Disappointment in TESO Support Team

maddiniiLuna · July 2020

I was thinking that this might belong in the PC Technical Support Section, but realizing it's more of a Feedback then asking for Support i believe this is the right area.

So i have 2 stories to share with you.

I was farming Maelstrom for weeks 3 - 7 times a day on Veteran to get a specific item. On week 3 i was actually concerned, that the Item i was trying to get might be bugged. I mean you can say i'm stupid, but it wouldn't be the first time that something didn't work, when it should, right? So i asked the Support, if that specific item was bugged or not, because i didn't get it. I just wanted to make sure i'm not wasting my time. The first response to the Ticket was "Oh hey you got the item congratulations. Did you know you can get a perfected version on veteran also?". Clearly the Support never cared to even read the Ticket. I responded and said "No i did not and that exactly is the problem. I am wondering, if it was bugged or am i just unlucky?". The second reply then goes "Why don't you just buy it in the Guild Stores?" - Keep in mind this is for MAELSTROM and it clearly says that, as i linked the item multiple times. So they're telling me to go buy a maelstrom Item in the guild store. Do they even play the game? It is in German, but for those that care here is a edited Screenshot of this - auto delete in 1 week.

I had a generally bad stand to the Support after this. I understand some of you think i took it too far in asking, but what if there actually was a bug and they wouldn't have known without somebody asking? But okay, i mean lazyness, copy pase. I don't know why they reacted the way they did but maybe it was just a one-time thing, you know?

It wasn't. So the second time i wrote the Support was over a Real-Life-Matter. Being in Cyrodiil doing my thing, as usual lagging out everywhere and i noticed that while fighting this one dude i'm permanently out of sync. Not because of terrible lagg or whatever but i just couldn't roll dodge, use abilities, etc. You know what i mean, when you experienced it once. You try roll dodge and it just kind of flips to the side, but never rolls and you're in one spot, until you eventually sync up again. This happens to me every once in a while, but fighting this dude it legitimately seemed like he was causing it with some sort of ability or whatever. Reason for that was i was out of desync at least 12 times. TWELVE TIMES! We all know it's a lagg fest, but you got to admit that is very unusual, isn't it? So i recorded my Video to send in, then went back to the inner main gate and the dude messages me in private, starts laughing about me because i left. I explained him i was desync a lot because of something he did and i just recorded my video so i can leave. I'm being very polite and staying calm, trying to not answer or ignore him, but he proceeds to write me. Just as i was about to put him on ignore list he's telling me he will make this Public. He's going to put this on his YouTube channel. I politely asked him to not do this, but he's telling me the Support will laugh about me anyway and that this is definitely going on the Internet. For you this is not a big deal. For me this is terrifying. Why? Because i'm a let's say very anxious person. I've had bad things happen to me. People spitting me in the face is not fun. The last thing i want is for somebody to somehow connect a game character with my person / location / whatever. The Internet never forgets. Something like this just makes me panic, mainly due to past experiences and i'm sorry if you think it's a "minor" but to me it is not. Anyway. I almost immediately wrote the support, asked for help. I send them Screenshots of everything the entire conversation, asking for help to stop this from happening. I get an automated response and then NOTHING. They just completely ignored the Ticket for weeks. I ended up closing it, because obviously he was right. The support doesn't care. They are laughing at me. They are laughing at me and ignoring the fact, that somebody wants to publicly pull me trough the dirt, which can heavily effect my real life.

Again just to make it clear. Appearing in a Video is one thing. There's many different reasons / ways to appear in a Video. To ridicule somebody is something entirely different. YouTube, Twitch and co have shown over and over how bad these things can get.

If you ask me, what did i expect. Ban them? I understand, that you do not want to ban him for simply "saying something". However it was more then in their power to issue a Warning at least, which could have scared him off from this type of behavior. In the very least i would have expected an answer to the Ticket i created. Something like we're looking in to this! Or whatever. Anything is better then saying nothing, right?

In the long term it's safe to say, that the Support neither knows the game, nor cares about their players. The evidence is there.

//EDIT:
After they read this Topic they actually responded to my Ticket(s), which was really nice. It was a "human" answer, made me feel a bit better about the whole situation. I wish they'd answer all tickets like that.

Dusk_Coven · July 2020

I've had tickets that were basically what you describe -- even when a live person attends to the ticket, it's like they didn't even read it. E.g., When I had a question about Hirelings and they cut and paste me something about Alliance War rewards. I asked something about Gifting and based on their response it was clear they don't even know how Gifting works.

