Next Class Representative Update?

TheRealCherokeee3 · March 2020

Major_Lag wrote: »

I don't get this. Why does the class rep program even exist in the first place?
All feedback is summarily ignored by ZOS in any case.

With all due respect to the class reps, this reeks of being purely a PR puppet show.
Why else would ZOS set up so-called "class reps", only to ignore anything and everything they say?
I have no doubt that you guys act in the best interests of the collective playerbase, but that doesn't actually accomplish any good when your input/feedback is completely ignored.

Many parallels to real-world politics and governments come to mind here - but that is one can of worms which is best left unopened.

I wouldn't be surprised...if much later down the road it turns out ZOS originally implemented this program fully expecting it to be a "pat on the back" and "support" system for them. I bet they expected praise and "cosmetic" surface changes and suggestions. Once reps ACTUALLY started providing critical feedback and useful changes, they froze in shock, and then simply carried on the farce to save face, and quietly intended to carry on their vision they planned, and it faded out since then.

BalticBlues · March 2020

Major_Lag wrote: »

Why does the class rep program even exist in the first place?
All feedback is summarily ignored by ZOS in any case.

Perhaps the "class rep program" is just a strategy
to keep away the most influential players
from criticizing the current mess of the game openly on the forums...

We have come so far that players are afraid of ESO patches.
The latest "permormance patch" finally ruined performance so much that PVP is unplayable.
ZOS IS KILLING THE GAME WE LOVE.

ESO_Nightingale · March 2020

Glory wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

they're still active. Glorious, Nefas and Joy Division at least.

Waves real life is bogging me down personally but yes we are here and reading/providing feedback.

Everyone who is currently a class rep is active

I've not seen most of the other reps around for a while. You, Nefas and Joy are the most active from what I've seen personally. Oh and Gand is still around too. The last time i saw Masel was when he pmed me about the glacial buff getting in back at the start of Harrowstorm PTS. Other than that i don't think I've seen any other reps say anything for a long time, so it's good to hear that it's not just you guys who are active.

ESO_Nightingale · March 2020

This might be a little unrelated, but to clear things up for people who think that all of this is somehow the reps fault.

From my experience, the Class Rep program is a good idea. And the Reps who have been chosen are very eager to collect the community feedback to give to ZOS. I have been talking to the representatives for close to 2 years about bugs, pain points and suggestions for the Warden Class. They are not the problem.

It's got to be ZOS's issue, I've been talking to too many of the reps for too long. And i know that it is not their fault because they have expressed shock, annoyance and other emotions at the feedback being ignored. The reps do the best they can to tell ZOS community concerns to prevent the universally disliked changes from going through, to tell zos what the players who play classes actually need etc. But when we recive patch notes

I've been told by a former rep that in the past, a past combat dev had spent a patch doing basically whatever they wanted with limited reguard for feedback. This was a patch from more than a year ago where i remember a lot of us hated the patch notes. I'm trying to be vague here because I'm not sure on the contents of the NDAs that the reps are under.

Major_Lag · March 2020

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

This might be a little unrelated, but to clear things up for people who think that all of this is somehow the reps fault.

From my experience, the Class Rep program is a good idea. And the Reps who have been chosen are very eager to collect the community feedback to give to ZOS. I have been talking to the representatives for close to 2 years about bugs, pain points and suggestions for the Warden Class. They are not the problem.

It's got to be ZOS's issue, I've been talking to too many of the reps for too long. And i know that it is not their fault because they have expressed shock, annoyance and other emotions at the feedback being ignored.
(...)

Amen to that.
This is something that I feel really needs emphasizing: the class reps aren't - and never were - in any way responsible for the rather poor shape that ESO is now in.
The blame here lies squarely on ZOS, for disregarding the valuable constructive feedback from their own class rep program.

And just for the record, I also agree that having a class rep program is a good idea, at least in principle - which is to say, if the resulting feedback is actually taken into consideration and actively acted upon.
The reason is simple: feedback from the playerbase as a whole is generally of questionable quality, because it's plagued with various L2P issues and/or lack of gameplay experience. This is where the class reps (should) step in, effectively filtering out the worthless noise and only relaying to ZOS the most important, valid concerns.
Unfortunately, for a reason that is beyond me, ZOS then just ignores pretty much all of this valuable feedback. Meh.

relentless_turnip · March 2020

Is the class rep even still a thing?
@ZOS_GinaBruno posted this in July last year
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/486609/class-rep-program-update/p1

I don't see joy's name on there either?
Do we have a representative for PvP?

