Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Acheivements surely arent. Being able to play the game more than once is.

This is all purely speculational for now, but what do you plan to do when this thing is pushed to live regardless? I'm going to spam the hell out of guild and zone chats, reddit and forums about how you can play a (great) Elder Scrolls game only once.

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

I think you misunderstood me, mate

Comrade_Ogilvy wrote: »

PTS alchemy seems broken. It's stuck in a superposition of states between account-wide full knowledge but, at the craft table, an individual character still shows as having no individual knowledge (Schrodinger's alchemy cat).

With enchanting you(zos) made it clear you intended it to be character specific and provided extra visual cues to reflect this. Alchemy is NOT done the same way, nor given in your list of character specifics.

I think this is working as intended, the alchemy achievements not matching the reagent knowledge, like with Skyshards achievements vs. actually collecting them. I would not be surprised to see enchanting achievements go the same way at some point, since the inconsistency is confusing, and I'm sure they'd love to throw out a slew of timestamp data to save space.

Then again, given the state of the zone guide and NPC reactions, it doesn't seem that reducing confusion is really a priority in the short term.

Jaraal wrote: »

newtinmpls wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

I still can't believe it was released on PTS in this state. Did they think we wanted all our characters to just play dress up and drag queen each other as if they're all the same person? It's just so gross for an Elder Scrolls game!

Apparently they think some people wanted that - and apparently some do.

Hard to tell actual percent wise, and seriously, how would you gather or sort data to assess this? (semi-serious question)

I think it's going to be a case of "be careful what you wish for." A lot of folks came to this thread (and others) early on saying, "Yay, AWA finally!" But when they read the details and saw the actual implementation, were like, "OK, maybe this needs more work, this isn't exactly what I was hoping for." And ZOS has spun it by saying 'You guys have been requesting this for years!'.... essentially placing the burden of responsibility squarely upon the shoulders of the players themselves.

Yes, and this is why I think the FAQ was especially tone deaf. Basically we're being told that we asked for character-specific data to be deleted which in many, many cases for people pro-AwA was NOT true.

However, this is why I try to always make posts showing all sides that I can imagine of an issue, and also why I get frustrated with topics on the forums where people say things that are too simplified or are obviously thinking about only one perspective. When healing orbs and springs got nerfed, TONS of people on the forums were saying that it was because ZOS was done with mindless healbots who just spammed orbs. Never once was that idea mentioned by ZOS, nor was this a real issue that plagued typical healers, good or bad, but it was repeated over and over, even after ZOS released a statement that said the healing changes were part of their efforts to improve performance. Ideas and words and opinions do have power. And I think all of the negative things said about healers during that time are still negatively impacting the perception of the role today.

Forum posts that say "nerf this" or "this MUST be changed" and whatnot, and then you go and read the description and it's obvious it's only a PvP perspective, or an issue with end game trials... they also drive me crazy. Because I just imagine these ideas catching on and being implemented blindly because the quick, easy headlines make it sound like it is an absolute problem across all aspects of the game.

That said, one should hope that companies would know their product well enough to understand the reasons behind the reasons that people say things. Like they should know that a lot of people just wanted account-wide titles. And they should know that a lot of their customers would want to retain character-specific data and they should have been prepared to address that concern on day 2, if not in the stream on the day of the release.

But there's a saying that the road to hell is paved to good intentions , and I also have seen just as many well-meaning employees de-rail projects and discussions as I have seen it be done by under-performing employees or ones who just enjoy stirring up trouble. So yes, anyone IN a conversation bears some responsibility for how it turns out, although the subject matter experts should carry more of it. And everyone should be a) careful what they wish for and b) exact and clear in how they express their wishes!

silvereyes wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

alberichtano wrote: »

Vulkunne wrote: »

The gaming company could partner with a cloud storage provider that you would not have direct access to. Your sub fee would cover both costs.

- When playing the game it can quickly pull your profile from the cloud and then update while playing or when you log off
- Vendor manages your data storage at a reasonable fee, game dev manages the game with no additional fees

Problem solved. I would think this solution would have been considered especially now that ZOS is with MS. And that's my greatest concern in all this as far as why can they not work together to solve problems like this.

