How does ZOS take feedback?

Fennwitty · October 2021

JKorr wrote: »

Fennwitty wrote: »

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.

When has that stopped anyone from threatening and filing a lawsuit? Someone made a thread about how people should file a class action lawsuit because Morrowind wasn't free for subscribers. Someone else wanted to sue because bots and gold spammers when the game was new. People wanted to sue when One Tamriel happened, and they wanted a refund for their sub. People want to sue because of maintenance time "loss of service". Logic and actual reasoning doesn't always exist for some people.

How many of those succeed?

I'm sure you're not saying it's an undue burden on the company to acknowledge we're here from time to time?

I've worked for several companies -- if we were supposed to give everyone the silent treatment I guess we (and every other major company) is doing it wrong.

There's ways companies can illustrate they hear their customers without promising things.

Acknowledgment is not a slippery slope. Potentially making false promises is though. I don't want any representative to promise the moon just to make us happy because they won't be able to deliver. I do want demonstrations of acknowledgement.

Ippokrates · October 2021

Destai wrote: »

Ippokrates wrote: »

On one hand i can understand them. [snip] Reasonable posts are few, and those with reasonable discussions or ideas that most of people agreed upon, are even fewer. [snip]

[edited for baiting]

Come again?

What? Can't you see your points thanks to sniping. You must be more precise.

jedtb16_ESO · October 2021

Fennwitty wrote: »

JKorr wrote: »

Fennwitty wrote: »

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.

When has that stopped anyone from threatening and filing a lawsuit? Someone made a thread about how people should file a class action lawsuit because Morrowind wasn't free for subscribers. Someone else wanted to sue because bots and gold spammers when the game was new. People wanted to sue when One Tamriel happened, and they wanted a refund for their sub. People want to sue because of maintenance time "loss of service". Logic and actual reasoning doesn't always exist for some people.

How many of those succeed?

I'm sure you're not saying it's an undue burden on the company to acknowledge we're here from time to time?

I've worked for several companies -- if we were supposed to give everyone the silent treatment I guess we (and every other major company) is doing it wrong.

There's ways companies can illustrate they hear their customers without promising things.

Acknowledgment is not a slippery slope. Potentially making false promises is though. I don't want any representative to promise the moon just to make us happy because they won't be able to deliver. I do want demonstrations of acknowledgement.

zos acknowledges we are here by keeping the game running.

Xebov · October 2021

Destai wrote: »

Xebov wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

ZOS devs don't participate actively in the forums either. All I see are moderators who snip offending comments, etc.

[...]

So whose feedback does ZOS actually consider? It seems to me that the root of ZOS' problems lies in the lack of a transparent feedback and response system.

There is no reason to do this because it would just result in more work with no gain.

The first thing you have to understand here is that "the Devs" dont exist. Like every other company there are departments and individual ppl that are responsible for certain aspects of the product and there is a workflow how ideas, changes and bugs are collected and ranked. You always end up with more work than you are able to do so you have to rank things based on time requirements and workforce available and you also want everyone to work in their time as efficient as possible. The QoL ideas of players alone would be enought to fill months of patches.

With that in mind rethink your idea. Currently you have no official respond that is not a community manager. If other officials would respond it would take time off their work time to read and respond, but it would also open up additional problems. Instead of complaining that noone respons ppl would start complaining why they dont got a response, but others did. They would also start to flood these accounts with pms asking all kinds of stuff, which would just increase the overhead. There would be no gain here, just more frustration. You have to keep in mind that many topics have players with contradicting optinions or details.

The same goes for a transparent feedback system. What would you expect here? Insights into internal ticket systems? What would be the gain and the expectation.

You might not like the current way stuff is handled, but it assures that workflows are working and stuff gets done.

I'd just like to someone like @ZOS_Kevin or @ZOS_GinaBruno to give us an overview of the feedback process so we can all decide if these forums are even worth our time.

Thats a fair request. Maybe tehy should make a feature with the producer explaining how it all comes together.

deleted220614-000183 · October 2021

I'm afraid they lack the right to make such announcements as rules regarding forum and development priorities are part of the company know-how.

