furiouslog wrote: »

The fundamental difference between the two arguments that have been presented over and over again on this forum and elsewhere is due to a perception of what the arena gear means. Rich takes the position that the veteran arena gear is a product, and as such, subject to all economic rules applicable to products. Others (myself included) take the position that the gear is a reward that represents something earned through hard work.

I understand Rich's argument from a cold, logical perspective. It makes sense, in the same way that many logical extrapolations of a concept can lead to conclusions that appear bizarre or inhumane (e.g. A Modest Proposal).

The flaw in Rich's argument is that it fails to acknowledge the "reward" perception of many of his customers. I initially farmed the vMA flame staff as a means to an end for min-maxing my dps. It literally took me months to work through my first run of vMA because it was so challenging and frustrating. I got the sword and shield on that first run. Sigh. I went back and kept at it, getting better at vMA. My high score is now somewhere in the high 200Ks (I'm not a very good player). During those runs over the past year, I never really enjoyed it. I viewed it as a means to an end to get the reward, a reward resultant from efforts put forth within buggy and bad instances, desyncs, skill misfires, and frustrating RNG mechanics. Literal weeks of playtime spent grinding that content that did nothing more than frustrate me and make me angry.

When I finally got the staff, I ceased doing vMA, apart from going in once recently to see if a recent patch fixed the technical problems with the arena (they didn't).

That staff was a goal. It represents the time I spent learning the arena, learning to adapt to its design (mechanics) and technical challenges (bugs), and living through the frustration of the random value of the reward I'd receive for my efforts. Not having that staff upgraded does not frustrate me from a gear perspective. I know the bonus is negligible when it comes to being able to clear content. It frustrates me because it represented my efforts and achievement, and to have that effort callously undermined by making the same achievement available for much less effort is what I think is unfair, and apart from a ticked box in my achievement section, it's as if I never did any of that work at all. The goal I achieved is rendered meaningless. It's no longer special. As of tomorrow, I will have no reward that represents my achievement. It's like I never did it.

Furthermore, forcing me to re-grinding the same arena to earn the upgraded reward in an already challenging game environment that is plagued by game-breaking lag and bugs is totally unacceptable. It's not core to the issue, but it's adding insult to injury.

I don't expect people who don't view it that way, or who do not emotionally connect with my perspective to feel that way, but I am asking you to logically acknowledge that my perception of the reward is valid, and that my feelings about the matter are equally valid given that perception.

I'm definitely going to do nMA a few times to fill out gear on my alts. If they ever get the game to a state where it functions properly, I might even do vMA again just to do it and get my score better, or try for Flawless someday, but it does not mitigate my anger at the unfairness of this situation given my perspective. It is clear evidence that ZOS has minimal empathy for their most loyal consumers, and the fact that the only insight that we, as a community, have received on this issue comes from a Discord log is unfathomable.

So, ZOS, by way of being constructive, here is my feedback: please acknowledge the discontent of many of your customers, and communicate your rationale for this decision publicly in a way that considers the multiple perceptions of your consumers with understanding and empathy.

I agree mostly with yournpost except for one thing in Rich's perception as a product. If you compare it to all products out there, you will see that this logic fails as often as it succeeds making it unusable.

Say the product is an investment. Is it normal for it depreciate? Let's say it's a house, should it lose value like your 2018 KIA Sorento did? No. Simply no.

That position is completely indefensible. Let's say my vMA bow was a collector's item. It would gain value over time not lose it given normal economic circumstances (COVID is really messing with that right now).

You'll say: "well you can't compare it to a house or an investment" to which I'll simply answer that you can't compare it to a car either.

If you want to compare to anything, compare it to any other item set in the game.

I'll use my examples again:
- doing this is the same as taking perfected relequen, making it available in normal and introducing a new super perfected version, now go re-grind!
- "we're not reducing your current power level". No but you're increasing the power cap which is basically increasing a level cap. Wasn't this NOT supposed to happen?
- imagine the regular blackrose weapons didn't exist and only the perfected. Imagine you're giving the current perfected blackrose to all players and introducing a new perfected black rose. Since you're changing how they work anyways, why aren't you making us re-grind them?

