This game really lacks polish

robertthebard · May 2020

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Odd understanding of polish. I thought "polish" meant attention to detail, not being bug-free. And this game has attention to detail in spades when it comes to the art direction, lore, and overall design.

From Merriam-Webster: 'Polish verb-to bring to a highly developed, finished, or refined state.' the amount of bugs, lag, and performance issues in this game show that there is much "polishing" to do with the code.

Fair enough, but it sounds to me like some folks are expecting not polish, but straight up perfection. That's not realistic. Having played many, many games in my years ESO is not a title I would list as "lacking polish" whether or not one is including bugs in the equation. You want lacking polish? We could talk about the AAA developers releasing half-finished, conceived games that are shallow attempts to cash in on customer's wallets with games-as-service bull crap. They've become alarmingly common. And frankly, ESO is heading in that direction, but it's not quite there yet. When it gets there, that'll be the day I quit for good.

[snip] You think I'm asking for straight up perfection? I want a game where I don't see something janky and buggy several times an hour.

Guild Wars 2 is so refined compared to ESO. I would love if ESO took the time to refine and de-bug this game to the same level as that game.

...and yet, if you go over to the GW 2 forums, you're going to find threads just like this one.

Coppes · May 2020

TheSeraphim wrote: »

12 Player pvp also somehow manages to lag half the time, even SWTOR was able to figure 16 Player pvp out and it couldn't even handle small scale open-world pvp at launch.

Ah, the Ilum Slideshow War, good times...

Everest_Lionheart · May 2020

robertthebard wrote: »

Everest_Lionheart wrote: »

Bugs happen in all games and persist for years. Go check other game forums you’ll see.

That NPC thing is a problem in so many RPG’s. The worst is when 5 are talking over the quest giver. Happens is all the them though.

The biggest bug of all in this game though is probably animation cancelling. It was never an intended feature but they ran with it. Some bugs aren’t so bad after all!

I'm going to have to disagree, as there is a loading screen tooltip that I saw this morning that explains that you can, in fact, animation cancel.

When a bug becomes a feature. A good feature actually. As I say take the good with the bad. Games aren’t perfect. That just makes the forums more interesting! 😆

Destai · May 2020

robertthebard wrote: »

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Odd understanding of polish. I thought "polish" meant attention to detail, not being bug-free. And this game has attention to detail in spades when it comes to the art direction, lore, and overall design.

From Merriam-Webster: 'Polish verb-to bring to a highly developed, finished, or refined state.' the amount of bugs, lag, and performance issues in this game show that there is much "polishing" to do with the code.

Fair enough, but it sounds to me like some folks are expecting not polish, but straight up perfection. That's not realistic. Having played many, many games in my years ESO is not a title I would list as "lacking polish" whether or not one is including bugs in the equation. You want lacking polish? We could talk about the AAA developers releasing half-finished, conceived games that are shallow attempts to cash in on customer's wallets with games-as-service bull crap. They've become alarmingly common. And frankly, ESO is heading in that direction, but it's not quite there yet. When it gets there, that'll be the day I quit for good.

Dang you are truly a fanboy. You think I'm asking for straight up perfection? I want a game where I don't see something janky and buggy several times an hour.

Guild Wars 2 is so refined compared to ESO. I would love if ESO took the time to refine and de-bug this game to the same level as that game.

...and yet, if you go over to the GW 2 forums, you're going to find threads just like this one.

They had some patch or something that nuked players' progress. Hilarious. Can you imagine if that happened in ESO?

Of course, every MMO has its problems and areas of improvement. But in the 600+ hours I played that game, not ONE bug. The entire experience of that game, the ethos of ArenaNet, was built around taking the hassle out of MMOs. It really shows. I managed to get GW2 working on my Mac and still found the UI and crafting inventory held up. The currency interface is something ESO could adopt.

ESO's not a piece of coal, though. There's polish for sure - the maps and their guides are really detailed, the dungeon finger is great when it works, the lorebooks, even the crafting. I find as MMOs age, the inventory management becomes a hassle. GW2 has problems with, so does ESO. GW2 handled some of it well with the currency interfaces and crafting interface.

robertthebard · May 2020

Destai wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Odd understanding of polish. I thought "polish" meant attention to detail, not being bug-free. And this game has attention to detail in spades when it comes to the art direction, lore, and overall design.

