Why do Devs ruin such great games?

Syzmicke · April 2014

There are a few easy ways to combat a lot of this.

Make gold less valuable by increasing the amount that drops from mobs.

Make items cheaper to buy ie horse costs 17K iirc make it 1.5K and scale accordingly the better the mount.

Repair cost bring those down by 70%.

The cost to reset your character skill/attrib points reduce those significantly.

There are lot of other things they can do.

snowmanflvb14_ESO · April 2014

Chomag wrote: »

In before apologists claiming the other MMOs had equally bad launches (they didn't, actually) or that you must have more patience with the launch.

Wildstar beta weekend coming up in a bit.

I guess if you memory of Launchs goes back to April of 2014 this would be a truthful statement. However, many of us remember launchs of games such as WoW which had horrid launchs. Considering your last sentence I am guessing you are one of those paid to trash a game and publicize another.

Klarick · April 2014

GJVah wrote: »

OP, get a grip you entitled pr*ck. They have been working like slaves since launch, numerous patches and fixes. They even held a free beta for a paid game like in the good old days when devs cared. Imagine if this was released as paid "early access" like most of the sh*t on Steam and it stayed payed "early access" for years. A huge number of people beta tested the game. If duping was reported, they would have fixed it by now. Now that it has been, they will fix it. Give them a chance to get to it. ESO had one of the smoothest launches in history, especially considering the sheer amount of content it's offering. If you didn't want to experience any problems, you should have waited before buying.

^^ This. It is hard to please a child. Kids like onyx act like spoiled little brats that cant understand the complexities of launching an MMO that has a million players on thousands of different computer systems and ISPs. He does not have mental faculties, at this point in his development, to understand. I just wish he would do as he said he would and leave.

But now he says he is playing a game that he has said is ruined and that he has given up on. He is either a child or insane.

snowmanflvb14_ESO · April 2014

*Constant glitches from falling under map.
Have had this happen all of three times since early access has started. Many in my guild have never had it happen. All it took was to select to port myself to a wayshrine
*Lag I have only noticed lag spikes twice and they were over so fast it was hard to even notice them. So I am guessing this issue is on your end.
*Buggy combat They have fixed the few skills/spells that were not working properly
*Annoying Gold Sellers. In any game and they have banned those that have been reported or that they find.
*Dupe glitch A Shame but again has happen in almost every game I can think of
going back to EQ. It happens they fix it and you move on
*Ruined economy Not sure about this as I have not notice or heard of any issues with the economy being ruined.
*Laggy Cyrodil Repeating yourself .Again two lag spikes in 4 weeks of play is not bad when you consider the size of the battles
*Bots Every game. You report it they catch them they ban them
*Hackers that can instant harvest nodes (want the link to the hack even? not hard to find ffs)
*Mail grieving. Your repeating yourself again this was covered under gold sellers. Report them ignore them move on. They appear in every MMO unfortunately.

snowmanflvb14_ESO · April 2014

Chomag wrote: »

LadyChaos wrote: »

Chomag wrote: »

In before apologists claiming the other MMOs had equally bad launches (they didn't, actually) or that you must have more patience with the launch.

Wildstar beta weekend to come up shortly.

There have been just as bad if not worse launches just this last year let alone historically, but that shouldn't matter.

I'm seeing the same people say no patches ever, and fix these problems back to back... Stuff gets fixed every time, it's not at a pace for any particular preference.

No, there haven't been. At least not for AAA games worthy of a monthly sub. But yeah, plenty of wrecked launches for crappy MMOs that are f2p today.

A launch will have problems, yes, but the amount of problems that ESO has and little to no communication from the developers, is something I am witnessing for the 1st time, and I have played almost all MMOs released in the last 10 years.

Yea WoW is one of those crappy subgames with one of the worse if not they worse launch in the history of MMO's.

South_of_Heaven · April 2014

Klarick wrote: »

GJVah wrote: »

OP, get a grip you entitled pr*ck. They have been working like slaves since launch, numerous patches and fixes. They even held a free beta for a paid game like in the good old days when devs cared. Imagine if this was released as paid "early access" like most of the sh*t on Steam and it stayed payed "early access" for years. A huge number of people beta tested the game. If duping was reported, they would have fixed it by now. Now that it has been, they will fix it. Give them a chance to get to it. ESO had one of the smoothest launches in history, especially considering the sheer amount of content it's offering. If you didn't want to experience any problems, you should have waited before buying.

