Certification Priorities

Blacknight841 · April 2021

Everyone saw the tweet claiming the issues with patching the current issues on console are due to the certification process….however that certification process is for the upcoming update, rather than a patch for the current one. I just cannot understand this.

Having a playable game is not as important as an expansion for an unplayable game???

Both Sony and Microsoft have offered same day patching for critical game update to address game breaking bugs. Not being able to scroll, or use the inventory on an mmo, in my mind, clearly fits that category.

The issues with the inventory have been present on console since 3/16. The developers have so far had 46 days to address the issue. During that time, they introduced a new bug, that prevents a player from seeing where they are scrolling to in the guild trader or the craft bag. Rather than fix the current issue and make the game playable, they are sidelining all console patches for the next 46 days in order to focus on the next chapter. As of today, we are halfway to potentially getting the issues resolved and the game playable. I say potentially because the precedent that has been set is that this is by no means a guarantee and chances are that it makes things worse.

These priorities speak volumes about the state of the game. The console is always held at the short end of the stick. If even the most minimal console testing would have taken place, they would have at least realized that you cannot scroll anymore. There is no console testing. It is a Hail Mary at best that nothing goes wrong and if something does go wrong, it is a 3 month wait to get a fix. In the meantime, players will spend $45 on eso plus.

For having preached performance improvements for the past 2 years, including a “year of performance” that didn’t actually do anything to improve performance…. It is just bewildering that they would ignore a complete degradation in performance (to an almost unplayable level), only to focus on the future chapter.

In the meantime the only thing I see as a response towards the justified community outrage… is a series of locked posts, a tweet made to look like a nice letter, and the rest is silence.

I would rather have a playable game, than a companion. Especially when you consider that the companion is nothing but in game code, and as it stands, even the current code is not functioning as intended. I guarantee that the game would not allow 3 months to pass with a broken crown store. I truly hope that this isn’t the outlook of what the rest of 2021 will be for this game.

Destai · April 2021

@ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_JessicaFolsom Care to elaborate?

ThreeXB · April 2021

Yep....6 quarters of "performance" enhancements and a 2020 wrap up of promising better communication

ThoughtRaven · April 2021

Destai wrote: »

@ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_JessicaFolsom Care to elaborate?

Hahaha.

No.

No they do not.

Hobobaggins272 · April 2021

As a trader guildmaster, I am not alone in stating that the impact to the economic health of these bugs are great. Member frustration at the plodding and tedious work-around inhibits the desire to list wares, which means there is less being sold, an issue for the customer player base and seller alike. Given that the 3.5% sales tax is a boon and a necessity to maintaining weekly bids for many guilds, it brings about grave concerns regarding bank health, as the lack of Zos attention to fixing these issues does not alleviate the required trader stall bid cost, nor the expectation of members on gaining a location to sell from. 5 more weeks with no recourse is a harsh reality we are all faced with. We will likely slog thru, as the love of the game compels us to weather the bugs, but a simple apology or a free pet to soothe us is not enough. These bugs are understandable - coding is complicated on a game celebrating its 7th year. We understand that. What we can’t comprehend is the pushing off of our concerns and a fix. You risk losing more of the player base you are working so hard for, from sheer player fatigue and discouragement, that something so amazing has steadily, bug after bug, has become less so. Divert some of your Crown Store profits toward certifying a patch. Please.

mandopoulis · May 2021

It's going to be very hard to maintain guild traders until these issues are fixed. I still pay my guild dues, but I haven't listed anything new for quite some time. I don't want to waste what little gaming time I have on trying to navigate a broken craft bag and trying to list. This game has been broken for quite some time now, but this latest "bug" is the worst. As long as everyone keeps buying crown store items and paying the sub, nothing will get fixed in an appropriate amount of time. Zos doesn't care about long-term players.

trackdemon5512 · May 2021

Issues pop up EVERY PATCH. Thats the nature of constantly adding to any MMORPG or virtually ANY game these days. Now does an issue completely break a game and render it unplayable? With the case of Dragonguard and PS4 you got close with way too many blue screens. Those are critical issues that need to be addressed as they actually affect the stability of the console itself. Those are on the priority for certifications with the console makers.