That would filter out a lot of the noise i.e. L2P issues, nerf requests etc...

I would like to see someone who is recognised for their PvP experience: @FENGRUSH or KristoferESO, @isth3reno1else someone who knows pvp and plays a lot of classes.

@Nefas and @Alcast are they only 2 reps I know of that list. So I don't know what experience is being brought to the table. So sorry if I offend anyone.

MJallday · March 2020

You’re all wrong

There are class reps and they were locked in a room and told they could come out when the champions point problem was sorted

Erelah · March 2020

Glory wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

they're still active. Glorious, Nefas and Joy Division at least.

Waves real life is bogging me down personally but yes we are here and reading/providing feedback.

Everyone who is currently a class rep is active

@Glory If I don't know you existed until now how are you or any of the other Class Representatives advocating for me, or others like me, our play style, how we interact with the game. While it is nice that you are providing feedback with a busy real life, that feedback would seem more so based on how you play the game (and perhaps those you speak with) rather than the general community at large. While you say everyone is active when the community that you are supposed to be repsenting as the stop gap says you are not. Then you are not.

Kel · March 2020

MJallday wrote: »

You’re all wrong

There are class reps and they were locked in a room and told they could come out when the champions point problem was sorted

I'd believe that...but if that was true, CP WOULD be sorted by now
😁

Glory · March 2020

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

Since you replied to this thread @Glory , do you have any idea if we are gonna see Meeting notes again?

I can ask about this, it's generally harder to release information due to NDA but I will ask.

Erelah wrote: »

Glory wrote: »

ESO_Nightingale wrote: »

they're still active. Glorious, Nefas and Joy Division at least.

Waves real life is bogging me down personally but yes we are here and reading/providing feedback.

Everyone who is currently a class rep is active

@Glory If I don't know you existed until now how are you or any of the other Class Representatives advocating for me, or others like me, our play style, how we interact with the game. While it is nice that you are providing feedback with a busy real life, that feedback would seem more so based on how you play the game (and perhaps those you speak with) rather than the general community at large. While you say everyone is active when the community that you are supposed to be repsenting as the stop gap says you are not. Then you are not.

I strongly encourage that if you feel you have feedback that you do not feel like it being represented as part of the community, that you reach out to a class rep with your feedback. You are definitely making a valid argument that the community of ESO is huge, and it is very hard to represent everyone's feedback. However, we pass along feedback from varying parts of the game, be it PvP, PvE, hardcore/casual, RP, housing, questing, etc.

@ESO_Nightingale and others who have DM'ed me (or on Discord, @Glorious#3987) will hopefully attest to how I do my best responding to their concerns and feedback as quickly as possible.

Nefas · March 2020

There's a lot of speculation both here and elsewhere about the Class Reps which is understandable but we've done and are still doing our best/quite a lot.

Kel · March 2020

Nefas wrote: »

There's a lot of speculation both here and elsewhere about the Class Reps which is understandable but we've done and are still doing our best/quite a lot.

Don't think anyone's questioning the reps themselves, more on how seriously Zos takes your advice and knowledge of the game.
Most people have said the program was a good idea. How effective is it though, if your feedback and input isn't taken into consideration?

That's the issue. Not the reps themselves.

Gnortranermara · March 2020

I doubt we'll ever see much more from the Class Reps. All the program has really accomplished is embarrassing the company by publicly revealing major shortfalls in certain high-level staff. It showed that a bunch of unpaid amateurs are objectively more competent than certain people who got over-promoted beyond the level of their abilities. Based on feedback from some former reps, those devs are embarrassingly oblivious to their own shortcomings, and they won't listen. For some inexplicable reason, they actually think they've been doing a good job! It's a perfect case study in the Dunning-Kruger effect and the Peter Principle.

idk · March 2020

Glory wrote: »

Sanguinor2 wrote: »

Since you replied to this thread @Glory , do you have any idea if we are gonna see Meeting notes again?

I can ask about this, it's generally harder to release information due to NDA but I will ask.

Yes, while we understand there is an NDA. However, with knowledge of the NDAs Gina clearly stated we would see meeting notes soon and I have not seen them once since that day. Granted, I might have missed them.

idk · March 2020

Nefas wrote: »

There's a lot of speculation both here and elsewhere about the Class Reps which is understandable but we've done and are still doing our best/quite a lot.