From Merriam-Webster: 'Polish verb-to bring to a highly developed, finished, or refined state.' the amount of bugs, lag, and performance issues in this game show that there is much "polishing" to do with the code.

Fair enough, but it sounds to me like some folks are expecting not polish, but straight up perfection. That's not realistic. Having played many, many games in my years ESO is not a title I would list as "lacking polish" whether or not one is including bugs in the equation. You want lacking polish? We could talk about the AAA developers releasing half-finished, conceived games that are shallow attempts to cash in on customer's wallets with games-as-service bull crap. They've become alarmingly common. And frankly, ESO is heading in that direction, but it's not quite there yet. When it gets there, that'll be the day I quit for good.

Dang you are truly a fanboy. You think I'm asking for straight up perfection? I want a game where I don't see something janky and buggy several times an hour.

Guild Wars 2 is so refined compared to ESO. I would love if ESO took the time to refine and de-bug this game to the same level as that game.

...and yet, if you go over to the GW 2 forums, you're going to find threads just like this one.

They had some patch or something that nuked players' progress. Hilarious. Can you imagine if that happened in ESO?

Of course, every MMO has its problems and areas of improvement. But in the 600+ hours I played that game, not ONE bug. The entire experience of that game, the ethos of ArenaNet, was built around taking the hassle out of MMOs. It really shows. I managed to get GW2 working on my Mac and still found the UI and crafting inventory held up. The currency interface is something ESO could adopt.

ESO's not a piece of coal, though. There's polish for sure - the maps and their guides are really detailed, the dungeon finger is great when it works, the lorebooks, even the crafting. I find as MMOs age, the inventory management becomes a hassle. GW2 has problems with, so does ESO. GW2 handled some of it well with the currency interfaces and crafting interface.

I saw the aftermath of that, it was 2x pages long in just over a day. But yeah, there is no "Holy Grail" game to hold up as the model of perfection, or even "outstanding", they all run into problems at some point, with something. It's the nature of computer coding. I've seen visual effects patches break door closing scripts, despite having no connection. It was a simple fix, just recompile the scripts on the doors, didn't even have to change anything, but it was sure random...

Alomar · May 2020

Years ago there used to be a compiled bug list a few of us kept updated, hardcore pvp'ers and pve'ers. List got close to 200 at one point 2 years ago with every patch adding new or bringing back old bugs, but we all gave up on the game and moved on...wonder why.

Destai · May 2020

robertthebard wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Nord_Raseri wrote: »

Starlock wrote: »

Odd understanding of polish. I thought "polish" meant attention to detail, not being bug-free. And this game has attention to detail in spades when it comes to the art direction, lore, and overall design.

From Merriam-Webster: 'Polish verb-to bring to a highly developed, finished, or refined state.' the amount of bugs, lag, and performance issues in this game show that there is much "polishing" to do with the code.

Fair enough, but it sounds to me like some folks are expecting not polish, but straight up perfection. That's not realistic. Having played many, many games in my years ESO is not a title I would list as "lacking polish" whether or not one is including bugs in the equation. You want lacking polish? We could talk about the AAA developers releasing half-finished, conceived games that are shallow attempts to cash in on customer's wallets with games-as-service bull crap. They've become alarmingly common. And frankly, ESO is heading in that direction, but it's not quite there yet. When it gets there, that'll be the day I quit for good.

Dang you are truly a fanboy. You think I'm asking for straight up perfection? I want a game where I don't see something janky and buggy several times an hour.

Guild Wars 2 is so refined compared to ESO. I would love if ESO took the time to refine and de-bug this game to the same level as that game.

...and yet, if you go over to the GW 2 forums, you're going to find threads just like this one.

They had some patch or something that nuked players' progress. Hilarious. Can you imagine if that happened in ESO?

Of course, every MMO has its problems and areas of improvement. But in the 600+ hours I played that game, not ONE bug. The entire experience of that game, the ethos of ArenaNet, was built around taking the hassle out of MMOs. It really shows. I managed to get GW2 working on my Mac and still found the UI and crafting inventory held up. The currency interface is something ESO could adopt.

ESO's not a piece of coal, though. There's polish for sure - the maps and their guides are really detailed, the dungeon finger is great when it works, the lorebooks, even the crafting. I find as MMOs age, the inventory management becomes a hassle. GW2 has problems with, so does ESO. GW2 handled some of it well with the currency interfaces and crafting interface.

