Zone chat is now apparently instance based

Dragonslayerdovakiin · September 2021

yes, I know there is another post about this, Im in the same guild as the poster, but I feel the issue is not getting the recognition it deserves and thus have decided to make another post in general discussions as it may be more likely to get seen, so.... the issue:

Zone chat-recruiting is still the main method many guilds have for finding new members and this is also true of the guild I am in, recently we have found that our number of new recruits has dropped lately and tried to figure out why, after receiving some reports of some people seeing our guild ads in zone and others not members of our guild began investigating, this investigation culminated in a test: we would have a team of people in our guild travel to the same zone, after this we periodically posted messages in zone chat, only to have many of those people not see the messages, upon traveling to a single individual (and their instance) we found that our messages were being received by each other and thus found the issue, whether by accident or design there has clearly been a change made to how zone chat works, I have not reviewed the patch note for such things but regardless I feel this is something which needs rectifying as it will (and has) negatively effected guilds recruiting and will also affect whether or not those who ask questions in zone will receive an answer or not and that would be a blow for the game as many feel that the helpfulness of people is one of the best parts of the game, so in conclusion:

If this is an accidental change/bug, it needs to be rectified and I hope these posts bring the issue to the attention of Zos

If this is an intentional change on the part of zos in some way to improve performance or perhaps reduce spam I would urge them to consider other options, as said previously many guilds still use zone chat for recruitment and many guilds will suffer from losing this method of recruitment, second I would propose that if spam is an issue perhaps introduce a cooldown on guild ads in the same zone (cooldown for each guild) or perhaps a cooldown for the number of long messages/large amount of quick messages in short succession, this would help reduce spam without taking anything away from zone chat as a tool for helping people and recruiting

thank you for reading

Lady_Galadhiel · September 2021

Wasn't zone chat always instance based? I remember when looking for specific trials in Craglorn some friends and me did go into different instances to read zone chats to see if there is a group forming up somewhere.
I can't remember it being different.

tmbrinks · September 2021

Zone chat has always been instanced.

Sluggy · September 2021

Always instanced based. Non-issue. Moving on.

SirAndy · September 2021

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

Wasn't zone chat always instance based? I remember when looking for specific trials in Craglorn some friends and me did go into different instances to read zone chats to see if there is a group forming up somewhere.
I can't remember it being different.

Zone chat has always only shown messages from people who are in the same instance as you.

six2fall · September 2021

It's not instanced on ps4/5. I was selling leyawiin recipes last night & when I grouped turned out we were in different instances so had to port to his to trade but we used zone chat for most of the start of convo

SilverBride · September 2021

It is instanced on PC and has been as long as I remember. I personally do not want this changed because I like being able switch instances to get away from particularly irritating zone chat.

Gilvoth · September 2021

SilverBride wrote: »

It is instanced on PC and has been as long as I remember. I personally do not want this changed because I like being able switch instances to get away from particularly irritating zone chat.

that would suggest we can control it and choose where placed.
is that true?

SilverBride · September 2021

Gilvoth wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

It is instanced on PC and has been as long as I remember. I personally do not want this changed because I like being able switch instances to get away from particularly irritating zone chat.

that would suggest we can control it and choose where placed.
is that true?

I can't control it, but I've noticed that if I leave the zone and come back, or log out and back in I am often put in a different instance. I know this because the irritating players whose chat I was trying to get away from I no longer see talking in zone chat.

It doesn't work every time but it does very often.

I'd like to add that if you have a friend in a different instance of a zone you can travel to them and it will move you to their instance, and vice versa.

Ratzkifal · September 2021

To everyone saying it has always been instance based on PC, no it hasn't lol. I have encountered people in chat who needed help at bosses that weren't up in my instance or people wanting to trade items only to find out that they were in another instance of the zone and one of us would have to port to the other. This is especially obvious when you are getting a group for a trial together and not everyone is in the same instance despite everyone being in Craglorn.
I haven't paid close attention to it so I cannot tell if this is only the case for certain zones or if this has already been changed in the past, but I know that zone chat wasn't always instanced and this is the first time I'm hearing that it is.

