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Can we get an honest post-mortem about why Markarth went live with so many serious bugs?
Calm_Fury
✭✭✭✭✭
First, I want to say I love this game. More than any other game I've ever played. I want it to succeed and I've been promoting it for friends since 2015. I want ESO to last for years and years.
Second, I know we are in the middle of a pandemic and I work in software, so I understand that, sometimes, there is a business case to justify launching software you know is buggy because the benefits justifies the downsides.
But this patch was just too much. Too many fundamental things broke. Animations, basics about combat, dozens of instance dungeon/arenas are basically or literally unplayable right now. What is more worrisome is that several of those very serious bugs were reported in the first weeks of PTS. They were known for a full month before launch date.
What is going on? Why did Markarth still went live with so many issues?
This was one of the patches that generated the most excitement from everyone I know in the recent years. The Set Collection is an awesome feature. My "ESO bubble" was tremendously excited about VH. Then they logged in and all excitement became disappointment.
Honestly, the last time I saw this much excitement turn into the other side of the spectrum to disappointment that quickly was when Morrowind patch notes dropped. Everyone was in awe of the Morrowind announcement, then all the nerfs came in the notes. The result was that the end game scene suffered such a big hit that I don't think it has ever recovered.
I get the same feeling with Markarth. So many people were, finally, so excited about a patch. A patch with awesome new features, great updates, very reasonable changes and a great new, interesting mythic set... Then we logged in.
I'm not saying we "demand" or even "deserve" an answer or explanation. I'm not entitled like that. At all. But we can all see of the most loyal players are totally disappointed at the current state of the game and the quality of this patch.
As I said in other posts, if the issue is resources, hire more or try to do less. I'm sure all the community would be completely understanding if we went to a 3-patch cycle to slow things down a little and increase the QA of new patches.
Please, ZOS, Rich... Tell us, honestly, what happened? What can you do so this doesn't happen again at this stage of the game's life?
Second, I know we are in the middle of a pandemic and I work in software, so I understand that, sometimes, there is a business case to justify launching software you know is buggy because the benefits justifies the downsides.
But this patch was just too much. Too many fundamental things broke. Animations, basics about combat, dozens of instance dungeon/arenas are basically or literally unplayable right now. What is more worrisome is that several of those very serious bugs were reported in the first weeks of PTS. They were known for a full month before launch date.
What is going on? Why did Markarth still went live with so many issues?
This was one of the patches that generated the most excitement from everyone I know in the recent years. The Set Collection is an awesome feature. My "ESO bubble" was tremendously excited about VH. Then they logged in and all excitement became disappointment.
Honestly, the last time I saw this much excitement turn into the other side of the spectrum to disappointment that quickly was when Morrowind patch notes dropped. Everyone was in awe of the Morrowind announcement, then all the nerfs came in the notes. The result was that the end game scene suffered such a big hit that I don't think it has ever recovered.
I get the same feeling with Markarth. So many people were, finally, so excited about a patch. A patch with awesome new features, great updates, very reasonable changes and a great new, interesting mythic set... Then we logged in.
I'm not saying we "demand" or even "deserve" an answer or explanation. I'm not entitled like that. At all. But we can all see of the most loyal players are totally disappointed at the current state of the game and the quality of this patch.
As I said in other posts, if the issue is resources, hire more or try to do less. I'm sure all the community would be completely understanding if we went to a 3-patch cycle to slow things down a little and increase the QA of new patches.
Please, ZOS, Rich... Tell us, honestly, what happened? What can you do so this doesn't happen again at this stage of the game's life?
78
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Xebov✭✭✭✭✭
✭From my experience its that: Alot of players give Feedback about gameplay changes, but most of them are just theory crafting and only a few ppl spend time on the PTS in the first place, so actual bug reports and testing are sparse to begin with. This leaves most of the testing to the internal test teams. The problem is that the live servers are much much bigger compared to the test servers and this can lead to bugs along the way that are the result of code not scalling that well when brought into bigger systems. A good example for this is the dungeon finder and its bug with heavy load that are hard to track and hard to simulate.
From my perspective this update is not much worse compared to other updates in the past. There is just the bad luck that the bugs effected more players this time compared to bugs in the past that only effected limited numbers of players.11 -
Calm_Fury✭✭✭✭✭From my experience its that: Alot of players give Feedback about gameplay changes, but most of them are just theory crafting and only a few ppl spend time on the PTS in the first place, so actual bug reports and testing are sparse to begin with. This leaves most of the testing to the internal test teams. The problem is that the live servers are much much bigger compared to the test servers and this can lead to bugs along the way that are the result of code not scalling that well when brought into bigger systems. A good example for this is the dungeon finder and its bug with heavy load that are hard to track and hard to simulate.