Yes, very understandable as last time there was a lengthy silence from this group once of the class reps stated they thought the program was dead. Just look at the link I provided in the OP, the first reply is a Masel stating that.

Nefas · March 2020

idk wrote: »

Yes, very understandable as last time there was a lengthy silence from this group once of the class reps stated they thought the program was dead. Just look at the link I provided in the OP, the first reply is a Masel stating that.

Masel was obviously being sarcastic.

Kel wrote: »

Don't think anyone's questioning the reps themselves, more on how seriously Zos takes your advice and knowledge of the game.

Most people have said the program was a good idea. How effective is it though, if your feedback and input isn't taken into consideration?

I was also referring to the devs as well, they're trying their best just as we are. The only people who actually know what's going on between us and ZOS is literally ZOS and us due to the NDA so a lot of what I see is people wildly assuming the worst and that the program is of no benefit to either players or the devs or that "they're not listening".

In regards to meeting notes, we've had a couple ones in both video and text format released and we always remain heavily in contact with the devs:

https://www.nefasqs.com/9-25-pts-feedback

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSFLHgqIHe0

I'd like to emphasize that the primary purpose of the Class Rep Program is for us to make sure the concerns of the players are being relayed and discussed directly with the devs and as such the other reps and I are in constant contact with a variety of player communities including through the feedback threads on the official forums and other areas.

Major_Lag · March 2020

Nefas wrote: »

The only people who actually know what's going on between us and ZOS is literally ZOS and us due to the NDA so a lot of what I see is people wildly assuming the worst and that the program is of no benefit to either players or the devs or that "they're not listening".

Ultimately, none of this matters if the community/playerbase does not perceive it is being heard. And that is certainly the case now. I could sit here all night and rattle off various examples.

It seems that if the ESO devs are listening to any feedback at all, it's certainly the wrong kind - apparently, mostly just the angry pitchfork mob with serious L2P issues, screaming their baseless nerf requests left and right.
And then there are the changes that are just objectively stupid, such as when Sorcerers have lost Major Sorcery last year. How does such nonsense even make it to Live???
That, right there, is what I mean. I'm sure that this point would have been brought up by the class reps, only to be ignored by ZOS - because I don't see how else that could have happened.
(edit: typos)

BlueRaven · March 2020

Major_Lag wrote: »

Nefas wrote: »

The only people who actually know what's going on between us and ZOS is literally ZOS and us due to the NDA so a lot of what I see is people wildly assuming the worst and that the program is of no benefit to either players or the devs or that "they're not listening".

Ultimately, none of this matters if the community/playerbase does not perceive it is being heard. And that is certainly the case now. I could sit here all night and rattle off various examples.

It seems that if the ESO devs are listening to any feedback at all, it's certainly the wrong kind - apparently, mostly just the angry pitchfork mob with serious L2P issues, screaming their baseless nerf requests left and right.
And then there are the changes that are just objectively stupid, such as when Sorcerers have lost Major Sorcery last year. How does such nonsense even make it to Live???
That, right there, is what I mean. I'm sure that this point would have been brought up by the class reps, only to be ignored by ZOS - because I don't see how else that could have happened.
(edit: typos)

Yup.

I remember this;

"Reps specifically asked about the community’s concern that bosmers are trading stealth for different buffs. We were told that ZOS saw these concerns and would work on creating more options/systems for stealth gameplay outside of race."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/456997/class-reps-update-meeting-notes-jan-30-2019/p1

Still a gigantic sore spot with me.

I am guessing no systems are coming and the class reps can care less about it. They kicked the can down the road, then promptly ignored the can.

Perfectly symbolic of the whole development process.

RebornV3x · March 2020

class reps thats like still a thing...

Nerouyn · March 2020

D0PAMINE wrote: »

I feel like the program is in hiatus.

At least some of the reps might be more interested in keeping their positions than actually representing players.

Based on forum interactions, I feel poorly represented as a warden player. Or want to be warden player. They're just too boring as is, with most of their abilities being gimmicky rubbish which has no use outside of maybe pvp. Leaving mag players with a third of a class.