I'll say it again, the scenario would be different with something like a perfected VO. It would-be a new method of acquisition. It's very important because the way gear was acquired is a huge part of the reason why it doesn't make sense to act that way.

Back to VO. That gear set can currently be acquired in both normal and vet difficulty. If you introduced a new perfected VO and perfected AY, it would different because you'd introduce a new way of acquisition. TBH most people, including extremely high-end PvE groups farm normal instances of the trial for their gear so putting perfected versions and locking them to vet difficulty wouldn't be as insulting and disrespectful as let's say, taking our weapons that were acquired in vet content (and ONLY AVAILABLE through vet content), making them the same as the weapons obtainable through normal difficulty and introducing a new version that's available through vet content.

The more just or sensible way of going about it would be: "hey, we want to give less skilled or less experienced people the weapons you got in vet Maelstrom Arena to reduce the power gap but don't worry, we're putting new perfected ones that add a very small bonus and we'll convert your current weapons to the new vet version".

You can't defend your point with 2-way logic and if you can't see that, then you're incapable of justifying your position @ZOS_RichLambert.

BRCOURTN wrote: »

I mean I've run crypt of hearts about 50 times with no ebon lightning staff. There are similar situations with other items. Many people grind city of ash forever for the bsw inferno. Alkosh shield and lightning also sucks as a farm. There's a pretty huge item grind in this game to get exactly what you want.

I still don't have that BSW inferno staff and it ticks me off to no end. I've done almost 40 runs of that dungeon and the only time a BSW inferno staff dropped on those runs was dropped into the hands of a level 46. It was devastating and I lost all hope from that point on. So I'm in agreement with all the people here who did the veteran content, got the veteran weapon, and expect it to stay at a veteran level.

If I had to grind for the weapons I needed, and then the traits were taken off of it and put on a "Perfected" version that I have to regrind, I'd be pretty angry.

CleymenZero wrote: »

I'll use my examples again:
- doing this is the same as taking perfected relequen, making it available in normal and introducing a new super perfected version, now go re-grind!
- "we're not reducing your current power level". No but you're increasing the power cap which is basically increasing a level cap. Wasn't this NOT supposed to happen?
- imagine the regular blackrose weapons didn't exist and only the perfected. Imagine you're giving the current perfected blackrose to all players and introducing a new perfected black rose. Since you're changing how they work anyways, why aren't you making us re-grind them?

The second point is an important distinction. Anyone that can't see that isn't very aware of how the game works and my hope is that the game lead isn't that oblivious. Which would mean he's just spinning, which isn't much better.

If you have an item that is a 10 on a scale of 1-10 and you change the scale to 1-12, then your current item has had something taken away from it. You did make it weaker by moving the goalposts.

In the end, there is just no reason to do it other than as a petty jab at the players and his responses pretty much demonstrate that. He says he's in the same boat, he's one of like 20 people in this game that even like running that content combined with not even being into things like real raid teams, so that's irrelevant. In fact it feels like he just can't understand why people don't love something he enjoys and instead of figuring out how to fix that, just changes things to force people to run it and act like more people enjoy it for his own benefit. Comes off as the neighborhood kid who brings the ball and makes everyone do it his way or he takes his ball and goes home.

He should be more concerned with fixing the game than ticking off players and giving even one player an extra reason to leave the game. Obviously a big influx of newbs (easier for a company to take advantage of as well) will cover for any loss bad decisions cause. Losing 2 but adding 10 is going to look just fine, but not as great as keeping those 2 and adding those 10, or even just one of those two staying around, etc. And anyone that thinks losing players doesn't effect those that were friends of those players that stick it out isn't putting enough thought into the entire situation either. When a player says they are leaving b/c the game isn't doing it for them and a new game caught their eye, you just shrug it off as much as you can, but when they leave because they feel driven out by the staff acting as if they don't care enough to fix performance or because they make changes that feel spiteful, you can't help but understand and see the shortcomings in how the game is being run.