From my perspective this update is not much worse compared to other updates in the past. There is just the bad luck that the bugs effected more players this time compared to bugs in the past that only effected limited numbers of players.
I agree with you for sure, but this animation/light attack bug was report in the first or second week of PTS, if I remember correctly.
And it was reported multiple times. I remember seeing at least 3 videos from Alcast doing vVH where he complained about it. I think Masel also said in a post here that some Class Reps repeatedly brought this up to ZOS' attention.
I totally understand bugs going live. However, as I said, Markarth was just too much. Too many game breaking bugs went live.
Something has to be going on...30 -
Vlad9425✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...65 -
Calm_Fury✭✭✭✭✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...
I'm not trying to be a white knight or anything but I'm going to defend ZOS here... I think that they people that are actually involved with ESO care about the playerbase... And care a lot, not just a little bit.
I think the whole reason this happened is mostly resources. And I'd bet money that there is someone higher up pushing that update cadence without caring about quality or something like that.
I do not believe Rich and the other people involved in this game's direction are happy about making updates that are known to have bugs live.
That is why I think we need a post-mortem. There has to be some other explanation other than just "ZOS doesn't care about players" for this to happen.
I'm usually an optimist person. My hope is that someone from ZOS will come here an say:
"We messed up. We know this update had more bugs than we wish and we are going to do this, this and this to make sure this does not happen again".
The only thing I know is that this is not normal. You can't release a patch that breaks so many obvious things that were known for so long without a very good justification for that.11 -
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...
They always talk about "The Vision," unfortunately the vision doesn't include the players. They talk alot about balancing things on the spreadsheet.... meeting "standards" and whatnot.... but there never seems to be a fair balance.
Also when you promise performance updates, but performance, crashes, and bugs only seem to be worse than ever before, it hurts your credibility.
Everybody wants the game to succeed, and everybody would like a smooth and engaging gaming experience. But when things are constantly being tinkered with and leaving the game in a worse state than before, it's hard to stay positive and motivated to log in every day. Instead of looking forward to what's coming in the future, folks are cringing and holding their breath with each patch, waiting to see what new problems they have to deal with next.32 -
Calm_Fury✭✭✭✭✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...
They always talk about "The Vision," unfortunately the vision doesn't include the players. They talk alot about balancing things on the spreadsheet.... meeting "standards" and whatnot.... but there never seems to be a fair balance.
Also when you promise performance updates, but performance, crashes, and bugs only seem to be worse than ever before, it hurts your credibility.
Everybody wants the game to succeed, and everybody would like a smooth and engaging gaming experience. But when things are constantly being tinkered with and leaving the game in a worse state than before, it's hard to stay positive and motivated to log in every day. Instead of looking forward to what's coming in the future, folks are cringing and holding their breath with each patch, waiting to see what new problems they have to deal with next.
As I said before, I don't think the intention is to exclude players. The people involved in the game know that, without players, there is no game.
They are just trying to do way too much with too few people. So many platforms supported.
Scale down. In 2021, let's do just 3 big patches. 1 dungeon, 1 chapter, 1 small zone. Let's see how it goes.
I honestly think the "standardization" is a path to Spellcrafting which, honestly, if done right, would be a MAJOR feature to the game. To revitalize it like never before.5 -
Xebov✭✭✭✭✭
✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...
They always talk about "The Vision," unfortunately the vision doesn't include the players. They talk alot about balancing things on the spreadsheet.... meeting "standards" and whatnot.... but there never seems to be a fair balance.
Also when you promise performance updates, but performance, crashes, and bugs only seem to be worse than ever before, it hurts your credibility.
Everybody wants the game to succeed, and everybody would like a smooth and engaging gaming experience. But when things are constantly being tinkered with and leaving the game in a worse state than before, it's hard to stay positive and motivated to log in every day. Instead of looking forward to what's coming in the future, folks are cringing and holding their breath with each patch, waiting to see what new problems they have to deal with next.
Balance will never be finished no matter how hard you try. Someone will always have the short end of the stick. The spreadsheet balancing of the last Patches is still a good things because it helps structure things to make it easier to deal with it. After all the game constantly expands on Sets, Skills and effects.
What you also shouldnt forget when it comes to Bugs is the Codebase of the game. It was likely not designed with the idea of supporting it for years to come and they might have to deal with results of choices that someone did years ago that they have to work with. Given the duration and size of the project it still works relatively well.0 -
Calm_Fury✭✭✭✭✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...