Because, I believe (and I admit it just guesswork on my part), MS doesn't want to use datastorage that they could rent for good money on a game they just purchased. Unless the gamers will pay at least the same amount for said data storage, it would be a net loss for them. And I am not sure that ZOS would want to increase the costs for the game in that way - it would probably kill the FTP-element, as laying the cost entirely on the Plus-ers would be devastating (though, again, I might be wrong here, since I am not sure how much MS wants to rent out there data space for).

MS bought ZOS in order to make profits, not to improve the games with their own tech. Like any company their duty is to make profit to the shareholders, and anything else would make them liable for misconduct. For a pure gaming company investments in an MMO could generate more profit, but for a parent company it would probably be seen as far too risky.

But again, this is what I believe is happening from my rather meager experience from businesses. I just don't think that MS wants to rain resources over ZOS or ESO, they want to make a profit from what already is there.

I think the new card game is going to add a slew of achievements

I've been thinking about this, and I don't think this is just about the card game. I think the performance / server stability reasons that ZOS gave are genuine, and they are experiencing a real issue with scalability right now.

1. Even as early as the end of 2019, work on database cold storage had already begun. They realized they had a scaling problem even then, as accumulated character data continued to pile up over time.
2. When the pandemic hit, ESO's popularity exploded, hitting active player numbers unseen "since console launch back in 2015". According to Steam Charts, the active player count more than doubled between the end of 2019 and April 2020.
3. When Greymoor released, the servers couldn't handle character load traffic. They singled out some redundant character save code - which was fixed - but also achievements as the underlying cause. This was even considering the fact that many of the characters being loaded were either brand new, or hadn't played in years.
4. Database caching and worker optimizations work is already complete, and launched with Update 27.
5. There was another large spike of activity in late March 2021. This corresponds with the patch before the Blackwood Chapter release, not the Chapter itself.
6. Cold storage is running late. It's activated on Playstation NA and EU and XBox NA and EU servers. However, it hasn't been activated on PC NA or PC EU servers, yet, and there's no ETA for when it will be.

Given that evidence, I think that what is happening is that the database optimizations the developers have implemented so far - including caching - are proving insufficient to deal with the game's rapid data growth. The Greymoor Boom is now exacting a delayed performance drag on the database as those players accumulate more data per character, and they accumulate more and more characters. The cold storage optimizations aren't complete yet, and they probably won't be on PC in time for the new surge of activity in the coming month.

They probably knew this all this in Q4 of last year when they planned out their rearchitecture, and they knew they didn't have enough time to fundamentally change all the achievements data to use a different storage mechanism before March 2022. So they decided to try and kill two birds with one stone and implemented a frequently-requested feature of account-wide achievements to try and buy some time by deleting data.

They probably foresaw some backlash, but I honestly don't think that they knew how much there would be, and they had no backup plan. The player activity surge is coming, and soon, and AwA is their only hope to weather it.

Just another reason why they need to reinstate a formal program for community dialog again, IMO. If the Council of Nirn, Council of Raiders programs were still active, and this had been discussed with them ahead of time, it probably would have been apparent to ZOS much earlier that character data is sacred to a lot of players, and they needed to come up with a different plan to deal with their technical issues. The community / class rep programs and PTS feedback are not good substitutes to a back-and-forth dialog.

100% agree about the community dialog in general. I do think the scenario you describe could be a version of what's happening.

However I still don't think a lack of better means for engagement or any potential dire need excuses the bad communication and slow response. These threads, and all the different viewpoints and opinions, have been going on for years. They should have been ready. We all WANT the game to succeed and continue on; that is why we are here! Talking to us and acknowledging that we are upset is way better than ignoring us. At least for me, the horrible communication and lack of direct comments back is eating away at any sympathy or tolerance I might have for such a decision.