Elsonso · September 2021

Ratzkifal wrote: »

To everyone saying it has always been instance based on PC, no it hasn't lol. I have encountered people in chat who needed help at bosses that weren't up in my instance or people wanting to trade items only to find out that they were in another instance of the zone and one of us would have to port to the other. This is especially obvious when you are getting a group for a trial together and not everyone is in the same instance despite everyone being in Craglorn.
I haven't paid close attention to it so I cannot tell if this is only the case for certain zones or if this has already been changed in the past, but I know that zone chat wasn't always instanced and this is the first time I'm hearing that it is.

As far as I know, zone chat has been "instanced" since before launch. It would have to be, given the population of the game. The question isn't so much about whether or not it is "instanced", but who is in the "instance" with you and whether they are the right people.

kargen27 · September 2021

As far as I know zone chat has always been instanced. I have asked guild mates who are with me in Craglorn if they want to join the trial being advertised and they don't see anything. Other times guild mates have commented in Discord on things they see in chat and even though we are in the same zone I don't see it.

Unrelated but in some parts of certain zones two players can be in the same zone but not see each other in parts of the zone because one has finished a quest and one has not. Used to get weird when we had fishing events watching others disappear but still see their bobbers in the water.

When the event hunting dragons was going on porting out of zone when no dragons were up then porting back in could put you in an instance where a dragon was up. I made good use of Port to a Friend app during that event.

Nagastani · September 2021

If I'm not mistaken zone chat became instanced after One Tam. That one updated changed alot of things permanently.

Anyways, back to your problem. Your problem isn't really that no one is seeing your advertisements. I was in Craglorn not too long ago and zone chat was absolutely loaded with Guild advertisements of all kinds. It was really annoying.

So not too long ago, I was an admin for one of my friends guilds which eventually disbanded. We noticed the same thing that you have posted about. The advertisements were out, however it wasn't like in the good old days when more people wanted to participate. Eventually life caught up with us and with no real income to support Guild activities as well as virtually no new members to speak of, we just closed the Guild down and moved on.

Sucks we had to do that but the advertisements actually started generating hostility over time in zone, and not just ours, but in general the whole thing became problematic and a waste of time.

My advice for you and your Guild is to find another way. Although I'm sure me saying this will bring additional experts telling me I'm wrong, but advertising in zone chat is really not returning gainful results. It seems that maybe word of mouth is better than advertising. Or it could be that many new players don't want to take a risk on a smaller Guild.

tohopka_eso · September 2021

Yeah it would be nice to pick an instance. I had zone chat turned off all weekend due to the back and forth of politics and other things.

code65536 · September 2021

Zones have always been instanced. But there is an imporant caveat: new instances are spun up only as needed.

So for a less popular zone (e.g., Bangkorai), there might be just a single instance of that zone on the server, in which case, everyone will be in the same instance. Whereas a more popular zone (e.g., Vvardenfell) might have half a dozen or more instances.

For example, years ago (around 2017 or so), back when I parked all my characters in the city of Shornhelm, Rivenspire on PC/NA was almost always a single instance and rarely were there more than one instance (usually only during an event). This was very convenient for me, since all of my alt accounts were parked there, and they'd always be in the same instance, which made it easier for me to trade things from account to account.

But with the higher player population on PC/EU, Rivenspire was almost always two instances, which made trades between my alt accounts a much greater hassle.

peacenote · September 2021

Knowing this, I would say we definitely need a "LFG" for trials!

I always thought that the zones were instanced but the chat crossed all of them. No wonder sometimes it helps to "hop around" when looking for fills. I honestly never noticed a case where someone didn't see my zone chat message and I knew they were there, so I guess I have just been lucky.

Fhritz · September 2021

And that's why we need a Group / Trial finder XD

BloodyStigmata · September 2021

SilverBride wrote: »

It is instanced on PC and has been as long as I remember. I personally do not want this changed because I like being able switch instances to get away from particularly irritating zone chat.

I feel like this could be somewhat mitigated if we had larger ignore lists.

Not that I'm implying that we should definitely, DEFINITELY have larger ignore lists or anything.

SilverBride · September 2021

BloodyStigmata wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

It is instanced on PC and has been as long as I remember. I personally do not want this changed because I like being able switch instances to get away from particularly irritating zone chat.

I feel like this could be somewhat mitigated if we had larger ignore lists.

I am not going to ignore players who I find annoying in zone chat because I may never run into them again. And so far I haven't.

spartaxoxo · September 2021

SilverBride wrote: »

BloodyStigmata wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

It is instanced on PC and has been as long as I remember. I personally do not want this changed because I like being able switch instances to get away from particularly irritating zone chat.