They always talk about "The Vision," unfortunately the vision doesn't include the players. They talk alot about balancing things on the spreadsheet.... meeting "standards" and whatnot.... but there never seems to be a fair balance.
Also when you promise performance updates, but performance, crashes, and bugs only seem to be worse than ever before, it hurts your credibility.
Everybody wants the game to succeed, and everybody would like a smooth and engaging gaming experience. But when things are constantly being tinkered with and leaving the game in a worse state than before, it's hard to stay positive and motivated to log in every day. Instead of looking forward to what's coming in the future, folks are cringing and holding their breath with each patch, waiting to see what new problems they have to deal with next.
Balance will never be finished no matter how hard you try. Someone will always have the short end of the stick. The spreadsheet balancing of the last Patches is still a good things because it helps structure things to make it easier to deal with it. After all the game constantly expands on Sets, Skills and effects.
What you also shouldnt forget when it comes to Bugs is the Codebase of the game. It was likely not designed with the idea of supporting it for years to come and they might have to deal with results of choices that someone did years ago that they have to work with. Given the duration and size of the project it still works relatively well.
This game has, supposedly, cost over $200 million dollars (https://www.gamingreality.com/2014/01/the-elder-scrolls-online-has-cost-200.html) and a 7-year development period (https://www.wikiwand.com/en/The_Elder_Scrolls_Online).
Say what you want, but saying that the game was not designed to be supported for many years to come is just not true.
An MMO with this franchise, with this money and this time is not made to last less than 10 years.18 -
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭As I said before, I don't think the intention is to exclude players. The people involved in the game know that, without players, there is no game.
Feedback from the PTS is 90% or more ignored, even about serious bugs that are pushed to the live server. And I'm not speaking about the latest patch only. It's been that way for years. And I didn't even mention the increasingly aggressive push towards microtransaction revenue. How can players feel like they are taken seriously in such a climate? When they take away skills that you have enjoyed for years, and then introduce crown store solutions to help you get said skills back faster, what are we to think? Most players are intelligent, and perfectly capable of observing and evaluating trends. Look at the number of negative threads compared to positive threads here on the forums, and ask yourself why things are like that?
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Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Balance will never be finished no matter how hard you try. Someone will always have the short end of the stick. The spreadsheet balancing of the last Patches is still a good things because it helps structure things to make it easier to deal with it. After all the game constantly expands on Sets, Skills and effects
So why are there so many threads complaining about proc sets, then? And more and more overpowered sets are being released all the time. The high APM folks are decrying the dumbing down of combat.... but the proc machine keeps on rolling out more goodies all the time.
Make a poll here asking "Are proc sets balanced?" and see what happens. I already know how that will turn out. Yes, the majority will be on the short end of the stick.
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Calm_Fury✭✭✭✭✭As I said before, I don't think the intention is to exclude players. The people involved in the game know that, without players, there is no game.
Feedback from the PTS is 90% or more ignored, even about serious bugs that are pushed to the live server. And I'm not speaking about the latest patch only. It's been that way for years. And I didn't even mention the increasingly aggressive push towards microtransaction revenue. How can players feel like they are taken seriously in such a climate? When they take away skills that you have enjoyed for years, and then introduce crown store solutions to help you get said skills back faster, what are we to think? Most players are intelligent, and perfectly capable of observing and evaluating trends. Look at the number of negative threads compared to positive threads here on the forums, and ask yourself why things are like that?
I don't disagree with you on that fact. At all.
I disagree on the motive. I don't think they ignore the feedback because they are malicious or don't care. At least the people that are actually, hands-on involved in the game. I think they "ignore" it because they simply do not have enough people to address it all in the time they have allotted before launch.6 -
Jaraal✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭As I said before, I don't think the intention is to exclude players. The people involved in the game know that, without players, there is no game.
Feedback from the PTS is 90% or more ignored, even about serious bugs that are pushed to the live server. And I'm not speaking about the latest patch only. It's been that way for years. And I didn't even mention the increasingly aggressive push towards microtransaction revenue. How can players feel like they are taken seriously in such a climate? When they take away skills that you have enjoyed for years, and then introduce crown store solutions to help you get said skills back faster, what are we to think? Most players are intelligent, and perfectly capable of observing and evaluating trends. Look at the number of negative threads compared to positive threads here on the forums, and ask yourself why things are like that?
I don't disagree with you on that fact. At all.
I disagree on the motive. I don't think they ignore the feedback because they are malicious or don't care. At least the people that are actually, hands-on involved in the game. I think they "ignore" it because they simply do not have enough people to address it all in the time they have allotted before launch.
