What we want from the new developer team

Ivan04 · August 2019

I decided to create this thread in irder to convey an idea that not a great lot of people seem to share - at this point, I feel like we really lack more developer communication. I personally feel like after Wrobel's departure the new team became a bit more closed up and secretive, perhaps shy, unwilling to publicly speak to the community. The last QnA that was posted felt like I was trying to speak to an anonymous poster on the wall. General anonimity of the text and it's tone created a slight feeling of threat, as if whoever wrote it felt threatened himself, so he couldn't possibly allow himself to speak openly to the public, from his own name etc.
I feel like it's in part a result of generally increased toxicity in the community (as if it became a trend of some sort). I know for a fact this kind of a trend can be brought down a notch by the developer team being more public about the thought process in regards to the combat balance etc. Like, I personally just want to speak to someone, have that personal connection to the developer team that we used to have with Wrobel - we loved to hate some balancing decisions, but it was still friendly and heartfelt.

I believe that the class rep program is simply outdated at this point, especially since there's so few pvp players in it right now.
What we do actually need is a developer representative program.

Share your thoughts about the general tone the new developer team had created, and how we can make our relationship better, and whether we do actually need it or not in your opinion.

Katahdin · August 2019

I keep hearing in my trial groups how much everyone hates the new rotations.

I've seen at least 3 trial groups go on hiatus because it's just not fun

Jodynn · August 2019

I made a post similar to this, I agree they need to communicate

Delparis · September 2019

Just a letter from the producer like in ff14

Aurie · September 2019

Delparis wrote: »

Just a letter from the producer like in ff14

Or simply direct communication on the forums like Darkfall: New Dawn.

May not be the same now, I haven't looked....but back in the day I played it when it was in beta, and the devs (not the community reps or managers) themselves consulted the playerbase about their feedback, and answered most questions that came up. They took leading parts in forum discussions, wanted to know how we felt about things, and always gave their reasons for doing things.

They were enthusiastic and proud of how the game was coming along, and that infected the playerbase with the same positive motivation.

Compare this to @ZOS communication skills, and maybe one can see why the forums here have gradually become more frustrated and toxic.

Vapirko · September 2019

Look at the writing on the wall. Quarterly combat updates fail, class rep program fail, combat QAs fail, new combat team that was going to breath new life into the game fail. Either the devs are some of the most dysfunctional of any game that I’ve ever played or there’s something else going on that’s out of their control. But that doesn’t really matter because the out come is the same for us.

SirLeeMinion · September 2019

TBH, I think they have communicated their vision pretty well, or at least better than in the past. They want classes that play the same except for cosmetic differences, skills that feel the same and damage the same with different animations, nothing that will absolutely murder new players in under 50 BGs (well... they haven't said that last bit). Where they are lacking imho is in actually caring about what players want. They are looking at metrics of who plays what & how often, how often do groups fail at which content and where, what sells crown items, etc... In the end, they will follow those metrics until it visibly hurts the bottom line, and my, or any player's, opinion on it as an individual matters not at all. It's only in the aggregate and only as expressed by in-game choices of classes and skills and content that our opinion matters. Not saying I like it, just saying what I've observed.

Vapirko · September 2019

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

TBH, I think they have communicated their vision pretty well, or at least better than in the past. They want classes that play the same except for cosmetic differences, skills that feel the same and damage the same with different animations, nothing that will absolutely murder new players in under 50 BGs (well... they haven't said that last bit). Where they are lacking imho is in actually caring about what players want. They are looking at metrics of who plays what & how often, how often do groups fail at which content and where, what sells crown items, etc... In the end, they will follow those metrics until it visibly hurts the bottom line, and my, or any player's, opinion on it as an individual matters not at all. It's only in the aggregate and only as expressed by in-game choices of classes and skills and content that our opinion matters. Not saying I like it, just saying what I've observed.

Which is funny because the two problem skills this patch - Entropy and soul trap - are now purchasable in the crown store and can be used in under 50BGs from the start. Subsequently I think what sells crowns is the only metric they’re really looking at. It’s the only excuse for these bone headed changes and terrible performance in PvP. They cannot possibly be that stupid.

Gilvoth · September 2019

thread title is misleading because these are your wishes, not the community.
you speak for a "few", you and your friends. not "We"
many of us Love the new changes and love the new rotations.

Razorback174 · September 2019

Vapirko wrote: »

Look at the writing on the wall. Quarterly combat updates fail, class rep program fail, combat QAs fail, new combat team that was going to breath new life into the game fail. Either the devs are some of the most dysfunctional of any game that I’ve ever played or there’s something else going on that’s out of their control. But that doesn’t really matter because the out come is the same for us.

At least we got those performance fixes!

Oh, wait... never mind.

jcm2606 · September 2019

On the contrary, I think they're doing a decent job at communication in itself (much better , they're just being as vague as possible about everything. We keep hearing about some balancing standard that governs all the changes we're seeing, but we don't know what that standard is, and so how it impacts the current state of balance. It's a similar story regarding performance, group PvE content, PvP content, and so much more. They are talking about it, but they're being as vague as possible about it all.

Oakmontowls_ESO · September 2019

So by developer representative program you mean have community managers like we already do.

Vapirko · September 2019

jcm2606 wrote: »

On the contrary, I think they're doing a decent job at communication in itself (much better , they're just being as vague as possible about everything. We keep hearing about some balancing standard that governs all the changes we're seeing, but we don't know what that standard is, and so how it impacts the current state of balance. It's a similar story regarding performance, group PvE content, PvP content, and so much more. They are talking about it, but they're being as vague as possible about it all.

