Caleb wrote:Why are current vMA and vDSA weapons not being upgraded to their perfected versions? They're currently obtained by completing the arenas on vet - same criteria as after the update - which means the new weapons being added to the game are the imperfect versions in the normal arenas.
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:I mean, they're not imperfect. You didn't loose any power with them. Like, the weapons are the same. If we changed the weapons, we would have probably would have upgraded them. But we didn't take any power away from those. We just added a new thing in there, and ultimately, we wanted to make sure that the current weapons were a little bit more accessible for players. A very, very small number of our community were actually able to get through and earn those weapons.
So, when we went in there ... and I actually made the call. Everybody gives Wheeler grief about, "why didn't you upgrade these things?" I was the one that made the call, that said, "no, we're not going to upgrade them, because player's aren't losing any power there." You know, from my point of view - and I run vMA a ton - you know, we got to use these weapons for five years. We didn't lose anything out of there.
If you really have to have the "perfected" in the item name, um, just go run the Maelstrom Arena again. Yes, there's a line there, and yes, I guess it kinda feels arbitrary to some players, and yes, some players don't want to go and do it because they've done it before. I get that. But, again, when you're kinda doing that balancing act, you know, what's more important in the grand scheme of things? And, you know, I made the call of, no, we're not gonna upgrade 'em.
[snip]
He (Wheeler) gets all the hate, and it totally wasn't his call, and he'll never be like, "I didn't make the call, Rich did." He would never do that. So ... um ... yeah. People can blame me for it, which is fine.
[snip]
Yeah, it kinda got lost in the shuffle as well. Like, I know there was a big long post on the forums. Or, several threads on there that got pretty cranky. In general, I try not to respond to cranky threads. But I know the Community Team has been pushing on that to get an official response. So I think they put something up there, but ... um ... honestly it just kinda got lost in the shuffle, from my point of view.
Unattributed wrote:As a project manager myself, I know how dealing with different teams to deliver a project is. How do you personally handle having to find the balance between the clients and the players' expectations and your team's vision?
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:That one's hard to answer in a short amount of time, because it really can kind of go on forever. Really, what it comes down to is:You know, I'm a big fan of using the term, "data informed," and not, "data driven," because you can make data tell you anything. The same data can be looked at by multiple people, and you can all come up with multiple theories, or make it show you that your theory is correct. So kind of taking your intuition, your experiences, and then other people's experiences, and kind of matching that up against the data kinda helps do that.
- having a vision - kind of knowing where we want to go and what we think are the most important things;
- using data - so we have tons of data, tons of analytic data that we can kind of go through; and
- getting feedback from social media and the forums and whatnot - kind of putting those all together to kind of reinforce the direction, and kind of reinforce some of the decisions we're making.
That's how I do things, for the most part. I don't just [say], "I am the hand of God. Do what I tell you 'cause that's what I told you to do." The team generally drives a lot of that stuff, but sometimes, there are decisions where it's just like, "no, we just have to do it this way, and this is why, and sorry, it's not up for debate."
I think we've done a pretty good job overall, of responding to player feedback, and listening to player feedback over the years. I think were kind of one of the best teams in the business at that. I think we could get better at it, but I think we do do a lot, overall.
JaxRogue wrote:how do you filter feedback on social media? From what I see it's all negative
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:<laughs> YES.
It's hard. Some days it's harder than others, for sure. I will say that most people don't complain just for the sake of complaining. There's a nugget of something in there that bothers them, and that's why they're taking the time to complain.
So, I try to look at all of the stuff, and try to see what they're trying ... what they're complaining about. It is difficult at times, when people are just complete and utter ***hats, and they're trying to push your buttons. That stuff will sometimes, well, will generally get ignored.
You know, you can tell me that what I'm doing is wrong, and you hate it. Just tell me why. I know we make mistakes. I know I make mistakes. Just, be constructive about it, in general.
And so, I guess the TL;DR version of that is just, "don't be a jerk." Right? Like, if you're gonna complain about something, and have an issue about something, just be constructive, and it doesn't fall on deaf ears. We'll go, we'll look at it, we'll see what we can do, what we can figure out. Sometimes you might not like the answer or the solution to the thing. But the team does look at it and read over everything.
That one's hard to answer in a short amount of time, because it really can kind of go on forever. Really, what it comes down to is:
having a vision - kind of knowing where we want to go and what we think are the most important things;
using data - so we have tons of data, tons of analytic data that we can kind of go through; and
getting feedback from social media and the forums and whatnot - kind of putting those all together to kind of reinforce the direction, and kind of reinforce some of the decisions we're making.
