Does ZOS even care?

Marigold1 · October 2019

Niaver wrote: »

If you truly are a casual player, you shoudn't care about balance changes at all. Bugs, performance and communication is the other matter.

Why should I not care? those so-called BALANCE changes affect PvE/PvP if they suddenly remove part of the skill functionality than why should I not care?
As for the communication issue that is obvious, that is something which will not change on our own.
I do believe if they share their vision for the game (if they have some) with rest of community that they will be spared of most of negative feedback which is result of not communicating with us.

vamp_emily · October 2019

I do think the developers are proud of the game they built and would love to make us all happy. However, I have to roll my eyes at the "ESO is going to focus on performance" sometime in the near future.

I don't think casual players would have a hard time with these constant changes. Most my characters have been wearing the same gear for 3+ years. I don't play the hard content but most things I do i don't have any issues.

Shantu · October 2019

I'm sure the devs at ZOS care about something, but whether that includes how people truly enjoy playing the game, is doubtful. They seem more fixated on their own ideas and the needs of a very small percentage of the player base. The rest of us are just along for the bumpy ride.

Veinblood1965 · October 2019

They care about me. But I'm special.

Girl_Number8 · October 2019

They don't listen to feedback on the PTS and people wonder if they care.

Dusk_Coven · October 2019

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

They don't listen to feedback on the PTS and people wonder if they care.

Pretty much all the feedback on PTS is "do this / don't do that / you are stupid" with no real data provided to back up any reasons, if reasons are even given at all.
I don't think it's disrespectful for ZOS to ignore that. Otherwise they'd spend all their time cutting and pasting canned responses explaining that reasonable reasons and useful data are required for what otherwise is very likely a selfish "do this because I would secretly benefit" post.
Considering that PTS tends to be flooded with this sort of post, I think ZOS has a good balance of respectfully not engaging the mob and escalating the situation.

Sure people are frustrated, but being disrespectful doesn't help even if you think the other party is doing the same. And we have a double standard here -- the forum posters can shout at ZOS and say it's okay to disrespect them. But if ZOS ever shouted back at us, there'd be a meltdown.

Vahrokh · October 2019

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

They don't listen to feedback on the PTS and people wonder if they care.

Pretty much all the feedback on PTS is "do this / don't do that / you are stupid" with no real data provided to back up any reasons, if reasons are even given at all.
I don't think it's disrespectful for ZOS to ignore that. Otherwise they'd spend all their time cutting and pasting canned responses explaining that reasonable reasons and useful data are required for what otherwise is very likely a selfish "do this because I would secretly benefit" post.
Considering that PTS tends to be flooded with this sort of post, I think ZOS has a good balance of respectfully not engaging the mob and escalating the situation.

Sure people are frustrated, but being disrespectful doesn't help even if you think the other party is doing the same. And we have a double standard here -- the forum posters can shout at ZOS and say it's okay to disrespect them. But if ZOS ever shouted back at us, there'd be a meltdown.

We had an extremely detailed PTS post with tons of parses and numbers proving that the nerf to Liquid Lightning / Flood was unwarranted and badly calculated and even more numbers showing how all the other abilities used different and good numbers.

Guess what? Not a reply and the thread got totally ignored.

srfrogg23 · October 2019

Marigold1 wrote: »

Hello everybody,
I am just a causal player. From my humble perspective the rules in this game are changing so fast that time to adapt for causal player are low. I play this game to have some fun, but I had to say ZOS manages to take it from me which could be OK for title in category F2P… sadly this game is B2P so for my money it would be really great to at least have decent fun in all areas which this game is offering.
Right now, I feel little bit disappointed a it seams ZOS is not caring about the OLD contend in this game instead they are pushing new contend and not caring about existing problems.

Here are some examples:
- combat rules are ever changing especially regarding to skills
- unstable servers (performance wise)
- BUGS which has not been fixed for very long time
- ZOS representatives are not responding on the forums.
- ZOS is ignoring feedback from PTS (at least that is my feeling I get from forum)

I am fond of new content to have fun with but right now I would more appreciate to focus more on stability both of the SW and HW and improve communication with comunity.

It would help if the player base was a monolithic entity that agreed on a desired course of action.

Alas, we are not. We all have different opinions and different requests and criticisms. Can't really blame them for not listening to feedback when the feedback is all over the place.

For example, the combat rules have not changed, only tweaked. I do not have performance issues.

alanmatillab16_ESO · October 2019

SoLooney wrote: »

Maybe if they listened to what the community votes for and wants, they would have a more successful game. You should make the game for your customers, not just mindless doing a bunch of nonsense

It is listening to the "community" in particular the whining pvpers that has led us down the path of constant nerfs. Making the game for their customers is a BAD idea, you end up with homogenised classes, abilities, weapons etc.

DaNnYtHePcFrEaK · October 2019

daedalusAI wrote: »

ZOS_GregoryV wrote: »

Greetings all,

After removing a handful of posts for bashing, we would like to remind everyone that all posts are to be kept civil and constructive, as well as within the guidelines of the rules that we have in place. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding,
-Greg-

You can see the amount that they "care" by the appearance of their cleaner service like this employee in threads which gain momentum or touch on critical subjective: all they care for is creating a touted "enjoyable" environment by purging every post/thread they deem unacceptable for whatever reason without even bothering to engage with their customers.

That alone should tell you everything about ZOS.

What they should do is give them a reference number, speak to them properly and privately and take their concerns seriously and pass it to the team, if enough of the same complaints come through it should get dealt with...