^^ This. It is hard to please a child. Kids like onyx act like spoiled little brats that cant understand the complexities of launching an MMO that has a million players on thousands of different computer systems and ISPs. He does not have mental faculties, at this point in his development, to understand. I just wish he would do as he said he would and leave.

But now he says he is playing a game that he has said is ruined and that he has given up on. He is either a child or insane.

Instead of insulting him to no end and pretending to know the complexities try to understand that it was expected of them to at least deal with the serious ones.

Instead they refused to go into open beta and we can now see the results and the dupe-plagued economy.

Most of all though, try to understand this: The "developers" are employees who usually GET orders. Executives and managers, clueless about the game usually set timetables for them and involve themselves while being uninformed. Countless developers over the years have quietly complained about how businessmen destroy the developing of games.

Blaming the developers themselves is not exactly correct but the OP, truly means to blame the company and those who made these decisions not for example the poor but brilliant artist who worked as a slave to make the world as beautiful as it is. And yes, you should be pissed with these decision-makers as well.

Jeremy · April 2014

I agree with you in the sense that some of the problems you mention have the potential to ruin this game. But it's far too early to make that conclusion.

Online games are like any thing else. It's failure or success will be determined on how effectively they deal with problems as they arise. And this game has a lot more going for it than your OP implies.

I would give them more time. A game of this size and magnitude is not easily managed and it can't turn on a dime.

snowmanflvb14_ESO · April 2014

Anoteros wrote: »

Turelus wrote: »

Those Devs that ruin the games are also the ones who made it and are working every day to fix the issues.
Do you somehow see ZOS staff going into work every day putting their feet up and doing nothing?

There is an issue with gold selling and botting and now the exploit has come to public light, you can also find posts on these forums from ZOS stating they are looking into and working on every single one of these issues.
If you know some magic bullet fix that outright stops botting and gold selling in an MMO you should probably patience that right now and start selling it because you're going to be rich.
We don't fully know the level of abuse the exploit had or how ZOS plan to proceed with dealing with it, it's not even been a day since it became publicly aware and people started screaming about it.

This isn't the first game to suffer item duplication and it wont be the last, the fact they know it happened and have disabled its cause while they work on a fix is already a start, the damage to the economy will also be minimized by the fact we don't have a central auction house.

If you wish to leave over these issues that's your own choice and right, but you might want to wait and see what they manage to do over the next couple weeks and months now they have bug reports and feedback piling in to work from.

Yep, sure seems like they do jack and ***.
They had over year with 'closed alpha/beta' testing and absolutely nothing changed.
Oh wait they added in mob collision and took away most of the API functionality...

One of the worst MMORPG launches I have ever been a part of.
Even Neverwinter *shudder* had a smoother launch and less duping and spamming/botting and that game is just a pile of crap.

So you complain about hackers and bots then complain about restrictions in the API to help prevent hackers and bot?

anthonyd986ub17_ESO · April 2014

GJVah wrote: »

OP, get a grip you entitled pr*ck. They have been working like slaves since launch, numerous patches and fixes. They even held a free beta for a paid game like in the good old days when devs cared. Imagine if this was released as paid "early access" like most of the sh*t on Steam and it stayed payed "early access" for years. A huge number of people beta tested the game. If duping was reported, they would have fixed it by now. Now that it has been, they will fix it. Give them a chance to get to it. ESO had one of the smoothest launches in history, especially considering the sheer amount of content it's offering. If you didn't want to experience any problems, you should have waited before buying.

The dupe was brought up in beta...

nekrosis258 · April 2014

I know they can fix all of this problems for sure but it take too long. They should fix things faster. this is pay to play game and we pay a lot of $$ compare to other games.

Korusus · April 2014

Hmm...methinks there's a problem with the way ESO is setup between server and client. That dupe bug from the video seemed...incredibly easy to exploit. I think this is related to how easy it seems for the bots to exploit the same server/client problem. I don't think this is an easy-fix situation. It will be interesting to see how quickly ZOS can even respond to this (short of just removing the feature where the exploit exists...guild banks, boss timers etc.)

Klarick · April 2014

No child you shoudnt be pissed. There are so many things to be pissed about, a game isnt one of them. Do you really think the devs arent busting their asses to make this game perfect? For you, and I, this is a form of entertainment. For them, this is their profession! This is how they feed thier families. This is how they earn a living.