I feel like this could be somewhat mitigated if we had larger ignore lists.

I am not going to ignore players who I find annoying in zone chat because I may never run into them again. And so far I haven't.

Same. I don't use my ignore list unless it's something extreme. Besides the person being annoying in zone might be a tolerable presence in a pug. A lot of them hush up in pugs.

Nanfoodle · September 2021

I have to say. I don't care either way. I personally find guild recruiting in chat a pain. Sometimes it dominates chat when a few guilds are doing the same thing.

16BitForestCat · September 2021

In my 7+ years in this game since early access, I've never had a truly positive experience with joining guilds through zone chat. I'd whisper someone about joining their so-called "no sales requirements, only rules are no hate, and be kind!" guild they'd just advertised. And instead I'd then waste 20 minutes of my life being interviewed on the spot about my playstyle, gear, faction, life goals, age, and Social Security Number (one of these might be hyperbole

), when all I wanted to do was complete some quests, sell some items in their guild store, and have people to teleport to.

I get that most guilds want to screen who joins, and that's a good thing. But in my experience, replying to guild ads in real-time chat carried far too much drama and grilling questions with it. And if you decided you didn't want to join because the unnecessarily personal questions were making you uncomfortable? Then the one interviewing you would all too often be a jerk about you somehow not wanting to join a guild, after they'd just treated you like a criminal going through a police interrogation.

So I eventually stopped joining guilds that way and started joining them through the guild ads on the forums here. Way less drama (very surprising for these forums). Far fewer probing questions that make me feel like you're trying to figure out my bank login information.

And then, I started ignoring guild ads in zone chat entirely after the Guild Finder was more recently introduced. Every time I've needed a new guild on one of my accounts this year, I've found it through there. The guilds usually have more detailed info about them if I look up the guild name here or on a search engine to help me make an informed choice. I've been interviewed about my personal life or Champion Point setup exactly zero times. It's great! It's also cut way down on guild ads in zone chat that I've seen in my gaming sessions. Most of the guilds I'm in used to advertise in zone, but don't now that Guild Finder is a thing.

The only sad thing about Guild Finder reducing the amount of guild ads for me is that there was this one Japanese player I would see advertising their guild for many years. His chill ads were almost like an old friend that would travel with me from zone to zone as I played. I've seen his characters in game plenty, but I haven't seen any ads from him since Guild Finder came out. I miss those ads (and no others, TBH).

EDIT: I play PC NA/EU, mostly NA. Dunno what guild stuff is like on other platforms.

Ken_Koerperich · September 2021

16BitForestCat wrote: »

In my 7+ years in this game since early access, I've never had a truly positive experience with joining guilds through zone chat. I'd whisper someone about joining their so-called "no sales requirements, only rules are no hate, and be kind!" guild they'd just advertised. And instead I'd then waste 20 minutes of my life being interviewed on the spot about my playstyle, gear, faction, life goals, age, and Social Security Number (one of these might be hyperbole ), when all I wanted to do was complete some quests, sell some items in their guild store, and have people to teleport to.

I get that most guilds want to screen who joins, and that's a good thing. But in my experience, replying to guild ads in real-time chat carried far too much drama and grilling questions with it. And if you decided you didn't want to join because the unnecessarily personal questions were making you uncomfortable? Then the one interviewing you would all too often be a jerk about you somehow not wanting to join a guild, after they'd just treated you like a criminal going through a police interrogation.

So I eventually stopped joining guilds that way and started joining them through the guild ads on the forums here. Way less drama (very surprising for these forums). Far fewer probing questions that make me feel like you're trying to figure out my bank login information.

And then, I started ignoring guild ads in zone chat entirely after the Guild Finder was more recently introduced. Every time I've needed a new guild on one of my accounts this year, I've found it through there. The guilds usually have more detailed info about them if I look up the guild name here or on a search engine to help me make an informed choice. I've been interviewed about my personal life or Champion Point setup exactly zero times. It's great! It's also cut way down on guild ads in zone chat that I've seen in my gaming sessions. Most of the guilds I'm in used to advertise in zone, but don't now that Guild Finder is a thing.

The only sad thing about Guild Finder reducing the amount of guild ads for me is that there was this one Japanese player I would see advertising their guild for many years. His chill ads were almost like an old friend that would travel with me from zone to zone as I played. I've seen his characters in game plenty, but I haven't seen any ads from him since Guild Finder came out. I miss those ads (and no others, TBH).

