How would you rate Zenimax Online Studios performance in 2020.

Linaleah · December 2020

Pretty good

dinokstrunz wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

considering that they had to adjust to working through pandemic in a hurry? (remember pandemic that is STILL going on and changed a lot of work to remote which can make communication within teams, let alone between different teams - much harder) pretty good all things considered. am I happy with performance of the game? no. but am I willing to cut them some slack given the circumstances? yes.

1. The problems with this game mostly stem back long before the global pandemic

2. Other MMOs remain unaffected by the switch up. I think people can expect small delays maybe a few weeks behind schedule

3. Communication would really be unaffected this it's so easy to stay in touch with other teams these days thanks to the digital age we find ourselves it so I really doubt this is a huge issue.

4. The worst part is that despite the changes ZoS is still the same old ZoS. Complete silence from its teams regarding the growing unrest in this game, the mountain of issues caused by poorly managed balance problems and of course the woeful game performance plaguing everyone from PvE to PvP. It's just the same old same old.

1. not to this degree,
2. false. even WoW, which people do so love to bring up - suffered multiple delays, reduced content and bugs that were worse then normal
3. you can talk via zoom or whatever, but there is a matter of personal rigs not being ready for workload, equipment in general being linked up on site, so its easier to refer to work done by others, vs remotely, where security becomes more of an issue just getting a zoom call going vs just walking over to a colleague's desk and being able to see immediately what's on their screen, etc.
4. its ZoS exacerbated. because they now have extra issues to deal with.

again - am I happy with how the game performs? not really. but do I think that they are genuinely trying to keep it together? yes.

Bergzorn · December 2020

Abysmal

PvP only player.

I did consider voting "underwhelming" since it was a difficult year for everyone, but it is what it is - abysmal.

CleymenZero · December 2020

Abysmal

I'm close to calling it quits. I can't play the game without DCing.... So I can't play the game too much.

It's been such a source of frustration since the update. I was so excited for the Markarth patch only for it to completely fall appart because of the horrific technical performance.

So my rating is their work absolutely abysmal. I would usually feel bad criticizing developers so harshly for their work but it was my absolute favorite game, spent thousands on this game (usually kinda thrifty but will splurge on things when I feel there's value for me) and their work is so bad, I'm close to uninstalling.

From my current perspective, they basically stole a whole bunch of money from me like lured me with a good product, I willingly spent money on it, then they break the game to a point where I can't play anymore.

dinokstrunz · December 2020

Abysmal

Linaleah wrote: »

dinokstrunz wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

considering that they had to adjust to working through pandemic in a hurry? (remember pandemic that is STILL going on and changed a lot of work to remote which can make communication within teams, let alone between different teams - much harder) pretty good all things considered. am I happy with performance of the game? no. but am I willing to cut them some slack given the circumstances? yes.

1. The problems with this game mostly stem back long before the global pandemic

2. Other MMOs remain unaffected by the switch up. I think people can expect small delays maybe a few weeks behind schedule

3. Communication would really be unaffected this it's so easy to stay in touch with other teams these days thanks to the digital age we find ourselves it so I really doubt this is a huge issue.

4. The worst part is that despite the changes ZoS is still the same old ZoS. Complete silence from its teams regarding the growing unrest in this game, the mountain of issues caused by poorly managed balance problems and of course the woeful game performance plaguing everyone from PvE to PvP. It's just the same old same old.

1. not to this degree,
2. false. even WoW, which people do so love to bring up - suffered multiple delays, reduced content and bugs that were worse then normal
3. you can talk via zoom or whatever, but there is a matter of personal rigs not being ready for workload, equipment in general being linked up on site, so its easier to refer to work done by others, vs remotely, where security becomes more of an issue just getting a zoom call going vs just walking over to a colleague's desk and being able to see immediately what's on their screen, etc.
4. its ZoS exacerbated. because they now have extra issues to deal with.

again - am I happy with how the game performs? not really. but do I think that they are genuinely trying to keep it together? yes.

1. No, a lot of the issues happening right now have happened before, when ZoS tries to fix them it's usually just paper over the cracks.

2. I played WoW for 7 years I can't remember there being a expansion release that wasn't riddled with bugs and other such annoyances. It was pretty much expected then as it was now.