I did get several tickets escalated to make comments and complaints about how they were handled but all the person could say was "I'll forward it but you won't get a response because we don't reveal the results of our investigations". So there's really no way of knowing if nothing is done at all. All people are left with is seeing no action, so we are right to suspect that in fact nothing has been done.

In SWTOR and TERA and FFXIV, my tickets were handled correctly the first time, every time, by a live person.
TERA even asks you to rate how every ticket is handled, even basic bug reports that got a standard reply.
What ESO doesn't understand is that a correctly handled ticket saves time even though it costs more time initially to carefully read and understand the ticket. Incorrectly handled tickets just multiples the number of tickets because every mishandling generates another ticket/response that has to be handled.

Definitely report that second case. They were scared that you'd report so they tried to intimidate you. Right away that's suspicious.

zvavi · July 2020

I had only one ticket in ESO that felt like I actually got human support. And that's after few explanatory send backs. Some didn't even get an answer.

Elsonso · July 2020

Not an unsurprising story, to be honest.

valeriiya · July 2020

I play on PS4 and submitted a ticket for something
The response I got back had instructions for a PC. I gave up.

Kurat · July 2020

This is why it takes so long for support to get back to us. They get insane amount of bs tickets. [snip] There are people who really need help like they cant play at all coz of some technical or account issue etc.
To OP. When you were farming vMA weapon and had some questions, doubts - ask others in forum. Why go to support and then get upset. This is why forums exist.
And the second issue you had is just drama. Just ignore the harasser and report him if you think he was cheating/glitching. Ignore list is also there for a reason.

[Edited to remove Baiting]

volkeswagon · July 2020

all support tickets get put in a queue based on what it is about. You receive an automated response and in order to escalate it so that a real person reviews it you need to reply to it. Support is backed up right now. Just curious. Why did he say he was gonna post on his youtube. Is it because it was humourous to watch the bugs?

SmukkeHeks · July 2020

I reported a player over a year ago, responded to the automatic answer, got none back. That player is still on. Still doing what I reported.
Reported another, no more than a year ago. That player is still on, still doing their thang.
Reported a third three weeks ago. Yes, that person is still on.
All the bugs. No answer. No fix. I can travel through a zone, find something I reported over a year ago. For some cases, several years.
They can’t even get their charge back to accounts up and running after covid19.

I have five different global organizations in my portfolio. All of them are present at at least two different continents. All of them are consumer directed. All of them have millions of customers. The slowest rate of redefining work processes, get it up and running, locate and identify issues and create execute for solutions, took a week and a half. But none of them are run from the us....

I’m assuming, it’s much more important to nurse streamers, than to make sure everyone is having their fun. It’s sure is much more important to keep up appearances, than to admit they are way in over their heads.

jm42 · July 2020

Kurat wrote: »

This is why it takes so long for support to get back to us. They get insane amount of bs tickets. [snip] There are people who really need help like they cant play at all coz of some technical or account issue etc.
To OP. When you were farming vMA weapon and had some questions, doubts - ask others in forum. Why go to support and then get upset. This is why forums exist.
And the second issue you had is just drama. Just ignore the harasser and report him if you think he was cheating/glitching. Ignore list is also there for a reason.

that's not possible, that's just how internet works. every person can enter and write what they want. so every internet-based company must be ready to some strange messages/reports and be ready to filtre that from real problems. I guess we pay them enough money to have decent support team, I even don't mind if it will be only in English but really working

Blacknight841 · July 2020

jm42 wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

This is why it takes so long for support to get back to us. They get insane amount of bs tickets. [snip] There are people who really need help like they cant play at all coz of some technical or account issue etc.
To OP. When you were farming vMA weapon and had some questions, doubts - ask others in forum. Why go to support and then get upset. This is why forums exist.
And the second issue you had is just drama. Just ignore the harasser and report him if you think he was cheating/glitching. Ignore list is also there for a reason.

that's not possible, that's just how internet works. every person can enter and write what they want. so every internet-based company must be ready to some strange messages/reports and be ready to filtre that from real problems. I guess we pay them enough money to have decent support team, I even don't mind if it will be only in English but really working

You can't avoid cheaters... bots are everywhere, bot buyers are everywhere, gold buyers and sellers are everywhere. The terms of service is a two way street. The user agree to uphold its integrity, and zenimax agrees to uphold the integrity of the system. If they cannot, or chose not to enforce the terms of service to keep the game fair, then why have the terms of service at all. given the times that we are living in, nothing is more disappointing about this game than the lack of care of zenimax has presented in their approach to keeping the toxicity and the cheating down in the game. It is truly unfortunate that the company does nothing about the minor problems until become overwhelming issues. [snip]

"Event the smallest pebble will cast a ripple across an entire lake."