I think they are looking through the forum ocassionally and if they see that 99 percent of the people agree on one thing they take it in the account.

It gives me some hope that adressing the long maintanance times and repeating performance problems will be taken in the account as well as it is the biggest drawback of this beatiful game.

I understand that some fixes tends to be costly....

wenchmore420b14_ESO · October 2021

Yes, ZoS listens to feed back.
It seems that many of the responses are from people who have only been here, at least on forums, for only a couple of years.
They may have missed so many things that yes, were asked for by players and were added to the game. Too many to list here, but, a few examples. ~ One Tamriel, Guild Trader times change, Dye Stations, Justice System, etc.
So many of the things that people "want right now" either just can't be done or they ARE working on it, but is not as easy as "flipping a switch".

Lots of people in 2015 wanted Underwater Exploration and Flying Mounts. SOOOO, they did a ESO Live with some programing Devs to explain the hows and whys of doing this and why it wouldn't work. People still weren't satisfied. Gina and Jess used to have a segment on ESO Live that would address questions from forums, but that had to go away as people would miss interpret their answers.

I am a professional chef in RL. I deal with customers daily. There is ALWAYS that one who tells me, "gee, you should add sour cream to that dish" or "you should take out the wine and add vinegar". Do I? Heck no! Just because they think it would be a great idea it's not.
Same here. People think "this and this would be great" without actually knowing what and how it would take to do it. Lag, performance, PvP, etc, YES ZoS knows! They hear it daily! They are working on it. You notice no actual programmers or coders complain about it because they know the behind the scenes of making it so.

Yes. They ( ZoS employees) play the game. Pete Hines, the VP of Bethesda plays, Matt, Rich, all of them play and some even stream. Yes, they see the feedback and listen to forums. To respond to each and every one in a game with millions of players would be ludicrous. IMO, @ZOS_GinaBruno, @ZOS_JessicaFolsom & @ZOS_Kevin do a great job.

I have played since 2013 and no, I am not happy with ALL their decisions. I want to see things in game that are not there.
Just because they haven't addressed YOURS or MY issue, doesn't mean they haven't heard it or are not working on it.
Just my 2 drakes.
Huzzah!

ZOS_Kevin · October 2021

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

alanmatillab16_ESO · October 2021

They probably take most of the feedback on the forums with a healthy pinch of salt.

not neccessarily a bad thing considering a whole load of "feedback" involves players complaining for nerfs/buffs and how a certain feature doesnt work the way they want.

We rarely see communications from devs because the way forums work a comment of "we might consider flying mounts in some distant future but no plans for anything soon" will soon get taken down, twisted and become "we are introducing flying mounts". and used against them.

Elo106 · October 2021

If you (Zos) discuss forum topics maybe post a short comment after wards. Lets take dark convergence as an example.
The idea of that set might have appeared after one of the countless "ball group threads". If Zos would have posted that idea right after the discussion we could have warned you that ball groups would use it themselves and how annoying the set would be in general and especially in BGs.

Involve the players in the idea process, it cant hurt. Let us give feedback before PTS, as pts barely gets changed (at that point its too late)

DC is just one example, the exact same thing happened with Malacath and some others.

wenchmore420b14_ESO · October 2021

Thank You @ZOS_Kevin , and your cat, for that great response!
1,000 huzzahs!
As far as me, I would like to see a return of the "Armchair Developer" segments in ESO Live along with the Q&A series with the directors, loremaster, combat team, etc like we saw in the early years of the game.
Thank you and all at ZoS for all you do!

Destai · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

*enthusiastically presses Awesome button*

Slimebrow · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

Do you guys have any plans actually go back and address some of the older posts? I feel like some offer incredibly sound feedback and overall QOL improvements for YOUR game.

Perhaps this can be a video segment with the devs and forum mods maybe going back to older posts and dissecting what people having screaming at you guys for years on end about or going over QOL stuff from older posts, like literally just having a casual convo. Like actually clarifying with your users 'hey we read it we listened we will take it in to consideration' or something simple like that.