Quality of life hinderances fall nowhere near that. In the case of inventory on consoles you can still sell, search, and manage your stuff. You just have to go through more steps than usual but the full functionality is there, it's just not ideal.

It doesn't make sense to quickly try and diagnose a single problem, put out a patch without properly making sure it's a complete fix, possibly create more issues that would need to be diagnosed and fixed in the few weeks between now and the new chapter, and add more to the plates of the developers. It makes far more sense to just roll it all in to the big patch, both financially and practically.

Amottica · May 2021

Wouldn't every patch need to be certified except emergency patches?

Blacknight841 · May 2021

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Quality of life hinderances fall nowhere near that. In the case of inventory on consoles you can still sell, search, and manage your stuff. You just have to go through more steps than usual but the full functionality is there, it's just not ideal.

Scrolling through the menu is NOT a “quality of life” improvement. The game didn’t come out with the inability to scroll and then they added it after players requested it. The search bar was QOL improvement. It is an option feature added later on for players to use IF they wish to. Forcing a player to use the search feature just to find an item in the inventory for the next 45 days is not an acceptable solution. Many console players do not have a keyboard. If you want to type the word greymoor on the pc into the search bar it takes 9 keystrokes, if you want to do the same thing on the virtual keyboard on console, it takes 26 button inputs. Being able to move though the UI is an integral part of the game, not just some convenience.

vgabor · May 2021

Zenimax is a business and such their focus is the financial bottom line. They do what brings the most revenue to them, and that is currently pushing out new updates to sell it to people. Only when those people stop paying for a broken game will shift the company priority to pay more attention for fixing things. As long as the sales are not suffering they have no incentive to spend extra cost on an emergency bugfix release instead of just delaying it to the already budgeted update release.

jircris11 · May 2021

Can't speak for zos but when I worked on an indie game the cert process was a nightmare, not only do you need to pay money but they need to approve the patch. Many things had our patches set back from its size to its content (had to have so much within it that's being added to the game) eventually we just moved to pc only because of how bad it got. Sony was the worst as they not only took ages but never gave clear indication why it's rejected. As an indie Dev we paid somewhere in the 2k ball park per cert attempt to Sony, 100 to Microsoft and pc was free since there was no cert needed.

TequilaFire · May 2021

On the other hand I have never had a game brick my PS4, but can't say the same on PC.

jircris11 · May 2021

TequilaFire wrote: »

On the other hand I have never had a game brick my PS4, but can't say the same on PC.

My ps4 got bricked by a few games lol. Anthem for one.

TequilaFire · May 2021

jircris11 wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

On the other hand I have never had a game brick my PS4, but can't say the same on PC.

My ps4 got bricked by a few games lol. Anthem for one.

Yeah Anthem caused PS4 to crash and power off while still writing to hard drive sometimes corrupting data.
One of the rare instances, although not too long ago ESO was getting close to doing the same.
Certification process isn't perfect but prevents a lot of problems.

jircris11 · May 2021

TequilaFire wrote: »

jircris11 wrote: »

TequilaFire wrote: »

On the other hand I have never had a game brick my PS4, but can't say the same on PC.

My ps4 got bricked by a few games lol. Anthem for one.

Yeah Anthem caused PS4 to crash and power off while still writing to hard drive sometimes corrupting data.
One of the rare instances, although not too long ago ESO was getting close to doing the same.
Certification process isn't perfect but prevents a lot of problems.

Yup, though it's hard to cert everything because no 2 consoles are the same, each has different wear and tares

AnonomissX · May 2021

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

Issues pop up EVERY PATCH. Thats the nature of constantly adding to any MMORPG or virtually ANY game these days. Now does an issue completely break a game and render it unplayable? With the case of Dragonguard and PS4 you got close with way too many blue screens. Those are critical issues that need to be addressed as they actually affect the stability of the console itself. Those are on the priority for certifications with the console makers.