They care about this game far more than you appear to realize.

Klarick · April 2014

nekrosis258 wrote: »

I know they can fix all of this problems for sure but it take too long. They should fix things faster. this is pay to play game and we pay a lot of $$ compare to other games.

Yes, because two weeks, from going live, is a long time.

/endsarcasm

...and no, .50 cents a day is NOT a lot of money.

SuperScrubby · April 2014

It is to some of the people playing this game that only have $15 a month to spend on food a week. Which I don't know why they're playing in the first place, but for some reason they are. And no, I'm not one of them. I have a whole $20!

revanghost · April 2014

As someone who has a posting history of being very realistic about the impact of some of these major bugs, I will say:

No one should attack the devs, or criticize them. Often, devs have little control over what's released. The producer may be releasing stuff too early. Those in control of the game may not be using enough tech support to test this stuff.

Devs have created this game that we enjoy. And the work put into it is astounding. They deserve some respect.

Blackwidow · April 2014

Turelus wrote: »

Do you somehow see ZOS staff going into work every day putting their feet up and doing nothing?

I can see it.

I'm not saying that is what is going on, but if I slightly squint my eyes (or play ESO) I can see it.

shadyjane62 · April 2014

South_of_Heaven wrote: »

Worst thing is the duping. I can live with EVERYTHING else. But this is irreversible because they probably will try to bury it - if they can.

Anyway it's mostly the "suits" - executives, that destroy games. With their uninformed timetables and involvement.

Too late to bury it. I just read about it in Forbes. LOL.

Maybe the suits will see it there with their morning latte.

shadyjane62 · April 2014

Strangefate wrote: »

Hey,

I think you're seeing it all a bit too dramatic.
The dupe thing is an issue right now sure, but I'm sure it will be fixed rather quick. The impact of this bug on the gameplay or economy as a whole down the road... is non existent.
It's not any worse than the impact of a player buying 1000000 gold and injecting that into the economy. Every MMO deals with that.

Gold sellers are really annoying, agreed. There's spam filter mods on several sites (like esoui.com) that deal pretty well with them and let you add new filter patterns on the fly to catch whatever spam still makes it through.
And again, I'm sure (or hope) that the devs will eventually come up with a faster and better way of dealing with them permanently.

I'm a dev myself on an online game and we do sometimes pull our hairs over petitions and raging that goes on in the forums... but even when we prioritize something that's bugging people, or something they really want, it takes some time for the changes and fixes to happen...

There's the whole process of planning the best approach, developing it, seeing that it only does 80% of what's expected from it and is breaking someone elses code that was using certain functions too, taking a few steps back, getting it done properly, having QA find ridiculous (who would even try those things really!!%^$%) ways to exploit or circumvent it, going back and amending fixes for those exploits etc, or rethinking the whole approach if it doesn't offer a clean, reliable way to account for the QA findings, planning the accidental demise of specific QA employees, etc etc...

...in other words, you should try giving them a bit more time from the time to find satisfactory solutions for issues, before saying they suck (which is a perfectly valid statement if they don't get their stuff together).

Quick and dirty fixes are usually preferred by the community because it looks at first glance like the Devs rock and fix things awesomely fast, but the result of those duck tape-patches is usually that, like with the guild banks now... they'll have to be taken down later again because the issues lie much deeper and the quick fixes really just offered a quick wooden bridge over an abyss that keeps getting larger and more fragile the more players play with it (one sentence paragraph!).

I would be happy to give them all the time in the world. Just roll it back to relaunch after you have taken the "time " to fix all the bugs unearthed in beta and never addressed.

selixjm_ESO · April 2014

SuperScrubby wrote: »

It is to some of the people playing this game that only have $15 a month to spend on food a week. Which I don't know why they're playing in the first place, but for some reason they are. And no, I'm not one of them. I have a whole $20!

If there are people playing this game who only have $15 a month for food then maybe they shouldn't be spending that $15 on ESO. >.>

cliveklgb14_ESO · April 2014

And with guild banks disabled, the exploit is stopped.

And with the simplicity to track an exploit like this. We can expect those who used it to be banned.

So the whole "economy is ruined" idea is hogwash. A bump in it, to be sure. Ruined? Hardly.

cliveklgb14_ESO · April 2014

Lord_Onyx wrote: »

Reading all your comments with consideration.

Doubtful.