Hope IF you guys bother following through with this you won't make your user base repeat themselves over again. I just find it frustrating that you worded it like that to be honest.

I hope for the love of god you guys don't make this into one of those weird 'business' type culture with sooo much red tape between users and the devs.

Dagoth_Rac · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

ZOS_Kevin · October 2021

Honestly considering framing that post, @Dagoth_Rac.

Sylvermynx · October 2021

@Dagoth_Rac - I'd give you 1k awesomes for that if I could! Gave me such a giggle, really needed it today! I miss my kitties....

ZOS_Kevin · October 2021

Hey @Flubbles. Yes, we do plan to revisit posts for feedback. For full transparency, I have a folder on my bookmark bar with various feedback, both related to the game and to forum communication. The goal is to improve communication and have that translate to addressing QoL changes. Whether those changes are possible is a different question. But with improved communication, you should be able to know why something is or isn't possible.

And the whole point here is to remove the feeling of red tape. No party in this equation wants that. We get the frustration, but these changes do take time. That's that nature of trying to get this done right, or as close to right as we can.

Tandor · October 2021

Thanks for your responses, @ZOS_Kevin.

I suggest that one way of improving communication would be to have a pinned topic headed "Developers' Feedback Update" in which monthly updates are given on regular topics of concern such as performance, bug fixes, and QoL proposals (by ZOS) and suggestions (by players).

I suggest that an additional category under that topic could be "Established Decisions", addressing those ideas that constantly come up on the forum but on which ZOS have already made a definitive decision rejecting the idea. Much forum time would be saved if such a category had a single paragraph along the lines for example of "There is no intention to introduce an auction house or class change token, or to add PvP to the Justice System". Those are examples of recurring threads that are accused by players of "flogging a dead horse" (because ZOS have rejected them before) and which frequently require more than the usual amount of Moderators' attention, all involving time which could be saved by making it clear where there are ideas that simply aren't going to be adopted.

SilverBride · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication.

I would like for ZoS to state their stand on requests that appear with regular frequency on the same subject. It would be great if we were to receive a reply from ZoS stating their stand and why they see it the way they do.

spartaxoxo · October 2021

Your example of Stamina whip IS an example of listening to the community. Listening to the community =/= doing whatever the community told them to do. They are acknowledging a long standing request and then giving what they consider a solution to that request, that you don't like their solution is another matter.

In general I think ZOS could communicate more but they also are more responsive than other devs

spartaxoxo · October 2021

xgoku1 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

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

Strawman.

As that IS the implication of listing Stamina Whip as an example, it is not a stawman argument.

spartaxoxo · October 2021

GetAgrippa wrote: »

They take it and throw it in the garbage. Because if they actually took feedback, Dark Convergence would've been deleted from the game. Actually it would've never even made it to live.

Listening to someone does not mean agreeing with someone and doing what they told you to do.

ZOS has a vision for Dark Convergence, they aren't gonna delete it without trying to adjust it first.

spartaxoxo · October 2021

Alinhbo_Tyaka wrote: »

About a year and a half ago a ZOS employee was doing a Q&A on a Twitch streamers stream when the question about feedback came up. To paraphrase the response he considers it nothing more than a bunch of whining and ignores player comments/feedback as he didn't care what they have to say. I think this is well reflected in the game with its history of less than stellar development choices and lack of resolution of long standing problems.

Citation needed.

I very much doubt "whining" was ever an appropriate paraphrase for something a zos employee said live on stream.

spartaxoxo · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

One thing I would like to see is a summary of big feedback you are relaying, with the caveat that not all feedback will result in gameplay changes.

Something like "The big questions this week" where you note the feedback in some of the biggest and most active threads (and some smaller ones that caught your eye) and try to give some kind of response.

Also I'd like to see more responses to "hot" threads with lengthy discussions and lots of pages.

prof-dracko · October 2021

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

One thing I would like to see is a summary of big feedback you are relaying, with the caveat that not all feedback will result in gameplay changes.