Quality of life hinderances fall nowhere near that. In the case of inventory on consoles you can still sell, search, and manage your stuff. You just have to go through more steps than usual but the full functionality is there, it's just not ideal.

It doesn't make sense to quickly try and diagnose a single problem, put out a patch without properly making sure it's a complete fix, possibly create more issues that would need to be diagnosed and fixed in the few weeks between now and the new chapter, and add more to the plates of the developers. It makes far more sense to just roll it all in to the big patch, both financially and practically.

Quality of life hindrances? Dude, it's a feature we PAY EXTRA EVERY MONTH for! We are SPECIFICALLY NOT, repeat NOT getting what we PAID for! Time for access to the craft bag paid for but you cannot get time back. Also, the work arounds take a great deal of time and perseverance to get through, time I would like to have used to play the game with my friends...but now I need to have alone time to concentrate on pulling all the mats I need to sell. Do you have any IDEA how much extra time and nervous energy it takes?

Thanks a lot ZOS...it's rather tedious and nerve-wracking and a great deal of WORK..

Hey, ZOS! I am seeing that I could play the game with no ESO plus:

1) I am done decorating my main house for now, so as long as I don't remove anything I'm fine.
2) I can pay in-game gold and max my bank on several alts. I sell in the traders as I farm on my main, so not a problem.
3) I already maxed out the chests and coffers you can buy, so I can clean out all the furnishings now, put them in storage houses and use them for storing my mats.
4) I already purchased the zones I care about, I already dyed all my costumes, I don't care about Transmute crystals and 10% boost to experience right now...I don't find those benefits a trade-off for the immediate and almost constant aggravation of the craft bag interface not working + selling to merchants, selling in my trading guilds...not to mention the roster bug...you know what?

ZOS, you got my money when I bought the digital copy of the game, and when I bought expansions, err, chapters, extra crowns, etc. You ALSO got my money for ESO plus and I am NOT getting easy access to the craft bag. I am going to cancel my ESO plus membership right before it renews and play without it, and I WILL NOT renew until you fix the craft bag, the selling to merchants, the selling in guild traders, and the roster bug.

ALL of the bugs as above. I paid for my Xbox live membership so I can still play...I can still pull items from the bag just won't be able to put stuff in. I will sell in the guild trader as I am a major officer and financial supporter of my guild, but this has become too much like work and not my fun escape anymore. I will continue to do it but I sure will NOT pay YOU for the privilege.

Oh, long term consequences? Oh yeah, I won't be buying crowns, crates, costumes, pets, houses, furnishings, etc. ONLY the necessary plus and chapters you force new skills and content - like Transmutation and jewelry crafting with Summerset. Not one extra. Not ever again.

ZOS: ultimately, you broke my trust...and have broke access to my wallet.

Hotdog_23 · May 2021

They probably spent they’re budget for certification fixes and such when they completely broke the PS4 update last month. Therefore, we are paying the cost in poor performance/service and coding on their part until the next update. This is a business decision. We see how much we are worth to ZOS.

For me personally I am getting very close to saying the heck with it. Take my money and time elsewhere. Give them until the end of the year and without better performance I will by looking for a new game. Understand ESO is a big game and will take time to fix but this constant poor performance is getting very taxing on my patience. Which is sad because I love ESO. Give them 6 months with the console enhanced version to see and make a final decision.

Stay safe and enjoy the journey 😊

PS. ZOS stop the micromanagement of the green tree 🥺

ZOS_Lunar · May 2021

Greetings!

As there is already an active discussion on this topic, located here, we have closed this thread. You are welcome to continue the discussion in the existing thread.

Thank you for your understanding, and please keep the Community Rules in mind when posting on the forums.