I saw the aftermath of that, it was 2x pages long in just over a day. But yeah, there is no "Holy Grail" game to hold up as the model of perfection, or even "outstanding", they all run into problems at some point, with something. It's the nature of computer coding. I've seen visual effects patches break door closing scripts, despite having no connection. It was a simple fix, just recompile the scripts on the doors, didn't even have to change anything, but it was sure random...

Oh yeah, no doubt. It's really in how the company handles these things that's the most important. There was a well known community manager in ArenaNet that fans are begging for their return. I'd love to see that in every game. There's a stark difference in tone and volume when comparing their Dev Tracker to ZOS's. Not to diminish the engagement we actually do have, but it seems to be mostly concentrated on the crown store and housing areas.

AlnilamE · May 2020

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

T. People are still running on their freaking horses.

Eifleber wrote: »

Very much agree with OP.

Things that should have been fixed long, long ago:

* people running on horses

OK, let's clear something up: THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX THE RUNNING ON HORSES BUG.

That's my favourite bug in the whole game. It brings me joy every time I see it or it happens to me.

I think it was voted as the bug most people wish ZOS never fixes.

So stop ruining other people's fun. :-P

Also, the last GW2 update with their build specs made me unable to queue for PvP because it tells me something is missing in my build, but won't tell me what it is. So until I figure it out, no PvP for me. :-/

And let's not talk about their inventory nightmares.

Destai · May 2020

AlnilamE wrote: »

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

T. People are still running on their freaking horses.

Eifleber wrote: »

Very much agree with OP.

Things that should have been fixed long, long ago:

* people running on horses

OK, let's clear something up: THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX THE RUNNING ON HORSES BUG.

That's my favourite bug in the whole game. It brings me joy every time I see it or it happens to me.

I think it was voted as the bug most people wish ZOS never fixes.

So stop ruining other people's fun. :-P

Also, the last GW2 update with their build specs made me unable to queue for PvP because it tells me something is missing in my build, but won't tell me what it is. So until I figure it out, no PvP for me. :-/

And let's not talk about their inventory nightmares.

It's something they should just embrace. Make it official and replicable.

Starlock · May 2020

AlnilamE wrote: »

OK, let's clear something up: THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX THE RUNNING ON HORSES BUG.

That's my favourite bug in the whole game. It brings me joy every time I see it or it happens to me.

I think it was voted as the bug most people wish ZOS never fixes.

So stop ruining other people's fun. :-P

Yeah, this one is weird. The first few times I saw it, I reacted to it pretty negatively. But then, after watching it dumbfounded for a little while, a smile cracked on my face and I could only laugh at it. The horse bug is pure awesome. Pure, stupid, harmless awesome.

That's not to say everything is so innocuous. I've certainly experienced my share of very not fun, stupid in the bad sort of way bugs and glitches. It is a bit eye-rolling though when folks talk about this game as if it were coal, as @Destai put it. I mean, PvP is, but PvP in this game has been trash since... basically forever, IMHO, and not just because of performance issues. I couldn't believe how bad the PvP in this game was when I first tried it. I still don't understand how/why people would want to play it at all.

Eifleber · May 2020

Destai wrote: »

AlnilamE wrote: »

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

T. People are still running on their freaking horses.

Eifleber wrote: »

Very much agree with OP.

Things that should have been fixed long, long ago:

* people running on horses

OK, let's clear something up: THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX THE RUNNING ON HORSES BUG.
That's my favourite bug in the whole game.

It's something they should just embrace. Make it official and replicable.

Like animation cancelling? "From bug to virtue"?

Coatmagic · May 2020

For the first time (for me) whilst stood around at a survey collection spot in Craglorn last night on PCEU chatting with guildies,

in the span of say a half hour maybe, the zone reloaded at least 15 times xD

No idea what was going on, but wow, just whoa... still think it's that floating flower and spotlit rock thought ;P

Uryel · May 2020

robertthebard wrote: »

I'm going to have to disagree, as there is a loading screen tooltip that I saw this morning that explains that you can, in fact, animation cancel.

That's the point. it WAS a bug, never intended to be. They never managed to fix it, so now it's a feature.

VaranisArano · May 2020

AlnilamE wrote: »

MrDenimChicken wrote: »

T. People are still running on their freaking horses.

Eifleber wrote: »

Very much agree with OP.