You know, I'm a big fan of using the term, "data informed," and not, "data driven," because you can make data tell you anything. The same data can be looked at by multiple people, and you can all come up with multiple theories, or make it show you that your theory is correct. So kind of taking your intuition, your experiences, and then other people's experiences, and kind of matching that up against the data kinda helps do that.
.
That's how I do things, for the most part. I don't just [say], "I am the hand of God. Do what I tell you 'cause that's what I told you to do." The team generally drives a lot of that stuff, but sometimes, there are decisions where it's just like, "no, we just have to do it this way, and this is why, and sorry, it's not up for debate."
I think we've done a pretty good job overall, of responding to player feedback, and listening to player feedback over the years. I think were kind of one of the best teams in the business at that. I think we could get better at it, but I think we do do a lot, overall."
A very, very small number of our community were actually able to get through and earn those weapons.
Sorry. The intent was not to mislead. I'm just terrible at naming things. In my defense, there are definitely people who are worse at naming.This topic about attitude of the game development regarding changes have a very misleading title
That's what it sounded like to me at first too, but I think it was just a poor choice of words. When he expounded on it later, it sounded much more like a process of trying to see if there was a disconnect between the community's experiences and his own, or whether they matched.Finedaible wrote: »That one's hard to answer in a short amount of time, because it really can kind of go on forever. Really, what it comes down to is:
having a vision - kind of knowing where we want to go and what we think are the most important things;
using data - so we have tons of data, tons of analytic data that we can kind of go through; and
getting feedback from social media and the forums and whatnot - kind of putting those all together to kind of reinforce the direction, and kind of reinforce some of the decisions we're making.
You know, I'm a big fan of using the term, "data informed," and not, "data driven," because you can make data tell you anything. The same data can be looked at by multiple people, and you can all come up with multiple theories, or make it show you that your theory is correct. So kind of taking your intuition, your experiences, and then other people's experiences, and kind of matching that up against the data kinda helps do that.
.
What I understood from this is that all data and feedback is meaningless to them unless it happens to "reinforce", coincide or validate their own idealism, and any data or feedback which goes against those ideals is a conspiracy theory...
silvereyes wrote: »
But regardless of what he meant, his actions prove that he doesn't give much weight to the community's point of view, at least in the case where it's just a vocal, but small portion of the community.
Please keep topic constructive. Ty.
This topic about attitude of the game development regarding changes have a very misleading title, but I agree that this is how it looks like.
The PTS with the light/heavy attack changes felt like a huge step forwards to many of us, we were very happy for the communication and the fact our input was taken about changes.
But this patch? It was horrible.
we never did get an answer to "why did we have linear gear progression introduced in horizontal gear progression game".
When we did get official answer to the vMA changes, it was way too late.
The "perfected" version of vMA staff has 0% increased damage in optimal group(pen is capped anyway), rendering it as artificial title more than a better gear (putting salt on the wound).
Roaring opportunist that is supposed to be the dps weapon for heavy attack builds, is actually bad on heavy attack builds for 2 reasons
1. it scales only with last tick of lightning/resto staves (the only staves with strong heavy attack because of multiple maelstrom buff)
2. Using it on non off balance periods hurts the bonus time, with the exact same cool down as off balance it makes it possible to miss out on off balance window (heavy attack during off balance, but too early for refresh, next heavy attack is out of off balance window).
Many bugs reported on the PTS pushed live anyway (best example is the bugged excavation... The highlighted feature of greymoor).
Numerous occasions of officials stating that "the servers are holding up fine" pointing towards that they are content with the lagy mess endgame is.
I mean, sure, this patch was a step forward in many ways (like the introduction of maelstrom weapons in nMA) but overall attitude towards feedback? 0/10.
Indeed. Honestly, I think the entire exercise is a great template for everyone going forward.Please keep topic constructive. Ty.
This topic about attitude of the game development regarding changes have a very misleading title, but I agree that this is how it looks like.
The PTS with the light/heavy attack changes felt like a huge step forwards to many of us, we were very happy for the communication and the fact our input was taken about changes.
But this patch? It was horrible.
we never did get an answer to "why did we have linear gear progression introduced in horizontal gear progression game".
When we did get official answer to the vMA changes, it was way too late.
The "perfected" version of vMA staff has 0% increased damage in optimal group(pen is capped anyway), rendering it as artificial title more than a better gear (putting salt on the wound).
Roaring opportunist that is supposed to be the dps weapon for heavy attack builds, is actually bad on heavy attack builds for 2 reasons
1. it scales only with last tick of lightning/resto staves (the only staves with strong heavy attack because of multiple maelstrom buff)
2. Using it on non off balance periods hurts the bonus time, with the exact same cool down as off balance it makes it possible to miss out on off balance window (heavy attack during off balance, but too early for refresh, next heavy attack is out of off balance window).