You made your "I'm quitting post" but you are still here? Why? The bug is on review pages. What is the necessity of you to continually obsess over this if you have quit? Some sort of warped satisfaction to beat on someone when they are down?

And as said above, hardly an economy ruining bug that can't be exploited anymore, and likely only exploited by a minority of players who will soon be gone from the game. dev saying exactly such:
http://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/discussion/comment/666789

So the problem is solved. So go away already. You have quit.

Xandarth79 · April 2014

Man so much crying about this being the worst launch ever.

Seriously, Aion took over 6 months before they had their first bot banning (over 7000 accounts) then less than a month later banned another 11,000 followed by a third banning of 13,000 less than a month after that. The second and third bannings weren't even new bots, that was just them finally working through the backlog. Lets not even get started on the fact that the Elyos got world bosses with awesome end game loots which were unkillable by the Asmodians and the Asmo's world bosses provided vend trash and were killable by Elyos.

There was a point in Wow when speed hackers were winning BG's by capturing the flag in less than 5 seconds and that went on for months. People used map hacks to get to areas other people couldn't and then would kill quest NPCs in opposing faction towns just to farm honour and make opposing players rage. Duping and hacking were constant problems there.

Rift was a disaster from launch with broken quests, hacking in BG's and completely broken builds but their real problem was that for some bizarre reason their devs actually seemed to do whatever people QQ'd about loudest even when what the players were demanding was incredibly stupid / game breaking - who can forget all the bads complaining that mages were too weak despite experienced players saying that builds like pyromancer were actually OP (begging the devs not to buff them) and the bads actually getting the devs to buff pyromancer making them capable of one-hitting every single other class in the game?

Age of Conan - over half the content simply didn't work at launch.

I could go on but people here have some serious rose coloured glasses on in regards to the launches of other games.

selixjm_ESO · April 2014

Xandarth79 wrote: »

Man so much crying about this being the worst launch ever.

Seriously, Aion took over 6 months before they had their first bot banning (over 7000 accounts) then less than a month later banned another 11,000 followed by a third banning of 13,000 less than a month after that. The second and third bannings weren't even new bots, that was just them finally working through the backlog. Lets not even get started on the fact that the Elyos got world bosses with awesome end game loots which were unkillable by the Asmodians and the Asmo's world bosses provided vend trash and were killable by Elyos.

There was a point in Wow when speed hackers were winning BG's by capturing the flag in less than 5 seconds and that went on for months. People used map hacks to get to areas other people couldn't and then would kill quest NPCs in opposing faction towns just to farm honour and make opposing players rage. Duping and hacking were constant problems there.

Rift was a disaster from launch with broken quests, hacking in BG's and completely broken builds but their real problem was that for some bizarre reason their devs actually seemed to do whatever people QQ'd about loudest even when what the players were demanding was incredibly stupid / game breaking - who can forget all the bads complaining that mages were too weak despite experienced players saying that builds like pyromancer were actually OP (begging the devs not to buff them) and the bads actually getting the devs to buff pyromancer making them capable of one-hitting every single other class in the game?

Age of Conan - over half the content simply didn't work at launch.

I could go on but people here have some serious rose coloured glasses on in regards to the launches of other games.

It's cool, I'm convinced that every new launch of an MMO is in fact THE worst launch ever.

SuperScrubby · April 2014

I wouldn't say the dev's ruin it per se. I think part of their decision lies with poor information. Some of the changes they're making are because of the whining and complaining that happens on these forums. Like the change to boss farming, or the nerfing of the PvP reward quest for killing 20 people.

Most dev's aren't real "gamers" in the sense that they suck at games. Some are decent, but most of them are pretty bad. They spend all their time programming and working. Most of the time when a game is demoed they either hire someone or practice a lot to make sure that they don't look super scrubby during the presentation.

So their lack of skill in games along with a minority of players whining help ruin games. People that are matched in skill can easily understand one another. So bad players can understand where other bad players come from, but if you have a bad player and a good player you have a disconnect.

The fighters guild boss for example, doshia. Bad players called for a nerf and they all rallied together because it was "too hard" for them. While the better players that adapted and learned said, "no don't do that, while the boss is difficult you become a better player if you learn the mechanics and think through it" or something along those lines.

If devs do ruin the game its because their lack of skill and wanting to appease the what they think is the majority opinion based on the forums and what's trending, usually with the help of the community managers who monitor forums.