I would say that limiting the service could have been (and still should be) considered over what's occurring. People who haven't logged on in, say, 5 years... delete their accounts. Send them an e-mail, give them a chance to object, and delete them. The outcry from non-active players will be less than current players, you'd think. Maybe limit it to people who only played for a year, or people who didn't ever hit level 50, or people with few achievements. Don't allow the creation of new accounts on megaservers that are too full; maybe make another one. Implement login queue times. Delete unnecessary achievements from EVERYONE so at least the entire community is impacted fairly. And DELAY RELEASE of new functionality until this is fixed!! I mean, this can't be the first MMO which has grown beyond its means and had trouble expanding. Blatantly disregarding longtime active player feedback over potential new players or players coming back to check out the new content, and who will only stay for a bit, is a bad business decision. And it could effect ALL of us if it kills the game permanently. Which frankly is the main reason I'm still here, trying to get attention on this issue. Now, of course the game might be fine. I'm not trying to be dramatic. But I still think the people who replay content over and over, both in end game and just in questing and the stories, are the folks who help new players find their way. I think they are the bedrock of this game. And I don't even put myself in this category because I play 3 days, at MOST, a week, for a couple of hours each time... but I've definitely done my fair share of teaching and sharing, especially in pug dungeon finder dungeons. I think the average longevity of players will dive after this change, and possibly never recover, since people will leave the game over this.

A while back, someone mentioned that ZOS probably doesn't have the data we think they do. I agree with this completely. Data is hard to analyze, inaccurate, and not always easy to pull out or obtain. I would have completely, 100% been supportive if the FAQ had been quick and direct - "We're sorry; we didn't know... we're doing the best we can/we have no choice." But it's not how it reads at all.

I have also been thinking about some of the new systems, like stickerbook and endeavors. There definitely are different databases (or branches of it!) that give pop up feedback on screen and aren't achievements. I feel like if they just delayed A LITTLE they could move some of this into a different area where that experience and the current data could be preserved. I don't think many people care about if they are actually achievements. They care about the feedback and the character progress. But if not, I'd like to at least hear that this was considered and deemed impossible.

Not that we will. At this point I feel like I'm more likely to come home and find 8 million dollars in cash on my doorstep than I am going to get a more "in touch" response to our continued feedback, let alone any kind of change or fix or enhancement. Which is a bit sad considering how unlikely the first scenario is...

Tandor wrote:

Indeed. They need to revise their marketing mantra to "Play the way you want. Once."

"...But not if you want to play that way. And if you do like something, we'll change it in 3 months so don't get attached."

Comrade_Ogilvy wrote: »

Kelinmiriel wrote: »

Comrade_Ogilvy wrote: »

PTS alchemy seems broken. It's stuck in a superposition of states between account-wide full knowledge but, at the craft table, an individual character still shows as having no individual knowledge (Schrodinger's alchemy cat)...
Either way it needs to be fixed, preferably by not going ahead with this unwelcome mess in its entirety.

If you haven't put this in the thread for bugs, please do it. It'll just get lost here, and is even less likely to be noticed.

I know about the other thread. I chose to post here.

Here, there - it doesn't matter; it will be given pretty much the same amount and quality of acknowledgment as every other item of feedback given.

It's very important to put it in the bug thread and report with /bug.

We have to help get it into the internal bug tracker backlog so it can be prioritized and acted on in a future patch!

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Acheivements surely arent. Being able to play the game more than once is.

This is all purely speculational for now, but what do you plan to do when this thing is pushed to live regardless? I'm going to spam the hell out of guild and zone chats, reddit and forums about how you can play a (great) Elder Scrolls game only once.

Continue questing on my 18 characters, just as i did before the patch.
Its not because a few quest are broken that the game isnt replayable,in fact it definitly is replayable

Sure i do understand that not being able to redo acheivement on alt may saden or even anger some, but the game is much bigger thant that.

peacenote wrote: »

Jaraal wrote: »

People who haven't logged on in, say, 5 years... delete their accounts. Send them an e-mail... Implement login queue times.

These are horrible marketing decisions. 50 broken quests are way, way better in terms of players outcry and coverage.