3. I can't imagine ZoS developers or employees having terrible rigs at home, it's pretty much their job at the end of the day. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the work they did was already being done from home prior to the pandemic (such as artists). It would just seem strange if that was a case and would almost go down a ZoS screw up.

4. A lot of these "Issues" are of ZoS own doing.

Odovacar · December 2020

Underwhelming

I should've voted abysmal

Linaleah · December 2020

Pretty good

dinokstrunz wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

dinokstrunz wrote: »

Linaleah wrote: »

considering that they had to adjust to working through pandemic in a hurry? (remember pandemic that is STILL going on and changed a lot of work to remote which can make communication within teams, let alone between different teams - much harder) pretty good all things considered. am I happy with performance of the game? no. but am I willing to cut them some slack given the circumstances? yes.

1. The problems with this game mostly stem back long before the global pandemic

2. Other MMOs remain unaffected by the switch up. I think people can expect small delays maybe a few weeks behind schedule

3. Communication would really be unaffected this it's so easy to stay in touch with other teams these days thanks to the digital age we find ourselves it so I really doubt this is a huge issue.

4. The worst part is that despite the changes ZoS is still the same old ZoS. Complete silence from its teams regarding the growing unrest in this game, the mountain of issues caused by poorly managed balance problems and of course the woeful game performance plaguing everyone from PvE to PvP. It's just the same old same old.

1. not to this degree,
2. false. even WoW, which people do so love to bring up - suffered multiple delays, reduced content and bugs that were worse then normal
3. you can talk via zoom or whatever, but there is a matter of personal rigs not being ready for workload, equipment in general being linked up on site, so its easier to refer to work done by others, vs remotely, where security becomes more of an issue just getting a zoom call going vs just walking over to a colleague's desk and being able to see immediately what's on their screen, etc.
4. its ZoS exacerbated. because they now have extra issues to deal with.

again - am I happy with how the game performs? not really. but do I think that they are genuinely trying to keep it together? yes.

1. No, a lot of the issues happening right now have happened before, when ZoS tries to fix them it's usually just paper over the cracks.

2. I played WoW for 7 years I can't remember there being a expansion release that wasn't riddled with bugs and other such annoyances. It was pretty much expected then as it was now.

3. I can't imagine ZoS developers or employees having terrible rigs at home, it's pretty much their job at the end of the day. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the work they did was already being done from home prior to the pandemic (such as artists). It would just seem strange if that was a case and would almost go down a ZoS screw up.

4. A lot of these "Issues" are of ZoS own doing.

ok, so what you are saying - other MMO's or at least WoW have their own share of issues and are bug riddled, but somehow ZoS still is terrible, while they are brought up in favorable comparison?
heh. ok then. and btw, I don't know if you played the most recent expansion, especially last year of it but it was far more than their usual messy launches/updates. and no I'm not speaking from hearsay, I still play wow on and off and my current subscription lapsed last week. I'll probably renew it again for the holidays for at least a month.

also, I'm pretty sure and that is personal opinion, naturaly, but art is one aspect of ESO that hasn't suffered. the issues seem to be on coding side. and THAT part is far harder remotely, unless you are already set up for it and don't mind extra potential for security issues since there is a heck of a difference between local physical network and working essentially through the internet.

and as I said. ZoS exacerbated. I'm just saying that outside factors have helped along to exacerbate it and very probably set back whatever solutions they were in progress of implementing.

Araneae6537 · December 2020

Okay

I do a variety of activities: housing and questing, dungeons normal and vet, battlegrounds, and occasionally Cyrodill or trials.

I didn’t get Greymoor until the sale later in the year because vampires aren’t my thing, but what I’ve seen has been good and I like the Castle Thorn dungeon — especially the Wraith of Crows boss. Antiquities are fun, even if the drop rates of some leads are frustrating, and the furnishings are great.

There are some changes / additions I’ve been less happy with, changes that make the healer role less rewarding, including limiting heals to groups in Cyrodill and potentially Ring of the Pale Order (when it’s optimal to run vet dungeons without a healer, it seems to me there is a design problem). Finally, proc sets that do crazy damage without need for offensive stats don’t positively contribute to either PVE nor PVP, IMHO.

Some excellent QoL additions — especially fine adjustment for furnishings and the stickerbook for gear sets!