Many bugs reported on the PTS pushed live anyway (best example is the bugged excavation... The highlighted feature of greymoor).
Numerous occasions of officials stating that "the servers are holding up fine" pointing towards that they are content with the lagy mess endgame is.
I mean, sure, this patch was a step forward in many ways (like the introduction of maelstrom weapons in nMA) but overall attitude towards feedback? 0/10.
I think Code65536 had a massive impact in shedding some light on the potential issues reguarding the proposed LA/HA weave changes.
The nugget in all this, to me:A very, very small number of our community were actually able to get through and earn those weapons.
He's basically saying not enough people got these weapons before this change, so it really doesn't matter.
He has the data. He *knows* how many people got them. I take that he's saying that the people making noise about an upgrade are noisy, but their a very small minority, and he's not that worried about them, relative to the rest of the playerbase.
I wouldn’t say we deserve to wield more influence than other channels of player feedback, but I think those who participate should have some influence. I mean, the feedback channels are there for a reason.VaranisArano wrote: »We're a vocal minority here on the forums. Its easy to think we deserve to wield undue influence simply because we're vocal, and also easy to forget that we're a minority.
Caleb wrote:Why are current vMA and vDSA weapons not being upgraded to their perfected versions? They're currently obtained by completing the arenas on vet - same criteria as after the update - which means the new weapons being added to the game are the imperfect versions in the normal arenas.
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:I mean, they're not imperfect. You didn't loose any power with them. Like, the weapons are the same. If we changed the weapons, we would have probably would have upgraded them. But we didn't take any power away from those. We just added a new thing in there, and ultimately, we wanted to make sure that the current weapons were a little bit more accessible for players. A very, very small number of our community were actually able to get through and earn those weapons.
So, when we went in there ... and I actually made the call. Everybody gives Wheeler grief about, "why didn't you upgrade these things?" I was the one that made the call, that said, "no, we're not going to upgrade them, because player's aren't losing any power there." You know, from my point of view - and I run vMA a ton - you know, we got to use these weapons for five years. We didn't lose anything out of there.
If you really have to have the "perfected" in the item name, um, just go run the Maelstrom Arena again. Yes, there's a line there, and yes, I guess it kinda feels arbitrary to some players, and yes, some players don't want to go and do it because they've done it before. I get that. But, again, when you're kinda doing that balancing act, you know, what's more important in the grand scheme of things? And, you know, I made the call of, no, we're not gonna upgrade 'em.
The new perfected versions have two set bonuses and the ability to be enchanted without losing those bonuses. That has never existed for arena weapons in the game before Greymoor.Wait what? Really? Someone tell me I am missing something here, or is this guy just that out of touch. Because to me it seems like he is literally ignoring such a major point of this issue. The weapons we used to have were the "perfected versions".
I think we've done a pretty good job overall, of responding to player feedback, and listening to player feedback over the years. I think were kind of one of the best teams in the business at that. I think we could get better at it, but I think we do do a lot, overall.
I guess it kinda feels arbitrary to some players, and yes, some players don't want to go and do it because they've done it before. I get that.
silvereyes wrote: »
Indeed. Honestly, I think the entire exercise is a great template for everyone going forward.
I give ZOS massive credit for even coming up with that out-of-cycle PTS feedback round, and I give them even more credit for adjusting their plans based on the feedback. I want to buy whomever came up with that idea a drink.
And, code65536's responses ... where to begin. So thoughtful and professional. I really think they should be the model for most player feedback.
It makes me wonder how different the game would be now if that early-feedback and response model had been implemented years ago, before the Morrowind resource management changes, before skill and gear audits, before race changes, before guild trader multi-bidding....
silvereyes wrote: »
Edit: title changed now. Lmk if that's better.
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:Like, I know there was a big long post on the forums. Or, several threads on there that got pretty cranky. In general, I try not to respond to cranky threads. But I know the Community Team has been pushing on that to get an official response. So I think they put something up there, but ... um ... honestly it just kinda got lost in the shuffle, from my point of view.
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:In general, I try not to respond to cranky threads.
ZOS_RichLambert wrote:So, when we went in there ... and I actually made the call. Everybody gives Wheeler grief about, "why didn't you upgrade these things?" I was the one that made the call, that said, "no, we're not going to upgrade them, because player's aren't losing any power there."
...
He (Wheeler) gets all the hate, and it totally wasn't his call, and he'll never be like, "I didn't make the call, Rich did." He would never do that. So ... um ... yeah. People can blame me for it, which is fine.