I don't think malicious is an appropriate word for what I'm trying to describe. And I think they do care...... but mostly about the vision..... which doesn't often concide with most players' vision of a top-notch gaming experience. Also, if you are running your own business, how much value would you put in your professional reputation? Would you like to be known for pushing defective products out to meet deadlines, or would you assign resources to make sure everything works, based upon not only your own internal testing, but free volunteer testing (PTS) that often catches the things your in-house team may have missed? And if defects do make it out, do you hotfix your store first so people can spend more money faster, or do you focus on the products your customers have already paid for so that they are happy with the investments they have already made in your business?
Every action has a reaction, and not much gets past the players unnoticed. The game is a business, after all. Brand recognition should be important, and corners should not be cut when it comes to maintaining brand reputation.
Edited by Jaraal on November 7, 2020 1:53AM6 -
ShawnLaRock✭✭✭✭✭
✭I am wondering why - in each console launch post-mortem - there isn’t someone who flags the multitude of known problems on PC... and puts a halt on it’s release, or at least updates it with all known fixes up to that point, before it goes live. And again. And again.
I have said it a bunch on the forums already - but I always dread the “in-between-time” - knowing that we will still get the roll-out of the same broken patch.
Whyyyyy?
S.7 -
Nomadic_Atmoran✭✭✭✭✭
✭Aren't they all working from home?
I would assume that because of this communication and double checking work is suffering.Edited by Nomadic_Atmoran on November 7, 2020 2:02AMPenniless Sellsword CompanyCaptain Paramount Jorrhaq VhentKorith Eaglecry - Laerinel Rhaev - Enrerion - Caius Berilius - Seylina Ithvala - Signa Squallrider - H'Vak the GrimjawlYynril Rothvani - Tenarei Rhaev - Bathes-In-Coin - Dazsh Ro Khar - Aredyhel - Reads-To-Frogs - Azjani Ma'LesKheshna gra-Gharbuk - Gallisten Bondurant - Aban Shahid Bakr - Etain Maquier - Atsu Kalame - Faulpia Severinus3 -
Wolfpaw✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭The community will pay anyhow, that has been proven over the years, & ZOS has payday schedules they will never push back for quality.
This has nothing to do with the pandemic - money>everything.
ZOS will fix when they get to it, Since 2014
I'm surprised some of this community expect this to change? Unfortunately laws have not caught up to technology/online gaming.
Edited by Wolfpaw on November 7, 2020 3:26AM19 -
karekiz✭✭✭✭✭
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I honestly think the "standardization" is a path to Spellcrafting which, honestly, if done right, would be a MAJOR feature to the game. To revitalize it like never before.
Doubt it. I think a quick and easy Spell Crafting would be to just eliminate forced classes. You pick one class but can craft spells of another to add.
I think its just the fact that at some point someone thought to rebalance the game. CP and all.
The end result?
They went into a dead spiral of rebalancing for systems that are probably two years out. CP being the biggest update as that will fundamentally change a lot of your characters base power in one giant swoop.
That is like what? Out next year and we haven't heard a peep and its been "in development" since Murkmire. They have been wildly swinging the games balance before they have even really decided on how to balance the base power of the player.2 -
Starlight_Whisper✭✭✭✭✭
✭Many of the issues were reported in pts, but got lost in file system.
The paid quality testing group is too small...
Smaller pull of players have access to forums in last years so willing free testers haven't been reporting
Edited by Starlight_Whisper on November 7, 2020 3:32AM1 -
Calm_Fury✭✭✭✭✭Every patch does, and this isn't the worst one. You're not gonna get anything
I honestly think this is one of the worst ones in a very long game.
Several areas of the game are completely unplayable right now (WGT, vDSA...), other are barely playable.
I do not remember a patch that went live with so many serious bugs as this. I'm open to see some examples if you remember.9 -
Recapitated✭✭✭✭Balance will never be finished no matter how hard you try.
"Things will never be perfect so why bother to make them better" in other words.The spreadsheet balancing of the last Patches is still a good things because it helps structure things to make it easier to deal with it. After all the game constantly expands on Sets, Skills and effects.
Standards can be used as guidelines, and then critical thinking can be used to deviate from them. That's fine. No standard is going to tell you how to balance BoL vs. Twilight Matriarch. They can set a guideline and then adjust from there on a case-by-case basis given those two skills are similar in purpose but different in execution along several dimensions. And even if they get it wrong it's at least sort of understandable.
The real problem is ZOS is not even equipped to tell what category things belong to. This is what people mean when they're talking about spreadsheet balance: the VH 2H got buffed in the second PTS patch because it wasn't doing enough DPS as measured on a dummy, but anybody who plays the game should understand that burst sets can't be balanced around that.Edited by Recapitated on November 7, 2020 5:02AM4 -
Sephyr✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭Nomadic_Atmoran wrote: »Aren't they all working from home?