[Edited to remove Inappropriate Content]

jm42 · July 2020

Blacknight841 wrote: »

nothing is more disappointing about this game than the lack of care of zenimax has presented in their approach to keeping the toxicity and the cheating down in the game

One day I entered vSCP through AF. After loadscreen I immidiately asked "Hey, have you ever been here guys?" because you know how hard this dungeon is and I wanted to provide explanations or see if it worth it if they won't do mechs after I explained it. I got a reply "omg you so rude now ppl will be scared to say that they not done it before". I was just "wat?" and left.
So don't talk about toxicity like that, we all now that there are plenty of ppl who get offended by just anything.

SweepsAllClowns · July 2020

Blacknight841 wrote: »

You can't avoid cheaters... bots are everywhere, bot buyers are everywhere, gold buyers and sellers are everywhere. The terms of service is a two way street. The user agree to uphold its integrity, and zenimax agrees to uphold the integrity of the system. If they cannot, or chose not to enforce the terms of service to keep the game fair, then why have the terms of service at all. given the times that we are living in, nothing is more disappointing about this game than the lack of care of zenimax has presented in their approach to keeping the toxicity and the cheating down in the game. It is truly unfortunate that the company does nothing about the minor problems until become overwhelming issues. [snip]

"Event the smallest pebble will cast a ripple across an entire lake."

Much wisdom and truth here indeed.

Dusk_Coven · July 2020

Red_Feather wrote: »

[Quoted post was removed]

It's not fair to expect everyone they hired to play enough of the game to know it inside out.
But I think it's fair that they at least make an honest effort to find out the answer AND verify that the answer they are going to give is correct, before just typing in anything in response.
Honestly, it can't be that hard to have at least ONE resource person in the call center who has actually played the game and who has a computer they can log into, to fact check.

Thoragaal · July 2020

maddiniiLuna wrote: »

[...]
In the long term it's safe to say, that the Support neither knows the game, nor cares about their players. The evidence is there.

Unfortunately I've had a similar experience with the support where they don't even reply to the subject at hand. It's like they have different people dealing with the same ticket after it's been updated. Or like they don't bother reading the previous updates for context. And I don't know why other games manage to handle these things so much more effecient than ESO.

About your anxiety, I'm sorry. I truly hope you get better and that you don't close yourself off due to it.

VoluptaBox · July 2020

On a positive note, support has always been excellent every time I had any kind of issue. I did experience longer response times lately, but nothing catastrophic or unexpected.

agegarton · July 2020

There's a support team??

I thought it was just an auto-email responder.

maddiniiLuna · July 2020

Kurat wrote: »

This is why it takes so long for support to get back to us. They get insane amount of bs tickets. [snip] There are people who really need help like they cant play at all coz of some technical or account issue etc.
To OP. When you were farming vMA weapon and had some questions, doubts - ask others in forum. Why go to support and then get upset. This is why forums exist.
And the second issue you had is just drama. Just ignore the harasser and report him if you think he was cheating/glitching. Ignore list is also there for a reason.

There is a good reason, why i avoid typing these things in forums, unless there is an option and you are the perfect example. Over the past year the forum has been filled with an overwhelming amount of bashers.

To call things like "mental health" and "cat died etc" bs is simply disgusting. I might be twisting words here, but i'm pretty sure that's exactly how you meant it. Nobody opens a ticket because their cat died and making fun out of this i don't even know what to say. Then people even hit the "Agree"- Button. Unbelievable.

When i first entered the Forums there was only the odd troll that came along every now and then. Nothing major. Dev's very rarely edited posts to snip out content. Now it's an every day thing that you experience in every second topic. The community has become more and more toxic and then you wonder, why i prefer to send a Ticket rather then going on here?

redgreensunset · July 2020

maddiniiLuna wrote: »

Kurat wrote: »

This is why it takes so long for support to get back to us. They get insane amount of bs tickets. [snip] There are people who really need help like they cant play at all coz of some technical or account issue etc.
To OP. When you were farming vMA weapon and had some questions, doubts - ask others in forum. Why go to support and then get upset. This is why forums exist.
And the second issue you had is just drama. Just ignore the harasser and report him if you think he was cheating/glitching. Ignore list is also there for a reason.