Bro, that standard is what’s going to make them the most money.

Morgul667 · September 2019

We simply want common sense and performance fix

JusticeSouldier · September 2019

Ivan04 wrote: »

I decided to create this thread in irder to convey an idea that not a great lot of people seem to share - at this point, I feel like we really lack more developer communication. I personally feel like after Wrobel's departure the new team became a bit more closed up and secretive, perhaps shy, unwilling to publicly speak to the community. The last QnA that was posted felt like I was trying to speak to an anonymous poster on the wall. General anonimity of the text and it's tone created a slight feeling of threat, as if whoever wrote it felt threatened himself, so he couldn't possibly allow himself to speak openly to the public, from his own name etc.
I feel like it's in part a result of generally increased toxicity in the community (as if it became a trend of some sort). I know for a fact this kind of a trend can be brought down a notch by the developer team being more public about the thought process in regards to the combat balance etc. Like, I personally just want to speak to someone, have that personal connection to the developer team that we used to have with Wrobel - we loved to hate some balancing decisions, but it was still friendly and heartfelt.

I believe that the class rep program is simply outdated at this point, especially since there's so few pvp players in it right now.
What we do actually need is a developer representative program.

Share your thoughts about the general tone the new developer team had created, and how we can make our relationship better, and whether we do actually need it or not in your opinion.

Wrong idea is to mean idea of forcing people who actually do things to also communicate with people.
it's different people, and communication managers are the thing allowing devs to design and programming things.
Great luck to have some programmers or designers who also are good and enjoy it at coomunication and able to do both things at the same time.

But, I agree that class rep system isn't enouch effective as we see with elsweyr both patches.
Same as another ways of feedback are not anouch effective.
And , I understand why.

There are no simple ways to qualify feedbacks value.
From the dev side to do this u should:

be extremply competent in game system
be able to initiate core changes in a Zenimax team system of working with feedbacks (only Wheeler i guess can do this now and i guess he don't do this).
understand background, deepness and another aspects of the feedback's source (player, group of people)
be able to accept interesting suggestions out of it's forms and to optimize them for others.
(written in all game supported languages...)
be able to stuggle with moneymaking part of team to defend game itself
and to give answers which Gina and Jessica can say or write as a public persons
+ many another things

I see problem in Zenimax/Bethesda team system.
Big mistake to make a very big pack of changes with a big patches, so rarely.
New content and game balance changes should be much more separated.
With a priority on game balance/improvement/fixes and "small step's" politics for it.

New content is a cool core like ideology thing, but should not broke everything done before as with this disquisting Scalebreaker patch.
It was too big jump (with a wish to improve the game sure) but having not enouch information on what it can cause after implementaton, so choosing wrong direction and to not be ready to fix biggest problems fast.

Rungar · September 2019

it already exists. you just dont like it for whatever reason.

Every set of patch notes has numerous reasonings as to why they did something. Not agreeing with it is your real issue.

Do you want these people to read you a story before you go to bed?

the less "representatives" the better imo.

Vlad9425 · September 2019

I want them to Fix the lag and bugs which are ruining the game right now. Everything else can come after.

Wayshuba · September 2019

Vapirko wrote: »

SirLeeMinion wrote: »

TBH, I think they have communicated their vision pretty well, or at least better than in the past. They want classes that play the same except for cosmetic differences, skills that feel the same and damage the same with different animations, nothing that will absolutely murder new players in under 50 BGs (well... they haven't said that last bit). Where they are lacking imho is in actually caring about what players want. They are looking at metrics of who plays what & how often, how often do groups fail at which content and where, what sells crown items, etc... In the end, they will follow those metrics until it visibly hurts the bottom line, and my, or any player's, opinion on it as an individual matters not at all. It's only in the aggregate and only as expressed by in-game choices of classes and skills and content that our opinion matters. Not saying I like it, just saying what I've observed.

Which is funny because the two problem skills this patch - Entropy and soul trap - are now purchasable in the crown store and can be used in under 50BGs from the start. Subsequently I think what sells crowns is the only metric they’re really looking at. It’s the only excuse for these bone headed changes and terrible performance in PvP. They cannot possibly be that stupid.

I have no idea why anyone would purchase them unless they don't know the game, which is unlikely since you have to have one character that maxed them out first to have them available from the Crown Store. I also don't see an issue with these being on a level 10 character since this can be done easily without purchasing them.

Soul Trap is available just by doing the story starting quest and is awarded upon completion. Since that takes like 10-15 minutes not too bad.

To get Entropy requires you to get to level 4 in Mages Guild. That takes collecting lorebooks in 1 and a quarter zones. I can run Glenumbra and a quarter of Stormhaven zones for lorebooks in about an hour.

If you do the above after creating a new toon and maybe having just done your guild line and crafting certifications you will be about level 8. Completing the above to get Soul Trap and Entropy will bring you to about Level 10, which is the starting level to get into BGs anyway.

So, I don't see that this is an issue at all. Players can have those two skills with or without purchasing them before the toon is eligible for BGs anyway.

Now, the fact that every single person in BGs is running them regardless of class or build is another story....

reprosal · September 2019

Katahdin wrote: »

I keep hearing in my trial groups how much everyone hates the new rotations.

I've seen at least 3 trial groups go on hiatus because it's just not fun

Here’s a newsflash. Old rotation isn’t even that much difference in DPS.