I remember the good ol' days of DAoC and their weekly GrabBag. Direct answers to community questions, on a regular basis.

As far as ESO goes, I think the purpose of the PTS is for bug-catching, not for player-driven game design or change. At least, this has been my observation from watching, listening, and doing some direct community surveys.

As to who they actually listen to? Well, the developers don't sit around a table and take direction from posts with the most traffic, let's just put it that way. They are workers with a to-do list like everyone else, with a hierarchy of people that give them direction, and who they report to. In other words, they listen to their Boss.

That said, feedback does make it through. You can see that here and there, especially if you read the patch notes that have commentary on some of the changes. So, don't stop giving feedback! Not everything may make it on their lists, but some does.

Listening to the playerbase doesn't mean giving them everything they ask for.

_Zathras_ wrote: »

As far as ESO goes, I think the purpose of the PTS is for bug-catching, not for player-driven game design or change. At least, this has been my observation from watching, listening, and doing some direct community surveys.

Honestly, while it can be used for bug testing, I think it is to see how players respond and to tune. Four weeks is hardly enough time to confirm every bug report and fix it. Only the top bugs, reported early, even have a chance. I figure that it is at least 2 weeks to fix an easy bug found on PTS, and that is for the top bugs. The next lower priority bugs are probablly 4-8 weeks out, and everything else is at least 2 months away.

If a player wants any chance of feedback being considered, the time to mention it is day 1 of PTS. The concrete harden fast.

One thing that ZOS could do is drop the whole "never say never" thing and make it clear when something is nnot going to happen. This will make some people angry, others happy, and will put a period at the end of the sentence. Much better than the "maybe?".

Elo106 wrote: »

Zos - Community Communication has been one sided for a long time, thats why the forums are infested with the same topics over and over, the general consesus is they dont care and lots of negativity towards Zos.

Most of their mistakes were spotted by vet players on day one (malacath 25%, dark convergence, Op CP stars etc) more communication would have solved lots of issues before they go live, sadly its just us talking and Zos not listening

I've been assured by @ZOS_Kevin that feedback does get listened to but not always responded. I just don't think that's acceptable - particularly on event questions and other time-sensitive inquiries, let alone feedback on heavy changes like class balance. I'm not blaming him or @ZOS_GinaBruno specifically, I'm sure they're trying their absolute hardest - but it goes back to processes and management.

Players ask for things, put in hard work detailing how it could be better for US, and then crickets. There has to be some awareness that that causes frustration and animosity from players. If they can staff the many moderators - who react rather quickly - I don't see why they can't staff people who actively engage the community.

I will say they have gotten better, and it's really appreciated when some things finally get acknowledged. Recently there was acknowledgement that some NPCs are bloody annoying and get in the way of the game. While that feedback was initially directed at a newer NPC, it quickly became a wishlist for all NPCs that border on nagware. Those complaints are years old - case in point Stuga - and it takes them how many years to adjust an NPC? I only hope the feedback gets internalized on some of the design decisions that snowball into players complaining.

There needs to be better feedback that's visible to the player community and they need to react sooner. I'm grateful for the hardwork these guys and I'm happy with how much this game has improved over the years. I just can't help but feel it should've happened sooner. I say that not knowing the technological constraints - but again that comes down to communication from ZOS. So many other games have very visible processes, I would think that they'd want that same goodwill from the community that other games enjoy.

Elsonso wrote: »

_Zathras_ wrote: »

As far as ESO goes, I think the purpose of the PTS is for bug-catching, not for player-driven game design or change. At least, this has been my observation from watching, listening, and doing some direct community surveys.

Honestly, while it can be used for bug testing, I think it is to see how players respond and to tune. Four weeks is hardly enough time to confirm every bug report and fix it. Only the top bugs, reported early, even have a chance. I figure that it is at least 2 weeks to fix an easy bug found on PTS, and that is for the top bugs. The next lower priority bugs are probablly 4-8 weeks out, and everything else is at least 2 months away.

If a player wants any chance of feedback being considered, the time to mention it is day 1 of PTS. The concrete harden fast.

One thing that ZOS could do is drop the whole "never say never" thing and make it clear when something is nnot going to happen. This will make some people angry, others happy, and will put a period at the end of the sentence. Much better than the "maybe?".

Even with PTS it doesn't always get considered. Case in point, the whole new tutorial that came out. A lot of people stated how it doesn't meet their needs and that it fundamentally missed the point. Nothing changed. They stuck with their vision.

Elo106 wrote: »

Communicating with us doesnt mean they have to just implement everything we ask for

Yeah, people confuse listening to and receiving feedback with implementation.