Something like "The big questions this week" where you note the feedback in some of the biggest and most active threads (and some smaller ones that caught your eye) and try to give some kind of response.

Also I'd like to see more responses to "hot" threads with lengthy discussions and lots of pages.

I feel like this would solve a lot of complaints. The acknowledgement of such topics, even if there are no plans to act on it, would do a lot to reassure the players that they are at least being heard.

xgoku1 · October 2021

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Your example of Stamina whip IS an example of listening to the community. Listening to the community =/= doing whatever the community told them to do.

This is the worst example you could latch on to.

Listening =/= understanding. When StamDKs ask for a stamina whip, it's because they don't have a good class spammable.

ZOS' solution: Add a spammable morph that still costs magicka, but scales to your stamina build ???

Their explainer:

Lava Whip: This ability and its morphs now scale off your highest offensive stats, rather than exclusively Magicka based stats. May this finally end the fiery and age-old debate over getting a Stamina Whip.

How does this classify as listening? They added a spammable that costs the wrong stat? And 50% of their explainer is a smarmy, self-congratulatory comment.

A transparent response would be:
"We've considered your requests for a stamina-costing morph to the Whip spammable. We've gone with this instead. Here's why we think our implementation is a better fit"

As it is now their snarky "comment" just seems to reinforce the idea that this change was made to spite StamDK players who have been asking for a proper Stamina Whip for many years.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

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

Strawman.

As that IS the implication of listing Stamina Whip as an example, it is not a stawman argument.

No. Your argument is the very definition of a strawman argument.

The OP post DOES NOT state that ZOS needs to implement each and every change implemented on the forums as is.

You created a misrepresentation that "wanting more transparency" = "implement everything" to make it easier to argue against.

Additionally you cherrypicked the cited example to enforce the misrepresentation.

xgoku1 · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

Why the player should be involved:

The biggest issue IMO is that most of the conversation feels extremely one-sided.

Let's look at the feedback flow:

We say something -> ZOS_Kevin "imma pass it along" -> (2 years later) -> response implemented in some corner of patch notes

Obviously you have internal discussions but since we don't come to know your thoughts/opinions/discussions in stage 3 or get to take part in these conversations in the interim it seems like you say you listen but not really.

As you know feedback is an evolving subject that might need more discussion with the playerbase in between. I will be blunt and say this - I don't accept this premise that your company knows everything about every part of the game - that's where the player comes in as a stakeholder. Especially when it comes to things like PVP, you HAVE to involve them in the conversation.

You need to have feedback gates. Currently it feels like you take an idea from here, do the best you can based on the info you have, based on the discussions you have in a private vacuum, and push an implementation that fits the reality as you've understood it.

This seems to be a classic groupthink situation. I encourage you to read the Bay of Pigs decision-making disaster. Sometimes you need a Senator Fulbright to come in and say, this is un-American.

Response Template

We have a live example in this thread, someone raised an issue and you responded:

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

Just do this. Acknowledgement -> Comments -> Status -> Timeline. How long does that take?

If the answer is too long, consider someone who took time off their day to write feedback on PTS spanning pages, un-paid and out of love for a 7-year old game.

Realistically some suggestions are going to be more popular than others (like, say, why haven't you released Veya Releth's hair yet?) and you can maybe keep a threshold to what "deserves" a response.

Case Study

This is going to be too long to explain, so I would just say do a case study on RuneScape (RS3 and OSRS). The devs there have a pretty awesome system of interaction with the community while also maintaining their authority.

They have Dev Diaries, a dedicated Ninja Team to deal with small QoL stuff, in-game polls for major changes, an active presence on Reddit, and a lot more stuff that IMO are class-leading for community interaction.

spartaxoxo · October 2021

xgoku1 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Your example of Stamina whip IS an example of listening to the community. Listening to the community =/= doing whatever the community told them to do.

This is the worst example you could latch on to.

Listening =/= understanding.