As for game performance, it has varied. I’ve had occasional crashes, most just running through town rather than in a dungeon or Cyrodill (but I did have one there), but it is relatively frequent now that someone in group will crash / disconnect during a dungeon (maybe 10% of the time? and I’ve been running more basegame dungeons while the lich bosses were bugged). Lag has not been frequent, long loading screens or extra loading screens occasional, and sometimes group finder does not work and requires repeated requeuing. Sooo, not optimal, but nothing that can’t be dealt with or worked around. Most troublesome is when weapon swaps don’t happen or skills don’t fire.

Mauin · December 2020

Abysmal

Honestly? Bad.

Overall, the story this year was meh and felt like a clone of Elsweyr. Zone design was nice and the sticker book was a decent addition, but overall the game is in a rough place. I don't PvP anymore so I have no comment to make there, but as far as PvE content goes, I haven't run a trial since shortly after Markarth launched. I think I attempted two and the first we didn't clear because the instance was bugging out and people were crashing. The second one I didn't clear since I crashed on final boss and didn't get back until after the trail was over. I have also crashed in dungeons (random trash pulls; I avoided Wayrest II and Fang Lair until they were fixed, and I won't touch Scalecaller Peak right now), and have crashed doing writs.

The game in its current state is frustrating. I feel like I'm missing out on a good chunk of content because of the crashing.

Juhasow · December 2020

Ratzkifal wrote: »

iGotBaited wrote: »

How does working from home impact doing your job as a dev? Honest question.

They don't run into each other during work anymore. It always has to be scheduled an entire meeting even for the smallest of things because they just cannot discuss these things on the fly.

So telephones and internet do not work in US ? Also are You suggesting that until pandemic started ZoS devs were working by randomly "running into each other" ? That would actually explain few things...

Tandor · December 2020

Pretty good

I've had no problems of any kind with the game this year, as in previous years, so have no complaints. However, I recognise that based primarily on playstyle/chosen content some players have had issues - still unresolved in most cases - and I do think that ZOS could make a better job of communicating over those issues, so out of respect for the affected players I have marked my vote down a notch from the "Brilliant" I would otherwise have given it.

Starlight_Whisper · December 2020

Pretty good

Was going better till this patch. Hire more QA people

Uryel · December 2020

Abysmal

Husan wrote: »

No offense to the first group, but that content is so easy that it doesn't matter if you have 500ms delay, your character positioning is off, weapon swap doesn't work, skills don't fire - you can clear it all just using normal attacks.

No offense mate, but questing and overland stuff isn't about whether you can clear it or not, it's about doing it in a pleasant way. So, while it IS indeed possible to "win" with 90% stuff broken, it is nonetheless extremely annoying, frustrating, and thus unpleasant. Not everything is about challenge.

Also, one bug I have had quite often recently kills the "you can clear it with normal attacks" : the bug that makes weapons disapear. Weapon gone from character hands, impossible to use any skill, no attacks possible. Gotta reload UI in mid-fight, and hope you're still alive when the long-are loading is over.

When you happen to do it 10 times in a single delve, no matter how not-that-gamebreaking bugs are, it certainly is extremely unpleasant.

maboleth · December 2020

Brilliant

Guys pulled out one of my fav places so far - Skyrim, and during covid times and while working at home. Huge respect.

Malkiv · December 2020

Abysmal

Juhasow wrote: »

Ratzkifal wrote: »

iGotBaited wrote: »

How does working from home impact doing your job as a dev? Honest question.

They don't run into each other during work anymore. It always has to be scheduled an entire meeting even for the smallest of things because they just cannot discuss these things on the fly.

So telephones and internet do not work in US ?

I would suspect that an overwhelming majority of the people do not understand how telecommuting functions when they are defending the idea that telecommuting somehow suddenly - and severely - impacted the workflow and the quality of production for the majority of a year.

I work for a firm much smaller in terms of share, but still has ~75 people to network through a typical work day. The first month of the transition was horrid, because - even though we had experimented with a larger rollout of telecommuting pre-COVID-19 - we were not prepared for the issues that arose from so many people being forced to work from home offices. But, like I said, those initial pangs lasted a month, as everyone was settling in and the workflow was being adjusted.