Feedback can be reviewed and determined to not fit with the intended implementation. That doesn't mean that it isn't being reviewed, nor does it mean that feedback isn't being listened to. It just means that they determined that the feedback didn't fall in line with the way they wanted something to work.

Take DC for example, people raised flags for it in PTS. Zos reviewed that and determined they wanted it to go live as is. Most likely because the population on PTS is so small that the intended impact of the set was never going to be tested properly on PTS anyways.

Zos implemented the set, and after live feedback are making changes to it.

So they saw feedback and determined that it ran counter than their intentions with the set. They went live with it, and received more feedback, alongside live data that provided more information to the team, and they determined to take some of that feedback into account and alter the way the set functions.

People also overlook how long a process this can be. Just because feedback is given doesn't mean it can even be implemented, nor does it mean that it can be done in a quick turnaround.

They listen to streamers and / or the guys that run ball groups. Look at some of the changes they're made. It makes sense - I mean, they have an audience, are pretty vocal and no company, private or public, wants bad PR. For the rest, though, I suspect they use the forums to justify what they were already planning to do.

Look at the fiasco over proc sets for instance; sure there was a very vocal minority banging on (and on) about them here. Anyone who diead in Cyro would come on and whine that X Y Z was "OP." But I don't believe any company would base their plans on that sort of "feedback."

They basically wanted to cut down the amount of work they had to do and hung it around those guy's necks.

Tandor wrote: »

Unfortunately there will always be those who feel that if their particular idea isn't adopted then the devs aren't listening, whereas the reality is that the devs do follow the forum but don't engage in discussions.

Unfortunately this statement relies too much on blind faith. It would make sense that the devs do make use of the forums, but I could make a statement like: "Devs do not follow the forum and do not engage in discussions" and since they don't interact here, both of us could be correct.

Tandor wrote: »

I guess they learnt the hard way that giving any semblance of an indication that they would look into something resulted in claims later on that they were either lying or had broken their promise to implement it ! Basically they can't win, so they don't get drawn in.

This doesn't validate the lack of community interaction. If they feel offended by the harsh feedback, perhaps they should depersonalize criticism.

_Zathras_ wrote: »

As to who they actually listen to? Well, the developers don't sit around a table and take direction from posts with the most traffic, let's just put it that way. They are workers with a to-do list like everyone else, with a hierarchy of people that give them direction, and who they report to. In other words, they listen to their Boss.

ZOS seems like a typical corporate environment so it could be that there is a team tasked with receiving feedback from various sources, amalgamating it, prioritizing them, aligning to profit-generating activity etc. and then sent to Devs as actionable tasks.

It could be that a lot of the conversation is lost in translation. Or the Feedback team sucks.

jedtb16_ESO wrote: »

... because it was childish and dumb.

"All feedback is childish and dumb."

Thank you for contributing.

SilverBride wrote: »

Listening to the playerbase doesn't mean giving them everything they ask for.

Strawman.

Larcomar wrote: »

They listen to streamers and / or the guys that run ball groups. Look at some of the changes they're made. It makes sense - I mean, they have an audience, are pretty vocal and no company, private or public, wants bad PR. For the rest, though, I suspect they use the forums to justify what they were already planning to do.

True but not true.

ZOS is gonna do ZOS, and they are also going to go to their internal business analysis to see what players are doing and form a direction. If an action they take aligns with something that a streamer is saying, or someone on the forum wrote, or a comment from the next door neighbor of the great aunt of the sister of a dev, then so be it.

That said, the streamers are among the ones that are likely to show up at in-person events, and are likely to show up in social media, and they are very likely to be heard.

I really don't care what the streamers say... as long as ZOS does as I command, everything is OK in my little corner of reality.

xgoku1 wrote: »

Genuine question.

I was watching this video (18:45 onwards) where the guy was saying that Class Representatives are a "fake, glorified position" and ZOS basically disregards feedback received and do what they want anyways.

ZOS devs don't participate actively in the forums either. .

Well, I think ZOS is primarily a corporate company making profit in gaming business.
It is not about devs and their opinions at all, they are just employees.
They have their corporate rules and investors and it seems much more important then players and feedback on the forum.

I think we as players have very limited possibility how to influence the future of this game.

For example performance issues and long maintanance are probably the most painful problems but as the fixes are costly and can't be sold in crownstore, we could adress them again and again and hope that something happens.

That's all we can do.

Tandor wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

Tandor wrote: »

Unfortunately there will always be those who feel that if their particular idea isn't adopted then the devs aren't listening, whereas the reality is that the devs do follow the forum but don't engage in discussions.