Things that should have been fixed long, long ago:

* people running on horses

OK, let's clear something up: THEY ARE NOT ALLOWED TO FIX THE RUNNING ON HORSES BUG.

That's my favourite bug in the whole game. It brings me joy every time I see it or it happens to me.

I think it was voted as the bug most people wish ZOS never fixes.

So stop ruining other people's fun. :-P

Uryel · May 2020

robertthebard wrote: »

...and yet, if you go over to the GW 2 forums, you're going to find threads just like this one.

Yeah, but they really don't know how good they have it.

A few days ago, GW2 had a major server issue. Game crashed and everyone got rolled back 3 days prior. This called for a maintenance that lasted over a day to fix things. Servers were offline for like 30+ hours. For the first time in several years, servers were offline. People went batshit crazy about compensation and whatnot, as you'd expect on every forum for every game ever.

I tried to tell them that, for most games, several hours of downtime PER WEEK is the norm. Can't say they listened, though.

Also, GW2 doesn't have crazy invisible walls everywhere to prevent you from going somewhere that looks like you could go. Either it looks like you can go, and you can go, or it looks like you can't, and you can't. The only exception being the edges of the map, to avoid falling off world if you managed to climb all the way up there. It has had inverted kinematics from day 1, and it's older than ESO. The central auction house is foolproof and hard to influence because you can see in real time the prices at which everyone buys and sells stuff. There is a built-in system to exchange gems (the equivalent of crowns) for gold that doesn't rely on trusting random strangers and gifts from the store. Loading times are MUCH shorter and don't randomly happen while you're travelling or talking to an NPC. And so on.

I'm not saying it's a better game, that's a matter of personal taste. But I've started to play it again after several years not touching it, and I'm impressed by how much more technically reliable, advanced and polished it is compared to ESO. The visuals can't compete, of course, but the tech behind it ? Feels like ESO is the older game, and by a wide margin.

ZOS_ConnorG · May 2020

Greetings all,

We have edited and removed some posts for Baiting and non-constructive back and forth between some users. Please remember to keep the discussion civil, constructive and within the rules.

You are welcome to review the Community Rules here.

Varana · May 2020

Uryel wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

I'm going to have to disagree, as there is a loading screen tooltip that I saw this morning that explains that you can, in fact, animation cancel.

That's the point. it WAS a bug, never intended to be. They never managed to fix it, so now it's a feature.

It was never a bug. How players used it, was a bit different than the developers thought they would, but it was put into the game very deliberately.

But I understand that this myth will probably never die at this point.

precambria · May 2020

I am Polish

Varana · May 2020

I don't want to derail this thread any further but again, it seems you're grossly overstating the effects of, or misunderstand what animation cancelling actually does and contributes.

At this point, animation cancelling is like the Bill Gates of ESO - has its flaws but gets hyped to be the source of basically everything wrong to a ridiculous extent by ... some people.

robertthebard · May 2020

Uryel wrote: »

robertthebard wrote: »

...and yet, if you go over to the GW 2 forums, you're going to find threads just like this one.

Yeah, but they really don't know how good they have it.

A few days ago, GW2 had a major server issue. Game crashed and everyone got rolled back 3 days prior. This called for a maintenance that lasted over a day to fix things. Servers were offline for like 30+ hours. For the first time in several years, servers were offline. People went batshit crazy about compensation and whatnot, as you'd expect on every forum for every game ever.

I tried to tell them that, for most games, several hours of downtime PER WEEK is the norm. Can't say they listened, though.

Also, GW2 doesn't have crazy invisible walls everywhere to prevent you from going somewhere that looks like you could go. Either it looks like you can go, and you can go, or it looks like you can't, and you can't. The only exception being the edges of the map, to avoid falling off world if you managed to climb all the way up there. It has had inverted kinematics from day 1, and it's older than ESO. The central auction house is foolproof and hard to influence because you can see in real time the prices at which everyone buys and sells stuff. There is a built-in system to exchange gems (the equivalent of crowns) for gold that doesn't rely on trusting random strangers and gifts from the store. Loading times are MUCH shorter and don't randomly happen while you're travelling or talking to an NPC. And so on.

I'm not saying it's a better game, that's a matter of personal taste. But I've started to play it again after several years not touching it, and I'm impressed by how much more technically reliable, advanced and polished it is compared to ESO. The visuals can't compete, of course, but the tech behind it ? Feels like ESO is the older game, and by a wide margin.