It's not a cherrypicked example. It was a primary example to illustrate the problem with ZOS's communication. The opening post used this as a prime example of them not listening to the community flat out. That is what they argued. And it was a poor example of that, because regardless if they did what the community wanted or not, they were directly communicating. The example cited for "they don't communicate with us enough" was one in which they directly addressed the community but did not do what the community wanted.

Pointing out that an example is not appropriate and does NOT communicate the message of the post is in no way a strawman.

neferpitou73 · October 2021

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All. Wanted to chime in here to provide some clarity. Thank you @Destai for tagging me in the thread!

First and foremost, thank you for raising this discussion. Having this discourse is vital to having an open dialogue and improving communication.

So the teams here at ZOS take feedback seriously both from outside and inside of the forum. Regarding forum feedback specifically, our teams share and have detailed conversations about forum threads regularly. Various teams have their own process when review and factoring in feedback from the forums. In addition, myself and other community team members share threads with relevant teams to make sure your thoughts and feedback, both positive and negative, are shared. The community team gives updates to that feedback when we can, but we also recognize there is more work to be done regarding communication across the board.

Several of you have noted ways that communication can be improved. We have seen those comments and actively working on making some of those suggestions a reality. We have a list of improvements we would like to make over the coming year here in the forum to not only improve communication, but to create a dialogue. My personal hope is to share some of these changes in the next few months. While we don't have specifics to share yet, when those changes come, we hope to get your feedback on how they can be improved.

We do know one of the community requested changes has been finding a way to note when a moderator is commenting on versus a ZOS employee. We are working on this as we know it is frustrating to enter a chat hoping for ZOS communication. This is pretty high up there regarding the communication upgrades. Again, no date yet, but we are working on it.

We'd like to round this out with asking what you would like to see as users of the forum for communication. We know several of you have noted what you would like to see (thank you), but we will be keeping this thread bookmarked for ways we can create a better forum experience and community. So additional feedback is welcome. So, what would you like to see in the forum to increase communication and dialogue?

Thank you all for taking your time to comment and expression your thoughts here. We greatly appreciate it.

*Fun note: I had this typed up like 3 hrs ago and then my cat tried to type out her own message. As you can imagine, it was a message only fitting of a Khajiit, so I had to re-type everything after a few meetings.

This is really quality communication! Thanks @ZOS_Kevin !

xgoku1 · October 2021

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Your example of Stamina whip IS an example of listening to the community. Listening to the community =/= doing whatever the community told them to do.

This is the worst example you could latch on to.

Listening =/= understanding. When StamDKs ask for a stamina whip, it's because they don't have a good class spammable.

ZOS' solution: Add a spammable morph that still costs magicka, but scales to your stamina build ???

Their explainer:

Lava Whip: This ability and its morphs now scale off your highest offensive stats, rather than exclusively Magicka based stats. May this finally end the fiery and age-old debate over getting a Stamina Whip.

How does this classify as listening? They added a spammable that costs the wrong stat? And 50% of their explainer is a smarmy, self-congratulatory comment.

A transparent response would be:
"We've considered your requests for a stamina-costing morph to the Whip spammable. We've gone with this instead. Here's why we think our implementation is a better fit"

As it is now their snarky "comment" just seems to reinforce the idea that this change was made to spite StamDK players who have been asking for a proper Stamina Whip for many years.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

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

Strawman.

As that IS the implication of listing Stamina Whip as an example, it is not a stawman argument.

No. Your argument is the very definition of a strawman argument.

The OP post DOES NOT state that ZOS needs to implement each and every change implemented on the forums as is.

You created a misrepresentation that "wanting more transparency" = "implement everything" to make it easier to argue against.

Additionally you cherrypicked the cited example to enforce the misrepresentation.

It's not a cherrypicked example. It was a primary example to illustrate the problem with ZOS's communication. The OP stated this was an example of them not listening to the community flat out. That is what they argued. And it was a poor example of that. Pointing out that an example is not appropriate is in no way a strawman.

Your interpretation is wrong and your argument is fallacious.

xgoku1 wrote: »

The PTS forums are a ghost town, and the feedback mentioned there gets addressed or even acknowledged. It seems like more and more game-breaking additions like the buggy DC set clear the PTS stage and make it into Live.