Rave the Histborn · October 2019

Stebarnz wrote: »

chrightt wrote: »

People think that the inability to produce positive results means that ZOS doesn’t care. Of course they care. They literally live off of making games and making more people to play and pay for their products. You think they don’t care when their livelihood depends on it? Caring doesn’t equate to producing good results nor does producing bad results equate to not caring. Sometimes people are just not very competent.

Have you ever tried to study for a test on a subject you liked? I wouldn’t say you didn’t care about the subject just because you didn’t score the highest in your class or even above average. Better yet, have you failed at a project at work or did a poor job on something? Do you care? You probably should if you want your salary right? Well if you don’t then I’m guessing you’ve answered your own question at why your pay is so low compared to everyone else if you’ve ever asked yourself that question.

Its just a job to ZOS, something they do to earn money.

Priority 1, make money.
Other priorities.
Priority 234345, make the game better for the good of the game even though it may not generate revenue.

They 'care' about the wrong thing, but flip side, if there was no money then there would be no game!! Ouch my head!

Also

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

They don't listen to feedback on the PTS and people wonder if they care.

If they listened to all the feedback we would have an MMO with no farming, no classes, no races, all the dlc would drop at once with no bugs, and nd every gear set would be completely new and original while at the same time would be completely balanced and fit for all content possible.oh and trials and pvp

There's a reason they only use some of the feedback and not all of it.

daedalusAI · October 2019

FierceSam wrote: »

daedalusAI wrote: »

nordmarian wrote: »

I ll be short, combat changes, even drastically ones are often required to change the balance in one direction or another and not let certain classes or skills to become too OP.
In PvE often I noticed end game raid teams to only promote a certain class to be able to join their teams.
In PvP often some classes get too OP and countering that balance has a good side effect.

If also increase performance by changing some skills so drastically it is even better. For example the Orb Synergy changes. It indeed increased performance by a good margin. Why? Because instead of having 1000 orbs on the screen, you only have one!

They clearly "balanced" the DoT scaling from U23, in which they ignored every PTR voice telling them otherwise, just to do a 180° for the most part in reverting those chance + slapping increased resource costs on top - and now they ignored the U24 PTR feedback just to do a 180° most likely yet again with U25.

That's the opposite of balancing and caring.

I disagree. I think they scaled the DoTs, saw the PTS feedback and the in-game feedback and effect and adapted to it in the swiftest manageable time - the next patch.

So in this PTS cycle you could argue that they did listen to players, only they were listening to older messages. They also tested out a variety of pre-arranged changes to see which ones worked best and player feedback might have had an immediate impact there. Player feedback in PTS week 5 won’t have been seriously reviewed until after the patch was launched (ie probably some time next week). I would imagine that 99% of all the changes that went live were exactly the ones planned by ZOS well before PTS started.

I suspect a similar adjustment will happen with the new changes after ZOS have had an opportunity to digest all the PTS feedback and observe the effects the changes have in the wild. And remember, what players who participate and provide feedback want may not be what’s best for the game overall.

It’s irrational and ill-informed to expect ZOS to make changes immediately in response to any feedback. You see this as unbalanced and uncaring, I see balance and caring but over a longer, less immediately reactive timescale.

That makes no sense at all:

PTS can't have the singular scope of just being a stress test as it runs for several weeks
PTS is there to get bug reports/feedback/suggestions etc - but with ZOS it's clear they don't care about anything other than a stress test, and they maybe fix issues with the next major patch - 1 patch later to what the feedback was all about and also letting their customers run on a build they didn't fix based on the feedback provided

Stebarnz · October 2019

Rave the Histborn wrote: »

Stebarnz wrote: »

chrightt wrote: »

People think that the inability to produce positive results means that ZOS doesn’t care. Of course they care. They literally live off of making games and making more people to play and pay for their products. You think they don’t care when their livelihood depends on it? Caring doesn’t equate to producing good results nor does producing bad results equate to not caring. Sometimes people are just not very competent.

Have you ever tried to study for a test on a subject you liked? I wouldn’t say you didn’t care about the subject just because you didn’t score the highest in your class or even above average. Better yet, have you failed at a project at work or did a poor job on something? Do you care? You probably should if you want your salary right? Well if you don’t then I’m guessing you’ve answered your own question at why your pay is so low compared to everyone else if you’ve ever asked yourself that question.

Its just a job to ZOS, something they do to earn money.

Priority 1, make money.
Other priorities.
Priority 234345, make the game better for the good of the game even though it may not generate revenue.

They 'care' about the wrong thing, but flip side, if there was no money then there would be no game!! Ouch my head!

Also

Girl_Number8 wrote: »

They don't listen to feedback on the PTS and people wonder if they care.

If they listened to all the feedback we would have an MMO with no farming, no classes, no races, all the dlc would drop at once with no bugs, and nd every gear set would be completely new and original while at the same time would be completely balanced and fit for all content possible.oh and trials and pvp

There's a reason they only use some of the feedback and not all of it.

Ye the feedback they were given about the pts bugs and important things about gameplay they put live they didn't listen to however they sure listened to those crown store suggestions! Good post!?!

You took a weird line of white knighting here and exposed yourself.

ZOS_Ragnar · October 2019

We have closed this thread as the discussion here has not been productive. Instead, this thread has been used to bash the developers and moderators. We can understand you want to share your feedback on the game but we ask that you do so in a constructive manner. When submitting feedback, consider whether or not what you’re posting will be something the Dev Team can use to turn into real change.