I should also add, that regardless of the dev's opinion, with the how rapidly they are losing veteran players, they couldve just caved in and given us the upgraded weapons as a show of good faith.
Absolutely no reason to be stubborn about it.
Unfortunately, it looks like they are trying to weather the storm by staying silent on the matter, just like they have done with many issues in the past.

Yeah, a slightly more professional interaction would've been a much better look for him. Who knows, maybe the Peter Principle at work.

At the end of the day, it's more the lack of communication that probably has most folks upset rather than the actual change itself. Seems to be a recurring theme.

agegarton wrote: »

I couldn't care less about the weapons - although I certainly understand why some people are unhappy.

However, Lambert's crummy attitude is really interesting. It just seems like a complete lack of any care and some quite astonishing arrogance. If one thing will be root cause of this brilliant game's death, it will be idiot ZoS employees who don't seem to understand that it's the customer base that keeps them going.

How very EA.

100% agreed, I got my yearly ESO+ refunded last month and have not pre-ordered the latest chapter as I am waiting to see if they will actually fix their poor server performance and combat issues before giving them any more of my money and game time. At the moment I’m not having much hope, especially when senior members of their team display this kind of attitude to their customers.

@ZOS_GinaBruno - let Rich Lambert know that he owes this customer an apology. It is quite shameful to treat loyal customers this way. He should be embarrassed at his behaviour, and came across as a petulant teen, not the senior level team member who above all should be respecting customer feedback and providing high quality answers if he decides to take the time out to directly answer our questions. If he cannot control himself, he should stay out of the public eye.

I am sure if one of the customer support agents spoke to a customer in this way they would be reprimanded or even fired, wouldn’t they?

Shameful.

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

heaven13 wrote: »

It comes down to respecting your players' time. Those who farmed the weapons completed the content on vet. U26 will turn their vet rewards into normal rewards. Nothing about the content has changed. Vet weapons should remain vet weapons.

If BiS is not an issue then the issue is that their hard earned weapons will be available to all "peasants".
Now that, while psychologically understandable, is truly laughable.

No.

Adding a normal drop and a "perfected" Vet drop could have been a win-win for everyone. Zos decided to create a win-lose-win situation. Your so called "peasents" get chance to get maelstrom weapons, players who can easily do vetMA get a perfected version for an additional time investment. But those players who lose out the most are the ones who spent weeks, months or longer, getting the weapon they wanted or even on their first completion of content they found very hard, unenjoyable and often bugged and said they would never go back in.

I spent a couple of weeks learning and running vMA, ending up with the weapons I wanted in less than 10 runs. It never felt like an achievement, just a relief it was over.

I can understand disagreeing with ZOS. I can understand even being a bit peeved. But the outrage so many are expressing here is patently uncalled for. It just not that big of a deal.

Folks need to take a chill pill. There are much more important issues in the world. Spend your time, energy, and emotional investment protesting them.

MurderMostFoul wrote: »

I can understand disagreeing with ZOS. I can understand even being a bit peeved. But the outrage so many are expressing here is patently uncalled for. It just not that big of a deal.

Folks need to take a chill pill. There are much more important issues in the world. Spend your time, energy, and emotional investment protesting them.

As gaming is often an outlet for many, you don't want to come to play a game with the knowledge that things could've been done in a better way. There are already so many performance issues that players just don't want to have to have things taken away.

The fact that the developper can't properly justify his decision is an important point.

What does it take to have current MA and DSA weapons? Complete veteran content.

What will it take to get the perfected versions? Complete veteran content.

It's a hard decision to accept when you have 2 prime examples in front of you those being vAS HM and vBRP. Why not modify current weapons to perfected and let the less experienced players obtain the normal ones when patch drops? It's a position that cannot be very well defended and that's why a lot of players are upset.

Those that think this has to do with elitism are really off the track on this one...