I would assume that because of this communication and double checking work is suffering.
Them and most every other MMO developers. However the difference is night and day between what other developers are doing and what ZoS is doing. I've not had one problem with the other MMOs I frequent - ESO on the other hand, Stonethorn was the only update this year that didn't break the game so bad I couldn't play it.5 -
kamimark✭✭✭✭The yearly release schedule is just completely impractical with the resources ZOS have. They haven't been caught up since Vvardenfell, everything ships broken, half of it gets fixed in a year or so, then neglected. 18 or 24 month cycle might be enough time.
They'd also need to hire QA and developers, which they haven't seemed to be able to do in a long time. Maybe Microsoft's money can do that for them, but any advice from MS isn't going to help their product quality.
And of course my perpetual advice: Remove Cyrodil PVP, quit trying to balance that which will never work, and damages the PVE game that 95% of us play.
Kitty Rainbow Dash. pick, pick, stab.6 -
ilovemycats✭✭The yearly release schedule is just completely impractical with the resources ZOS have. They haven't been caught up since Vvardenfell, everything ships broken, half of it gets fixed in a year or so, then neglected. 18 or 24 month cycle might be enough time.
They'd also need to hire QA and developers, which they haven't seemed to be able to do in a long time. Maybe Microsoft's money can do that for them, but any advice from MS isn't going to help their product quality.
And of course my perpetual advice: Remove Cyrodil PVP, quit trying to balance that which will never work, and damages the PVE game that 95% of us play.
how about we remove PVE?13 -
Dusk_Coven✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭And of course my perpetual advice: Remove Cyrodil PVP, quit trying to balance that which will never work, and damages the PVE game that 95% of us play.
I second this.
Even if they magically fix performance issues and balance issues, there's still the issue of cheating.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/550864/cheating-caught-on-camera-0-cyrodiil#latest
Open world PvP was a lost cause from the very start.7 -
Firstmep✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭It’s quite simple really, ZOS are incapable of listening to player feedback. It’s the reason most of the changes in the first week of PTS end up going through to the final release anyway despite the player base not liking many of the changes and this applies to bugs as well. They rarely listen to what the players have to say and it makes you wonder why we even have a PTS anyway...
I'm not trying to be a white knight or anything but I'm going to defend ZOS here... I think that they people that are actually involved with ESO care about the playerbase... And care a lot, not just a little bit.
I think the whole reason this happened is mostly resources. And I'd bet money that there is someone higher up pushing that update cadence without caring about quality or something like that.
I do not believe Rich and the other people involved in this game's direction are happy about making updates that are known to have bugs live.
That is why I think we need a post-mortem. There has to be some other explanation other than just "ZOS doesn't care about players" for this to happen.
I'm usually an optimist person. My hope is that someone from ZOS will come here an say:
"We messed up. We know this update had more bugs than we wish and we are going to do this, this and this to make sure this does not happen again".
The only thing I know is that this is not normal. You can't release a patch that breaks so many obvious things that were known for so long without a very good justification for that.
Bugs, performance etc. can be chalked up to higher ups pushing content release(for a good $$ reason) faster.
Ignored feedback on balance is 100% on the devs thinking they have all the anwsers not realising that this a video game and if its not FUN for their players, then it really doesnt matter if they were right or wrong...7 -
pink_panther✭✭✭No excuses and No defending. Most Bugs were reported multiple times during PTS. This is also one of the top MMO's out there so they have the money.
The franchise is very popular as well. So again money should be there!
At this point it is just a scam. Too bad laws haven't caught up yet to the gaming industry. I really hope they will some day so that they have to think twice before selling broken DLCs/games.
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Firstmep✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭pink_panther wrote: »No excuses and No defending. Most Bugs were reported multiple times during PTS. This is also one of the top MMO's out there so they have the money.
The franchise is very popular as well. So again money should be there!
At this point it is just a scam. Too bad laws haven't caught up yet to the gaming industry. I really hope they will some day so that they have to think twice before selling broken DLCs/games.
Yeah, to be fair I don't even see the point of having 6 weeks of pts testing, when most reported issues make it to live anyway.
They had 2 weeks after the last pts notes as well to further polish and work on the game, not sure what happened.
Sadly this is the norm for eso these days.
I can only think that they're horribly understaffed for how big the game is.
Chances are the higher ups see the sales numbers and think as long as people continue to pay for the game in its broken state, there is no reason to change.6