They really don't, as far as server downtime goes, that's for sure. I think maybe some of them might, but maybe they've forgotten? I know the first time I saw the "new build available" message, I was looking for a place to log out, thinking it was going down for a few hours. I was quite surprised to find that that wasn't the case. Ironically, I missed the update drama, as I was busy over here...

Megatto · May 2020

What this game really needs is less microtransaction BS and more rewards for doing content. Like, give us a chance to get mounts and pets for doing dungeons and trials. Stuff like that. That'd be really appreciated. The antiquities system is a step in the right direction.

eKsDee · May 2020

GW2 has been my main MMO since I stopped playing ESO, and I have to say, they really don't know how good they have it over there. So much so, that I've actually gotten into arguments with some people, comparing the flaws of GW2 with the flaws of ESO. Honestly, I feel like GW2 is currently way better than ESO in a lot of areas, at least technically.

Patching and how maintenance is handled is far better, with some sort of "soft" patching being used where you're able to continue playing even on an older version, until a certain point where you're forced to quit and update, and even then, asset streaming helps make large patches so much more digestible, allowing you to download maybe a third of the update, be able to log in, and simply stream the rest in the background while playing, as you encounter the new assets.

The game itself runs way better than ESO on my system, especially as player numbers grow (in Lion's Arch, or participating in a populated meta event), not to mention the servers handle numbers far better, requiring the same numbers of players that it would take to bring Cyrodiil to its knees, before GW2 even approaches what ESO performance is like during off hours. 50-80+ people wailing on the one boss, with multiple overlapping mechanics? No problem!

Graphically, GW2 is a bit behind on the technical front, but it makes up for that with its superior animation and effects system, which makes the game feel so much smoother, as opposed to ESO's fairly rigid animations. This is especially noticeable on mounts, which really show how much of a joke ESO's mounts are in the animations alone, let alone in the actual functionality and feeling.

Combat is way more responsive, even if I queue up a few different skills with my 250 ping, each will fire in the exact order I pressed them, with none being dropped. No weird slight delay on some skills (namely Streak in ESO, which has an insanely short delay which is just barely noticeable, while still being noticeable enough to make it feel particularly clunky), no skills failing to fire despite me very obviously pressing them and the game very obviously reacting to my input, no dodge failing to dodge, no blocks failing to block, no stun breaks failing to actually break stuns, none of that. Everything works as it should, even when in the few moments where the servers start struggling.

Then you get into the actual content.

While I personally prefer ESO's end game loop, GW2 is just far better once you break out of that. Overland is actually meaningful, especially as you get into Living World and expansion zones, offering a huge time sink that's actually worth it. sPvP (GW2's equivalent of BGs) actually has ranked and unranked queues, and both sPvP and WvW (GW2's equivalent of Cyrodiil) both have meaningful rewards for participating (containers similar to Rewards of the Worthy every match or two through a reward track, gear, gold, materials, level up scrolls, and ways to craft legendary items).

The classes each feel totally unique, with their own mechanics and playstyles associated with them, as well as 2 subclasses which can fundamentally alter their mechanics, to either double down on how the class plays, or rework it entirely, or somewhere in between. In short, actual class identity, and a much larger variety in class identities.

You are pigeonholed into armour weight and, to a lesser extent, weapon options depending on your class, so in a freedom of choice regard, ESO wins, but I feel GW2 still strikes a good balance with each class at least having a few different weapon types (a dozen or so even, for a few classes) that each play fairly differently and perform a different role in your build, not to mention the variety of utility skills and specializations which can be chosen to further suit your build to your playstyle.

I also prefer ESO's core combat system a bit more than GW2's, but GW2's is just as good in its own way. Despite using cast times and cooldowns to balance skills (with the odd energy system thrown in around the place on some classes/subclasses), it still feels just as fluid as ESO's, if not more so due to the far better animations and effects, and feels far more weighty, especially on melee classes.

I could honestly go on, but I'll stop there. If ESO were to address performance, lack of content outside of the core end game loop, and class/build identity, then it'd be just as good, if not better than GW2, IMO. But for ESO in 2020, GW2 is just the better game, IMO. It actually bloody works, I can actually bloody play the game, and it plays exceptionally smoothly.