CleymenZero wrote: »

anitajoneb17_ESO wrote: »

If BiS is not an issue then the issue is that their hard earned weapons will be available to all "peasants".

The only peasant thing about this issue is the idea that it's about elitism.

Those ideas might come from the minds of individuals excluded from groups because of lack of competence.

While I agree that the core issue isn't about lording vet weapons over anyone, can you at least take a step back and reflect on how condescending that sweeping generalization sounds?

I understand nobody likes being called elitist or entitled, but nobody likes to be called incompetent either. We're all here to play games and have fun. Please stop with the name-calling and loaded language. It's not helpful.

Wow, this is a heated thread.

I've been thinking for a while about where I stand on this, and I've come to the conclusion that there isn't a good option. Either way is introducing a dangerous precedent, and there's a lot of hostility from all sides here.

I'll preface this by saying that I really have no feeling one way or the other. I'm still pretty new, so even nMA seems pretty daunting. I'm also not the type to go chasing after specific weapon sets to chase a meta (and even if I were, the BRP and Master's SnB are more to my playstyle, the MA one is a skill I don't use as often). Besides, I know I'd have to grind it twice since I'd need a sword and a shield, so that adds another level of 'ugh' to that.

I'm sure it would have been easy to change the current weapons to 'perfected,' and add a new set of drops in nMA. That would have solved that problem right away. The current state of boosting the rewards for nMA to current vMA and the vMA rewards to a new version seems unfair to the current players who have grinded vMA to get their desired weapon and golded it out. The fact that they're doing this does seem to introduce the precedent of "Well, we'll get any vet gear (like monster helms) to drop in normal, and you all have to grind it again to get the perfect one!"

But switching it over also introduces a dangerous precedent as well - if you run a dungeon once, does that guarantee you the rewards for all time? Consider the example of them adding 'perfect Monster Helms,' so the regular ones now drop from normal dungeons. Does that mean that every person who's ever run nFGI gets Kra'gh mailed to them? After all, they did the content, so should they not get the reward since it is now dropping something? Taking this to the MA debate, I never see anyone claiming that anyone with the "Maelstrom Arena Champion" achievement (nMA clear) should have a random Maelstrom weapon mailed to them since that achievement will come with a new weapon starting tomorrow. I'm sure what they're trying to avoid is all of the support threads of "I did content XYZ and now it drops ABC so I deserve it" like you see when the cashier at the Walmart tells someone that their coupon expired last week.

And yes, MA weapons changed - I think it was in 2017? - so it looks like they got a nerf and then are being buffed back up. But from what I understand, the nerf was changing an enchant to a set bonus, so it's one of those things that could be a nerf or a buff depending on the circumstances. Besides, what about the different people who ran the content in 2016-2017 vs the people who ran it 2018-2019? One set got their weapons changed, the other only ever had the set bonus. If this is considered a "buff it back to what it was before" case, should only the people who ran vMA before 2017 get the upgrades since the later ones never had a nerf in the first place? Definitely makes things more touchy...

Yes, adding motif pages to a dungeon a few months after the fact is a bit of a difference, but it's similar in concept. There wasn't a reward, and now there is. vMA is getting a new reward, but it's easy to see it as a different reward. What's not needed is a dev to be flippant about it, but a PM is also not an official statement either (and shouldn't a PM get permission from all parties befoere being released...?)

I'd have no problem with people getting the MA weapons upgraded. It seems fair to the people who have put in the time and effort to do so. I just see that it's a touchy subject on both sides if people start to feel they're entitled to rewards that are given after the fact - and that's both for the vMA people who feel entitled to the new perfected stuff, and also - in the case they did upgrade - the people who have already done nMA and feel entitled to one now as well who would complain that the vMA's got what they wanted so they should as well. Half of the problems in politics today have to deal with one person putting in time/money/energy to get something, and then others who didn't invest that being offered the same thing - is it right to reward the people who invested in it or the people who need the help and couldn't? And that's all I'm saying on that, since I don't need a political debate.