Unfortunately this statement relies too much on blind faith. It would make sense that the devs do make use of the forums, but I could make a statement like: "Devs do not follow the forum and do not engage in discussions" and since they don't interact here, both of us could be correct.

No, it is what they have consistently told us, namely that they do follow the forums. Also, they have implemented some things that have been raised here, and they have also discussed some things from here on ESO Live, none of which would have happened if they hadn't been following the forums.

OK, I won't be obtuse and argue this. Obviously they read the forums, I'd like to see responses from the devs rather than proxy via @ZOS_Kevin. As of now this moderator is carrying the company.

But this raises an interesting point, if they can discuss something on ESO Live, surely they can discuss it here?

Destai wrote: »

I try to avoid being cynical, it's a game at the end of the day, but we're all passionate about it and want it to be the best it can be. But when many people, forum dwellers and class reps alike are putting together well organized feedback for free, non-responses to that effort feels insulting.

I agree.

Ultimately if your feedback falls on deaf ears you are going to just stop caring.

Here's an illustration:

"Normal" Company
Customers: <Opinion>
Company: "Thank you for your feedback, we will be sure to pass it along. While we cannot promise any particular change, know that we're always striving to make the best product possible and value our customers!"

"ZoS"
Customers: <Opinion>
Company: <Remains Silent>

JKorr wrote: »

Fennwitty wrote: »

Here's an illustration:

"Normal" Company
Customers: <Opinion>
Company: "Thank you for your feedback, we will be sure to pass it along. While we cannot promise any particular change, know that we're always striving to make the best product possible and value our customers!"

"ZoS"
Customers: <Opinion>
Company: <Remains Silent>

So, them following the forums, saying they follow the forums, and actually implementing some things the forums wanted that fit their plans for the game doesn't mean anything? Even when they do things people asked for, if it isn't the exact implementation the person envisioned, there are rants, demands, and outrage because they listened to the WRONG people. Even a boilerplate statement like the one above could be taken the wrong way by someone.

What does 'silence' say then?

ZoS_Kevin really helps the company's image a ton by engaging the community even when he can't make promises. More of that please.

JKorr wrote: »

Devs: "We've been thinking about implementing this possibly at some point in the future."

Portion of playerbase: 'YAY!!!! FEATURE WE'VE BEEN YELLING ABOUT IS COMING WITH THE NEXT UPDATE!!!!!!

Next update arrives without feature X. Because they never said it was ever going to happen, let alone in the next update.

Portion of the playerbase: "TEH DEVS LIED. THEY NEVER LISTEN OR FOLLOW THROUGH.THEY HATE THE PLAYERS AND DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THE $$$$$$"

Anything anyone official says is instantly read into, read between the lines of, projected personal wishes on, taken out of context and used for threatened lawsuits. If the devs ever took and implemented suggestions from players, there would be instant lawsuits over copyright, demands for payment and all the rest of the happy [snip] people get up to now. Everyone, including the community mods, are far safer acknowledging ideas, passing on the ones that aren't too ridiculous, and leaving it at that. "We heard you. It may or may not be a good idea. Nothing may ever be done about it. But we did hear you."

So, ZOS doesn't interact with forums because they are scared of players suing them for copyright for any ideas they implement?

[edited to remove quote]

xgoku1 wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Devs: "We've been thinking about implementing this possibly at some point in the future."

Portion of playerbase: 'YAY!!!! FEATURE WE'VE BEEN YELLING ABOUT IS COMING WITH THE NEXT UPDATE!!!!!!

Next update arrives without feature X. Because they never said it was ever going to happen, let alone in the next update.

Portion of the playerbase: "TEH DEVS LIED. THEY NEVER LISTEN OR FOLLOW THROUGH.THEY HATE THE PLAYERS AND DON'T CARE ABOUT ANYTHING BUT THE $$$$$$"

Anything anyone official says is instantly read into, read between the lines of, projected personal wishes on, taken out of context and used for threatened lawsuits. If the devs ever took and implemented suggestions from players, there would be instant lawsuits over copyright, demands for payment and all the rest of the happy bs people get up to now. Everyone, including the community mods, are far safer acknowledging ideas, passing on the ones that aren't too ridiculous, and leaving it at that. "We heard you. It may or may not be a good idea. Nothing may ever be done about it. But we did hear you."

So, ZOS doesn't interact with forums because they are scared of players suing them for copyright for any ideas they implement?

Lawsuits wouldn't go too far ... they own everything we say on the forums. We signed ToS.