I don't think ANYONE uses the GF...

Guild been up since I reached Lv10....about4 months....

Not one application....

Let alone, like you, tired of using it to only find out:

Guild Uses Discord ONLY
Never speak in game
"Donations" type guild, yet daily Messages = "spam" begging for donations...

Can't have it both ways folks...

Oh, and said 450+ - 500 player guilds ARE DEAD in the AM...

I can count on one hand, the amount of people online from over 30 different guilds I've been in during the early AM's...

Nanfoodle · September 2021

Ken_Koerperich wrote: »

16BitForestCat wrote: »

In my 7+ years in this game since early access, I've never had a truly positive experience with joining guilds through zone chat. I'd whisper someone about joining their so-called "no sales requirements, only rules are no hate, and be kind!" guild they'd just advertised. And instead I'd then waste 20 minutes of my life being interviewed on the spot about my playstyle, gear, faction, life goals, age, and Social Security Number (one of these might be hyperbole ), when all I wanted to do was complete some quests, sell some items in their guild store, and have people to teleport to.

I get that most guilds want to screen who joins, and that's a good thing. But in my experience, replying to guild ads in real-time chat carried far too much drama and grilling questions with it. And if you decided you didn't want to join because the unnecessarily personal questions were making you uncomfortable? Then the one interviewing you would all too often be a jerk about you somehow not wanting to join a guild, after they'd just treated you like a criminal going through a police interrogation.

So I eventually stopped joining guilds that way and started joining them through the guild ads on the forums here. Way less drama (very surprising for these forums). Far fewer probing questions that make me feel like you're trying to figure out my bank login information.

And then, I started ignoring guild ads in zone chat entirely after the Guild Finder was more recently introduced. Every time I've needed a new guild on one of my accounts this year, I've found it through there. The guilds usually have more detailed info about them if I look up the guild name here or on a search engine to help me make an informed choice. I've been interviewed about my personal life or Champion Point setup exactly zero times. It's great! It's also cut way down on guild ads in zone chat that I've seen in my gaming sessions. Most of the guilds I'm in used to advertise in zone, but don't now that Guild Finder is a thing.

The only sad thing about Guild Finder reducing the amount of guild ads for me is that there was this one Japanese player I would see advertising their guild for many years. His chill ads were almost like an old friend that would travel with me from zone to zone as I played. I've seen his characters in game plenty, but I haven't seen any ads from him since Guild Finder came out. I miss those ads (and no others, TBH).

I don't think ANYONE uses the GF...

Guild been up since I reached Lv10....about4 months....

Not one application....

Let alone, like you, tired of using it to only find out:

Guild Uses Discord ONLY
Never speak in game
"Donations" type guild, yet daily Messages = "spam" begging for donations...

Can't have it both ways folks...

Oh, and said 450+ - 500 player guilds ARE DEAD in the AM...

I can count on one hand, the amount of people online from over 30 different guilds I've been in during the early AM's...

I have been away from ESO for about 1.5 years. I just came back and after deciding to sub again and stick around. First thing I did was use the "guild finder" to look for like minded guilds. Guess I'm nobody.

Onigar · September 2021

I make plenty of trade sales and many times when I group with someone who is in the same city and we meet they are invisible with only the chevron shown.

To me this is clear zone chat is not instance based however,

Re. Starting post: when players have taken the trouble to investigate and find out there are instance situations where zone chat content is not common to both then I believe them.

There is probably something in the instance mechanics which creates both these situations.

Which one is correct? Well for me I would choose zone chat to be global across all instances.

For the players who like me find some zone posters annoying then there is the ignore feature and then you dont see any more of their posts.

From time to time I have an Ignore Amnesty where I clear all entries. Everyone is allowed a bad day or three

ZeroDPS · September 2021

wont it be better to have not instanced chat? so more people can group for trials and not only for that?

Elsonso · September 2021

ZeroDPS wrote: »

wont it be better to have not instanced chat? so more people can group for trials and not only for that?

I think that ESO's active population would make this unworkable. The zone "instances" make it look like the zone is reasonably populated, but that could be very deceptive. There could be thousands of people in the zone, separated into a few "instances". At busier times, a non-"instanced" chat would probably scroll faster than people could read and it would be hard to pick out stuff in all the noise.