SosRuvaak · March 2020

BlueRaven wrote: »

Major_Lag wrote: »

Nefas wrote: »

The only people who actually know what's going on between us and ZOS is literally ZOS and us due to the NDA so a lot of what I see is people wildly assuming the worst and that the program is of no benefit to either players or the devs or that "they're not listening".

Ultimately, none of this matters if the community/playerbase does not perceive it is being heard. And that is certainly the case now. I could sit here all night and rattle off various examples.

It seems that if the ESO devs are listening to any feedback at all, it's certainly the wrong kind - apparently, mostly just the angry pitchfork mob with serious L2P issues, screaming their baseless nerf requests left and right.
And then there are the changes that are just objectively stupid, such as when Sorcerers have lost Major Sorcery last year. How does such nonsense even make it to Live???
That, right there, is what I mean. I'm sure that this point would have been brought up by the class reps, only to be ignored by ZOS - because I don't see how else that could have happened.
(edit: typos)

Yup.

I remember this;

"Reps specifically asked about the community’s concern that bosmers are trading stealth for different buffs. We were told that ZOS saw these concerns and would work on creating more options/systems for stealth gameplay outside of race."
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/456997/class-reps-update-meeting-notes-jan-30-2019/p1

Still a gigantic sore spot with me.

I am guessing no systems are coming and the class reps can care less about it. They kicked the can down the road, then promptly ignored the can.

Perfectly symbolic of the whole development process.

absolute KEK

theres no way zenimax is actually in line with the class reps or the community.

Faulgor · March 2020

It seems this is just once more a failure of ZOS' communication rather than the class rep program itself.

How is it possible nobody has heard about this for such a long time?

Kel · March 2020

Nefas wrote: »

idk wrote: »

Yes, very understandable as last time there was a lengthy silence from this group once of the class reps stated they thought the program was dead. Just look at the link I provided in the OP, the first reply is a Masel stating that.

Masel was obviously being sarcastic.

Kel wrote: »

Don't think anyone's questioning the reps themselves, more on how seriously Zos takes your advice and knowledge of the game.

Most people have said the program was a good idea. How effective is it though, if your feedback and input isn't taken into consideration?

I was also referring to the devs as well, they're trying their best just as we are. The only people who actually know what's going on between us and ZOS is literally ZOS and us due to the NDA so a lot of what I see is people wildly assuming the worst and that the program is of no benefit to either players or the devs or that "they're not listening".

In regards to meeting notes, we've had a couple ones in both video and text format released and we always remain heavily in contact with the devs:

https://www.nefasqs.com/9-25-pts-feedback
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSFLHgqIHe0

I'd like to emphasize that the primary purpose of the Class Rep Program is for us to make sure the concerns of the players are being relayed and discussed directly with the devs and as such the other reps and I are in constant contact with a variety of player communities including through the feedback threads on the official forums and other areas.

No offense, but this seems just like the PR speak everyone talks about.
I have zero doubts what the class rep program is and what it's supposed to do.
Feedback, however, is useless if it's not taken into consideration. You could cover every player community and get pain points from every known possible player community in existence...it's useless if you gather pain points and a dev goes through with changes anyway.
DoT meta, players asking for a stam whip for DK and getting stone fist, racial changes, nightblades and sorcs in general, watered down skill power and cost increases...I could go on about how player and rep feedback has gone ignored. How would one NOT get the impression Zos isn't listening exactly? Where has this program been shown to bring light to a bad dev decision and change a course that stopped a terrible change, especially where combat is concerned?
Again, your quoted post reaks of the PR speak everyones saying it is. I know you have to protect the privilege that you have that allows you inside access to Zos and the devs, but it's hard to take seriously given the awful and sometimes very strange choices made by the current dev team.

Major_Lag · March 2020

Kel wrote: »

Feedback, however, is useless if it's not taken into consideration. You could cover every player community and get pain points from every known possible player community in existence...it's useless if you gather pain points and a dev goes through with changes anyway.

^ This ^

Kel wrote: »

Again, your quoted post reaks of the PR speak everyones saying it is. I know you have to protect the privilege that you have that allows you inside access to Zos and the devs, but it's hard to take seriously given the awful and sometimes very strange choices made by the current dev team.

Again, the total radio silence from ZOS does not help things at all.
Even if ZOS does actually listen to any meaningful feedback (which I feel is highly unlikely), we will never know about it - because class reps can't speak about that due to their NDA, and ZOS just plain doesn't give a flying fart about keeping their playerbase well-informed.