There is a good reason, why i avoid typing these things in forums, unless there is an option and you are the perfect example. Over the past year the forum has been filled with an overwhelming amount of bashers.

To call things like "mental health" and "cat died etc" bs is simply disgusting. I might be twisting words here, but i'm pretty sure that's exactly how you meant it. Nobody opens a ticket because their cat died and making fun out of this i don't even know what to say. Then people even hit the "Agree"- Button. Unbelievable.

When i first entered the Forums there was only the odd troll that came along every now and then. Nothing major. Dev's very rarely edited posts to snip out content. Now it's an every day thing that you experience in every second topic. The community has become more and more toxic and then you wonder, why i prefer to send a Ticket rather then going on here?

I was going to leave this lie ans give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you think people don't open support tickets for surious reasons or even just completely unrelated reasons, you've never worked support. I have and the stories I could tell you.

As for the video situation I'm still totally at a loss what you thought support could possibly do about a person saying, saying mind, that they'd put up a video dragging your pvp skills on another platform. Warning for what? *** talking in game? I have to tell you that unless it involved death theats, sucide baiting or calling you slurs it falls under "gamers being gamers" because support could do nothing else but issue warnings if every case of *** talking another player should merit a response.

Another thing to several other people who commented on this. You all seem to have no idea what a support person is there for, or how little they're paid.

maddiniiLuna · July 2020

redgreensunset wrote: »

I was going to leave this lie ans give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you think people don't open support tickets for surious reasons or even just completely unrelated reasons, you've never worked support. I have and the stories I could tell you.

As for the video situation I'm still totally at a loss what you thought support could possibly do about a person saying, saying mind, that they'd put up a video dragging your pvp skills on another platform. Warning for what? *** talking in game? I have to tell you that unless it involved death theats, sucide baiting or calling you slurs it falls under "gamers being gamers" because support could do nothing else but issue warnings if every case of *** talking another player should merit a response.

Another thing to several other people who commented on this. You all seem to have no idea what a support person is there for, or how little they're paid.

I have not even indicated, that there is no serious Tickets. With no words have i mentioned, said or hinted anything like this. Then you tell me it's a lie for something i've never said or intended to say?

As for the video situation. People can be banned for teabagging and you're telling me ZOS can not do anything to protect my Privacy, which they are bound to do so? That seems unlikely.

Dusk_Coven · July 2020

redgreensunset wrote: »

As for the video situation I'm still totally at a loss what you thought support could possibly do about a person saying, saying mind, that they'd put up a video dragging your pvp skills on another platform. Warning for what? *** talking in game? I have to tell you that unless it involved death theats, sucide baiting or calling you slurs it falls under "gamers being gamers" because support could do nothing else but issue warnings if every case of *** talking another player should merit a response.

The situation the OP described was certainly harrassment especially in how far they were willing to go. Maybe ZOS can't affect the outcome of their actions on a third party site but they can prevent that person from doing it to anyone else with a permanent ban and a recommendation of the same across all ZOS properties.

redgreensunset wrote: »

Another thing to several other people who commented on this. You all seem to have no idea what a support person is there for, or how little they're paid.

When you hear stories like how ZOS customer service answers tickets, the answer is "they are paid too much". Even if they are volunteering they are actually costing the company in reputation. Customer service should not be there to make things worse.
I've played other games and far and away ESO's customer service is so much worse it's unbelievable. At least in other games they actually read the ticket first.

redgreensunset · July 2020

maddiniiLuna wrote: »

redgreensunset wrote: »

I was going to leave this lie ans give you the benefit of the doubt, but if you think people don't open support tickets for surious reasons or even just completely unrelated reasons, you've never worked support. I have and the stories I could tell you.

As for the video situation I'm still totally at a loss what you thought support could possibly do about a person saying, saying mind, that they'd put up a video dragging your pvp skills on another platform. Warning for what? *** talking in game? I have to tell you that unless it involved death theats, sucide baiting or calling you slurs it falls under "gamers being gamers" because support could do nothing else but issue warnings if every case of *** talking another player should merit a response.

Another thing to several other people who commented on this. You all seem to have no idea what a support person is there for, or how little they're paid.

I have not even indicated, that there is no serious Tickets. With no words have i mentioned, said or hinted anything like this. Then you tell me it's a lie for something i've never said or intended to say?