We've been at full workflow capacity for nearly 8 months at this point despite needing the studio once per week, virtualizing far more, and connecting creative professionals on a scale that we never intended to be possible with our current software and hardware capabilities. Even our colleagues and contemporaries are far beyond this transitional phase. It's frustrating - at best - when people try to justify a lack of accountability "because covid." At worst it's infuriating, because it excuses a lack of accountability.

TheImperfect · December 2020

Pretty good

I think the game is doing very well. Not experienced any bugs in general including in dungeons. Did have a few in Greymoor but only minor and given the pandemic I can forgive a few since it's been an extremely challenging time, not found any in Markarth. Overall considering the scale and scope it's damn good.

SidraWillowsky · December 2020

Abysmal

1. Content-wise, Greymoor was awful, aside from the Antiquities system. It felt incredibly phoned-in, and I saw someone note a few weeks ago that it feels like the game is winding down. Hearing that both saddened me and made me realize that I've been feeling the same way. I don't care for the zone because I dislike Argonians, but Murkmire feels like the last decent content that we got.
2. I felt like player feedback was ignored in some critical cases. Markarth went live with some bugs that had been noted during WEEK ONE of the PTS cycle leading up to it. There is no excuse for those to have gone live.
3. The switch to bi-weekly updates. I don't know WHY this needed to be done (does anyone even USE Stadia?), but we went two full weeks after Markarth launched with the bugs I mentioned above, which made my character pretty difficult to play, since she's a mag DD who uses the skills that broke.
4. I've never had a crash to desktop ONCE in 2.5 years of ESO prior to Markarth going live. The update seems to have mostly fixed it, but it still happens sometimes.
5. Last, but for me most importantly, almost complete silence from ZOS regarding this stuff. I rarely see our Community Managers post on the forums there days; it's mostly admin editing posts and telling people to be nice or whatever.

To those saying to give them slack because we're in the middle of a pandemic- I get that. But that doesn't mean you can just abandon the people who are paying you. I've had some projects at work turned upside-down and inside-out because COVID-19 has disrupted everything, but at the end of the day we need to deliver what we promised to our clients. People have been understanding and we've worked to modify some aspects of projects that were affected by the pandemic, but that required communication with our clients. And after nine months especially, these things are generally expected to be worked out- timelines shifted, reports and analyses modified, working from home setups sorted out. There are still annoyances like trying to get onto a Zoom call when every child in your neighborhood is also trying to Zoom into their virtual classrooms, but jesus- if that happens, you COMMUNICATE WITH THE CLIENT and explain what happened. Accountability is everything. While not exactly "clients", we players are still paying customers and these issues should at least be acknowledged.

I've mentioned it before, but seriously- a little accountability goes a long way. I make plenty of mistakes at work, and 99% of the time things are fine after I send an email that includes: what happened, a non-whiny, non-blame-y explanation of WHY it happened, what I did to correct it, what I'll do moving forward to prevent it from happening again, and an apology for the inconvenience/issue.

That's all I want to hear!!!

iALEXi · December 2020

Abysmal

After consideration, maybe underwhelming, but a point has to be made.

Communication and listening to the community feedback could be better.
Also spending some more attention on fixing bugs wouldn't be bad. (I have a forum thread with already 11 unfixed bugs that happen in PvP/Cyrodiil, likely there are even more)

Performance.... ehh yes, just yes.
Crashes have been happening quite often as well this year, in both PvE and PvP.

Removal of premade BGs was our guild not happy with, but after months and months it is finally back, but.....

The current meta is probably the worst meta that it has ever been, which makes the bad performance even less tolerable.
I think I remember something about procsets also contributing to lag? If this is true, why do you keep creating new procsets literally every patch. Crimson Twilight is one of the overused sets in PvP atm, you can just not not see it.

Because of all that... not a pretty good year. Bring back Summerset, Morrowind and before those times. Almost no cheese procsets or next to none, better balance than nowadays, performance was a little better back then as well and a lot less crashes.

