly. I have no idea if ESO is set up for that, and I kinda doubt it. Downside to this approach is that your options in creating new abilities that the original team didn't think of, will be extremely limited, without having to rework the entire database and the API.

It's a cool idea, and probably one that someone should remember for later, but probably not something that ESO can do.

I worked as a software developer and later as a software architect both in the game development industry and in the financial sector. Based on my experience you are absolutely right - game development is much less organized and controlled than a mission critical financial system. Don't think they have the neccessary controls, processes and resources to pull off something like that. (As I understand they are a much smaller team than the usual AAA software house, so that does not help either.)

Epicasballs · September 2019

ZoS is basically making ESO 2.0 with this new team. The game is back in alpha or beta. We still have more class skill changes. Passive changes. Gear changes. Then the mother load of changes.... CP.

If ZoS sticks to dragging this process out over several patches it'll be this time next year before we stop seeing huge swings in the live game every 3 months. I don't think anyone wants that.

I'm not saying this the is best idea but by end of this audit only the most masochistic of us will still be around after months upon months of violent swings to the left and right. I just think there has to be some better way to go about this process. Any other way.

All these nerfs/buffs are going to have to be reviewed during the CP overhaul anyways. How they didn't start this audit with a rework of CP blows my mind. This roller coaster ride were on might all be for nothing once they finally get to down to the CP rework.

zsban · September 2019

Epicasballs wrote: »

All these nerfs/buffs are going to have to be reviewed during the CP overhaul anyways. How they didn't start this audit with a rework of CP blows my mind. This roller coaster ride were on might all be for nothing once they finally get to down to the CP rework.

Completely agree. Someone in this thread https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/494932/effect-of-cp-s-on-dot-balancing made a calculation of the impact of CP on the damage separately for direct damage and dot damage.

If they would have just got rid of CP (ususal ZOS hammer approach) it would have made a 20% drop in damage on average, without upsetting the balance between direct damage and dots.

Instead they drastically shift the balance between single target and dot damage in this patch and upcoming patch... And completely out of the blue they also threw in some cost increases to also stirr up the sustain landscape.

Like dropping a bomb and seeing what sticks.