As for the video situation. People can be banned for teabagging and you're telling me ZOS can not do anything to protect my Privacy, which they are bound to do so? That seems unlikely.

What privacy? You're bunch of pixels with no real life information. Or if there is it's your own damn responsiblity for puttinf it there in the first place.
Only tea bagging ban I heard of was someone who did so repeatedly in an ochestrated harassment campaign against a streamer. And it wasn't the tea baggin per se they were banned for but tprather a repeated case of stream snipjng, which also involved tea bagging. If there has been any other could you direct me to them, because while crude behavior banning someone for that in a one off incident is extremely exessive and I'd have a much bigger issue with a support that abused its power like that.

And frankly I have never come across a support that would take a single occurence as harassment unless extreme (as I said, death threats, slurs, stuff like that). Especially as there seems to be no evidence this *** actually did any of the things they threatened. Unless I misunderstand your contact to support was "this *** (and make not mistake I do think he is a ***) threatened to put a video with negative comments about me about a pvp battle we had on youtube". Did he even do this?

Elsonso · July 2020

SmukkeHeks wrote: »

I have five different global organizations in my portfolio. All of them are present at at least two different continents. All of them are consumer directed. All of them have millions of customers. The slowest rate of redefining work processes, get it up and running, locate and identify issues and create execute for solutions, took a week and a half. But none of them are run from the us....

This is not a "United States" thing, so do not go there.

jm42 wrote: »

every person can enter and write what they want. so every internet-based company must be ready to some strange messages/reports and be ready to filtre that from real problems.

Hopefully, ZOS will get to this point in a way that improves customer support.

Dusk_Coven wrote: »

When you hear stories like how ZOS customer service answers tickets, the answer is "they are paid too much". Even if they are volunteering they are actually costing the company in reputation. Customer service should not be there to make things worse.

I cannot say what is wrong with customer support, but the people who are responding to the tickets are the last people I lay blame upon. It does not matter how much they get paid, or what nationality or culture they are. They are not the source of the problem.

Kadoin · July 2020

If you are a very anxious person, how is that the fault of the other player posting a YT vid or support? What do you want them to do, DMCA strike his YT video or attempt to strong-arm him for your sanity? ZOS would be dealing with a huge backlash if they ever did something like that, so it's good they did not.

As for the player making you desync, it's not his fault, but the fault that certain skills occurring at the same time generate bugs that prevent you from casting skills and/or being targeted. I'm not going to list the conditions, but I can say that it's something that would happen in regular combat and doubt anyone would abuse such a bug...I hope.

what_the · July 2020

maddiniiLuna wrote: »

I was thinking that this might belong in the PC Technical Support Section, but realizing it's more of a Feedback then asking for Support i believe this is the right area.

So i have 2 stories to share with you.

I was farming Maelstrom for weeks 3 - 7 times a day on Veteran to get a specific item. On week 3 i was actually concerned, that the Item i was trying to get might be bugged. I mean you can say i'm stupid, but it wouldn't be the first time that something didn't work, when it should, right? So i asked the Support, if that specific item was bugged or not, because i didn't get it. I just wanted to make sure i'm not wasting my time. The first response to the Ticket was "Oh hey you got the item congratulations. Did you know you can get a perfected version on veteran also?". Clearly the Support never cared to even read the Ticket. I responded and said "No i did not and that exactly is the problem. I am wondering, if it was bugged or am i just unlucky?". The second reply then goes "Why don't you just buy it in the Guild Stores?" - Keep in mind this is for MAELSTROM and it clearly says that, as i linked the item multiple times. So they're telling me to go buy a maelstrom Item in the guild store. Do they even play the game? It is in German, but for those that care here is a edited Screenshot of this - auto delete in 1 week.

So...you are wasting the support team's time because you didn't get the drop you wanted yet, when they could be spending that time helping folks who have actual problems? No wonder they are backlogged with tickets.

Elsonso · July 2020

what_the wrote: »

So...you are wasting the support team's time because you didn't get the drop you wanted yet, when they could be spending that time helping folks who have actual problems? No wonder they are backlogged with tickets.

As customers, it is not our job to think like this. We can, if we want, but it is not our responsibility to sit down and consider what Customer Support will feel is important, or a good use of time. If we have what we consider to be a suitable request of Customer Support, that is good enough to justify making the request.

Both of the requests in the OP are valid, as far as I am concerned, and should be answered in a timely matter by Customer Support.