ALTHOUGH some good things
Stickerbook as a really good update, also upgrading the transmution crystal cap.
Premade BGs updated, therefore you can play BGs with friends again and the people who don't want to fight premades can queu solo.
PvE solo questing isn't too bad and the zones look pretty good. Blackreach looks nice.
Mythic items offer a lot of potential for different builds, but also some more unbalance.
Personally a fan of the only group healing in Cyro and max 12 man groupsize. ALTHOUGH this group healing only comes with plenty of bugs, so hope they would fix those... (also in my bugthread)

ArchMikem · December 2020

Okay

oXI_Viper_IXo wrote: »

Red_Feather wrote: »

I liked the new systems.

Scrying, excavating, stickerbook are the ones I thinking of at the moment. They really did draw me back into all the game's zones.

Great stuff.

None of that has anything to do with performance though...

And performance has nothing to do with the rest of the game.

Vevvev · December 2020

Okay

It honestly could have been way worse, but it could have been far better.

Faiza · December 2020

Pretty good

I started playing this year, and am 2400 hours in atm, so I think that speaks for itself. They even got a slice out of my wallet for crown crates more than once so, it would be a lie to say ZOS is not doing their job.

Took me a bit to learn the ropes of combat, but I really love the overland content. I'm still very impressed with the story quality, and haven't been disappointed by Elsweyr, W.Skyrim, or Markarth. The things that are personally important to me as a player, I think the game is very good at.

I do wish, however that their customer service was better. Tickets go unanswered for week unless they're about a purchase, and even then I had to repeatedly follow up to get a resolution.

I also wish the game would take a more heavy handed approach to bad faith speech and political crap in game. It seems like that whole spiel over the summer was just a show because there's plenty of racists running up and down Tamriel and no matter how often they're reported, they still there day after day.

dinokstrunz · December 2020

Abysmal

Mauin wrote: »

Honestly? Bad.

Overall, the story this year was meh and felt like a clone of Elsweyr. Zone design was nice and the sticker book was a decent addition, but overall the game is in a rough place. I don't PvP anymore so I have no comment to make there, but as far as PvE content goes, I haven't run a trial since shortly after Markarth launched. I think I attempted two and the first we didn't clear because the instance was bugging out and people were crashing. The second one I didn't clear since I crashed on final boss and didn't get back until after the trail was over. I have also crashed in dungeons (random trash pulls; I avoided Wayrest II and Fang Lair until they were fixed, and I won't touch Scalecaller Peak right now), and have crashed doing writs.

The game in its current state is frustrating. I feel like I'm missing out on a good chunk of content because of the crashing.

Yeah that is pretty much the story of end game PvE, a lot of the top guilds are stopping their raids because of the amount of crashing. I've not crashed too often in dungeons this last week but Trial crashes are in abundance.

Davor · December 2020

Abysmal

I voted abysmal. Just because Bethesda Softworks still relies on gambling in the game. Other wise I haven't played it much. Every time I renew my ESO+ to play on Xbox, I end up cancelling it not even a month in because of the bugs. If Zenimax doesn't want to fix anything, why give them anymore time and money.

EdmondDontes · December 2020

Abysmal

The thing that has chapped me the most was that things mostly worked during the Midyear Mayem event, then, as soon as the event was over, they flipped a switch and performance went back into the dumpster.

So we know they can do better and fix performance, but they CHOOSE not to. Only one conclusion can be drawn from the last year to two years of "performance improvements". It's a simple conclusion. Performance simply isn't a priority for Zenimax. The results speak for themselves. The problems have existed long enough that we can stand back, and based upon results, know that fixing performance is not a priority at Zenimax for whatever reason.

Orange_fire_dragon · December 2020

Brilliant

I voted brilliant as a joke, the game runs more poorly than before the 'performance improvements'
sure, the frames per second is much better for me now but what do I do with the frames when it takes 3 seconds, 20 button presses to activate an ability in Cyrodiil or when the game crashes on you for almost month straight after a patch and crashes were so common that you could describe your playtime 'hanging out in my desktop more than in game, gameplay achieved'

So yeah, brilliant game with more brilliant gameplay and servers, won't recommend to friends though.

They won't care though, the rp folks will keep the lights on buying these 12-15k houses with crowns, that's about 120 dollars.

Destai · December 2020

Underwhelming

Feature wise, it's been a good year in some regards. The sticker-book was a good feature despite not being retroactive. Antiquities was overall a good release. The groundwork for housing buddies seems promising.