So ultimately it's a chain reaction. Also let's be honest, not every developer is going to have great problem solving abilities. Hence some of the fixes that you see in games that make you scratch your head wondering what the logical explanation is for something.

otomodachi · April 2014

SuperScrubby wrote: »

I wouldn't say the dev's ruin it per se. I think part of their decision lies with poor information. Some of the changes they're making are because of the whining and complaining that happens on these forums. Like the change to boss farming, or the nerfing of the PvP reward quest for killing 20 people.

Most dev's aren't real "gamers" in the sense that they suck at games. Some are decent, but most of them are pretty bad. They spend all their time programming and working. Most of the time when a game is demoed they either hire someone or practice a lot to make sure that they don't look super scrubby during the presentation.

So their lack of skill in games along with a minority of players whining help ruin games. People that are matched in skill can easily understand one another. So bad players can understand where other bad players come from, but if you have a bad player and a good player you have a disconnect.

The fighters guild boss for example, doshia. Bad players called for a nerf and they all rallied together because it was "too hard" for them. While the better players that adapted and learned said, "no don't do that, while the boss is difficult you become a better player if you learn the mechanics and think through it" or something along those lines.

If devs do ruin the game its because their lack of skill and wanting to appease the what they think is the majority opinion based on the forums and what's trending, usually with the help of the community managers who monitor forums.

So ultimately it's a chain reaction. Also let's be honest, not every developer is going to have great problem solving abilities. Hence some of the fixes that you see in games that make you scratch your head wondering what the logical explanation is for something.

I'd say it's compounded in this game because there isn't a specific community organizer or PR mouthpiece or anyone to serve as

A) A target for all the honestly toxic BS that comes out of large games playerbases

and B ) Someone to actually talk to about problems.

The green names are trying but every time one comes into a thread everyone's like "YAY! A response! (question a) and also (questions b, c, d and e etc.) and that's the last we ever hear on that topic. And it's like, I get it, there's a lot of stuff hitting the fan and they're busy.

But IMO you NEED to have someone who has that job to sit there and eating the players turds while smiling and discussing politely what's going on, and it seems like the greens just have too much on their plate to do that to the level I personally would expect. It's a crappy job but someone should probably do it.

rob_gower25b14_ESO · April 2014

PBpsy wrote: »

Explain how the gold sellers have ruined it for you if you didn't partake in the buying /selling ? And explain how exactly did the duping affect you in any way if you didn't use it? Making statements of fact without arguments really serves no point.
I still have my gear, my progress,my characters, my friends ,my ideas for new crap I want to try and still quite a lot of content to do . You only got one thing right. This is a pretty great game and the devs didn't ruin it they made it.-

Where exactly did this line of thinking come from? Just because it doesn't directly affect you it's not a problem? I don't think so.

selixjm_ESO · April 2014

The people making the games suck at games, there's some internet logic.

cliveklgb14_ESO · April 2014

Oh and worst launch ever? Hardly.

WoW gave away several weeks of game time to cover for all the down time they had their first month. In one week that first month the game was down more than it was up.

I don't know any game that had the stability issues WoW had at launch.

And look at it now? Still top dog in terms of subscribers ( admitting that doesn't make me a fan, I just can admit the truth).

Putok · April 2014

This is not the worst launch ever, but for me it is the most disappointing. Early Access was fantastic. In the past two weeks things have gone sharply downhill.

The lack of communication is simply astonishing, I have never seen such a tight lipped dev team before.

I love the core of the game. It's a lot of fun. CS, QA, and communication are abysmal.

I sincerely hope they are able to turn things around before the end of the free month.

rrcottinb14_ESO · April 2014

PBpsy wrote: »

Explain how the gold sellers have ruined it for you if you didn't partake in the buying /selling ? And explain how exactly did the duping affect you in any way if you didn't use it? Making statements of fact without arguments really serves no point.
I still have my gear, my progress,my characters, my friends ,my ideas for new crap I want to try and still quite a lot of content to do . You only got one thing right. This is a pretty great game and the devs didn't ruin it they made it.-

Gold sellers ruin zone chat, dungeon bosses, harvesting, etc. They annoy you with continual emails and guild invites. Dupers get outfitted in legendary gear for no work and destroy anyone who didn't cheat in PvP. But, the fan boys are 100% correct that everything is fine. Nobody in their right mind would not want to pay for this awesome sauce game. You just may be a little lonely after 5/4... lol.