A small example for U32:
People have been begging for a Stam Whip since 2014, and ZOS added a hybrid morph that uses magicka instead. In the Patch Notes they patted themselves on the back: "May this finally end the fiery and age-old debate over getting a Stamina Whip."

As you can clearly see this example is provided to reinforce the point that PTS forums are a ghost town. The Stamwhip comment is a reference to this PTS thread.

It is also the second example cited after buggy sets like DC and HC making it to Live.

So not only did you misrepresent the intent of the thread, cherry-pick the example cited, but also ignored its context, changed the context entirely and used it to strawman.

This thread isn't about ZOS kowtowing to every single one of the player's demands. It is about poor communication.

spartaxoxo · October 2021

xgoku1 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Your example of Stamina whip IS an example of listening to the community. Listening to the community =/= doing whatever the community told them to do.

This is the worst example you could latch on to.

Listening =/= understanding. When StamDKs ask for a stamina whip, it's because they don't have a good class spammable.

ZOS' solution: Add a spammable morph that still costs magicka, but scales to your stamina build ???

Their explainer:

Lava Whip: This ability and its morphs now scale off your highest offensive stats, rather than exclusively Magicka based stats. May this finally end the fiery and age-old debate over getting a Stamina Whip.

How does this classify as listening? They added a spammable that costs the wrong stat? And 50% of their explainer is a smarmy, self-congratulatory comment.

A transparent response would be:
"We've considered your requests for a stamina-costing morph to the Whip spammable. We've gone with this instead. Here's why we think our implementation is a better fit"

As it is now their snarky "comment" just seems to reinforce the idea that this change was made to spite StamDK players who have been asking for a proper Stamina Whip for many years.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

xgoku1 wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

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

Strawman.

As that IS the implication of listing Stamina Whip as an example, it is not a stawman argument.

No. Your argument is the very definition of a strawman argument.

The OP post DOES NOT state that ZOS needs to implement each and every change implemented on the forums as is.

You created a misrepresentation that "wanting more transparency" = "implement everything" to make it easier to argue against.

Additionally you cherrypicked the cited example to enforce the misrepresentation.

It's not a cherrypicked example. It was a primary example to illustrate the problem with ZOS's communication. The OP stated this was an example of them not listening to the community flat out. That is what they argued. And it was a poor example of that. Pointing out that an example is not appropriate is in no way a strawman.

Your interpretation is wrong and your argument is fallacious.

xgoku1 wrote: »

The PTS forums are a ghost town, and the feedback mentioned there gets addressed or even acknowledged. It seems like more and more game-breaking additions like the buggy DC set clear the PTS stage and make it into Live.

A small example for U32:
People have been begging for a Stam Whip since 2014, and ZOS added a hybrid morph that uses magicka instead. In the Patch Notes they patted themselves on the back: "May this finally end the fiery and age-old debate over getting a Stamina Whip."

As you can clearly see this example is provided to reinforce the point that PTS forums are a ghost town. The Stamwhip comment is a reference to this PTS thread.

It is also the second example cited after buggy sets like DC and HC making it to Live.

So not only did you misrepresent the intent of the thread, cherry-pick the example cited, but also ignored its context, changed the context entirely and used it to strawman.

This thread isn't about ZOS kowtowing to every single one of the player's demands. It is about poor communication.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The example cited for "they don't communicate with us enough" was one in which they directly addressed the community but did not do what the community wanted

I literally said the thread itself was about poor communication, so no. That you used a PTS example doesn't change that the example was meant to showcase poor communication and it did not.

This example does not illustrate the point of the thread well =/= this thread is about the problems with the example.

The example simply sucks. And pointing out the example shows ZOS listening to people isn't a strawman.

You can call it a strawman all you want, but it won't turn a bad example into a good one. ZOS listened to the community in that example, which is the opposite of poor communication. DC and HC are also bad examples actually. Nerfs came relatively quickly given their update schedule.