The chapter felt rushed and the story a bit thin. The Harrowstorms didn't really standup to abyssal geysers or dolmens. I feel like playing through Greymoor once and I'm good. I briefly played the newest DLC on ESO+ and just gave up a few hours in. Maybe it's just not my thing, but eh. Will not be buying that.

Performance wise - awful. I can't think of another year in the six years I've played this game having as many issues and fiascos. Couple that with the lacking community management, and I don't feel like supporting ZOS anymore financially. My experience playing this game just seems increasingly pressured towards the crown store. In the face of persistent issues and questionable content, I'm not happy to oblige.

Meanwhile, I'm going to play through Morrowind and Orsinium again.

Destai · December 2020

Underwhelming

SidraWillowsky wrote: »

1. Content-wise, Greymoor was awful, aside from the Antiquities system. It felt incredibly phoned-in, and I saw someone note a few weeks ago that it feels like the game is winding down. Hearing that both saddened me and made me realize that I've been feeling the same way. I don't care for the zone because I dislike Argonians, but Murkmire feels like the last decent content that we got.
2. I felt like player feedback was ignored in some critical cases. Markarth went live with some bugs that had been noted during WEEK ONE of the PTS cycle leading up to it. There is no excuse for those to have gone live.
3. The switch to bi-weekly updates. I don't know WHY this needed to be done (does anyone even USE Stadia?), but we went two full weeks after Markarth launched with the bugs I mentioned above, which made my character pretty difficult to play, since she's a mag DD who uses the skills that broke.
4. I've never had a crash to desktop ONCE in 2.5 years of ESO prior to Markarth going live. The update seems to have mostly fixed it, but it still happens sometimes.
5. Last, but for me most importantly, almost complete silence from ZOS regarding this stuff. I rarely see our Community Managers post on the forums there days; it's mostly admin editing posts and telling people to be nice or whatever.

To those saying to give them slack because we're in the middle of a pandemic- I get that. But that doesn't mean you can just abandon the people who are paying you. I've had some projects at work turned upside-down and inside-out because COVID-19 has disrupted everything, but at the end of the day we need to deliver what we promised to our clients. People have been understanding and we've worked to modify some aspects of projects that were affected by the pandemic, but that required communication with our clients. And after nine months especially, these things are generally expected to be worked out- timelines shifted, reports and analyses modified, working from home setups sorted out. There are still annoyances like trying to get onto a Zoom call when every child in your neighborhood is also trying to Zoom into their virtual classrooms, but jesus- if that happens, you COMMUNICATE WITH THE CLIENT and explain what happened. Accountability is everything. While not exactly "clients", we players are still paying customers and these issues should at least be acknowledged.

I've mentioned it before, but seriously- a little accountability goes a long way. I make plenty of mistakes at work, and 99% of the time things are fine after I send an email that includes: what happened, a non-whiny, non-blame-y explanation of WHY it happened, what I did to correct it, what I'll do moving forward to prevent it from happening again, and an apology for the inconvenience/issue.

That's all I want to hear!!!

I'm not buying the pandemic excuse anymore. It's been 6+ months, it's time to adjust. Instead we see the continued poor quality community engagement that leads to the toxicity in this community.

Case in point, Gina or anyone else on the CM team can't be bothered to answer a simple question in a month's time, let alone show up to a stream on time:

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/552414/official-discussion-thread-for-the-elder-scrolls-online-next-gen-backwards-compatibility-faq#latest

Given something so simple cannot be answered in nearly a month, I'm willing to bet there's room for improvement in how PTS changes are communicated and managed.

BlueRaven · December 2020

Abysmal

I play on a Mac so the customer support is pretty much suggestions given by other players, not ZOS.
And then they topped the year off with that message from Matt about the new Mac chip set.

So... Not happy.

eovogtb16_ESO · December 2020

Abysmal

For the first time in like 4 months I did a trial last night vSS and nobody crashed it was crazy

Radiance · December 2020

Abysmal

Must suck to see this for people who work so hard on the game but the content has been good, the performance is just bad and that's the sad truth unfortunately, idk what else to say... Trust when I say you're not the only one who doesn't want this to be so...

MirandaSharp · December 2020

[snip]

I still love the game though.

[edited for baiting/discussing disciplinary action]