This issue is not covered anywhere at all besides this topic. And I fear won't be, because, realistically, its 10% who redo quests and 10% of that who will notice a world state broken. And there are people of that 1% who are completely fine with it as we see. Its nothing in the grand scheme of things and won't impact ZOS bottom line at all. Unless this gets coverage somehow.

Jaraal wrote: »

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Acheivements surely arent. Being able to play the game more than once is.

This is all purely speculational for now, but what do you plan to do when this thing is pushed to live regardless? I'm going to spam the hell out of guild and zone chats, reddit and forums about how you can play a (great) Elder Scrolls game only once.

And this isn't some balance change, or set rework, or other minor change that players will forget about in a few months. This is a major change in gameplay for everyone, and especially those who have cultivated carefully crafted identities for their characters, and for those who have done everything they wanted on one character and are currently replaying the game from scratch on their alts.

No, this is something that will be a sore point and keep people resentful for as long as the game is still active. People won't forget having years of hard work and in many cases lots of money spent on their individual characters just casually erased.... for any reason. And especially not one that won't be showing any immediate changes in performance..... which in itself is a bitter pill for many ("Year of Performance", etc.) And it will become even more egregious if performance continues to degrade, and the character history wipe will prove to be in vain.

Unfortunately, this one won't be easily swept under the rug. And new players will be constantly informed about how the game used to be, what we used to be able to do, how NPCs used to only make remarks to the characters that actually did the content, how titles used to be meaningful and were good identifiers of what the character was able to accomplish. It will be like folks who talk about the VR days, except 1,000 times more prevalent.

And they're adding that the to a very long list of "here are the things the game doesn't tell you so you don't lose your mind trying to figure how to progress" you often see in guild chats and discords.

Jaimeh wrote: »

McTaterskins wrote: »

Lol. 79 pages of - Guys, it really doesn't matter. They're going to do what they planned to do whether it's well thought out or not.

They're scrambling for space.

Anyone notice 1 less of each campaign during Mayhem?

Folks, we're giving up character progression for card game space and a couple dungeons. That's that.

It's so frustrating and perplexing. Where did all the money from MS go? If the game is so profitable to be aquired by them, then why don't they invest back in it, instead of literally butchering years of the playerbase progression and future replayability in order to cut corners... I was hoping for something in this week's PTS, so I wouldn't have to start taking screenshots of all my alt toons achievements and dates, and then cancelling my ESO+, but here we are.

Zenimax stated when they were explaining the acquisition that Microsoft was taking a hands off approach and letting the studio continue to have control of the direction of the game. And Zenimax is a multi-billion dollar company in it's own right.... it's not like they are hurting for money.

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Acheivements surely arent. Being able to play the game more than once is.

This is all purely speculational for now, but what do you plan to do when this thing is pushed to live regardless? I'm going to spam the hell out of guild and zone chats, reddit and forums about how you can play a (great) Elder Scrolls game only once.

Continue questing on my 18 characters, just as i did before the patch.
Its not because a few quest are broken that the game isnt replayable,in fact it definitly is replayable

Sure i do understand that not being able to redo acheivement on alt may saden or even anger some, but the game is much bigger thant that.

its more than a few.by my count its around 50ish buggy/ broken quests

I keep seeing people throw around this ~50 broken quests figure. What are you including in that figure? Because I know I'm bad at math sometimes, but I read through the entire bug reports thread, and I only count 7, and one of them can be easily avoided:

proprio.meb16_ESO wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

wolfie1.0. wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Acheivements surely arent. Being able to play the game more than once is.

This is all purely speculational for now, but what do you plan to do when this thing is pushed to live regardless? I'm going to spam the hell out of guild and zone chats, reddit and forums about how you can play a (great) Elder Scrolls game only once.

Continue questing on my 18 characters, just as i did before the patch.
Its not because a few quest are broken that the game isnt replayable,in fact it definitly is replayable

Sure i do understand that not being able to redo acheivement on alt may saden or even anger some, but the game is much bigger thant that.

its more than a few.by my count its around 50ish buggy/ broken quests

I keep seeing people throw around this ~50 broken quests figure. What are you including in that figure? Because I know I'm bad at math sometimes, but I read through the entire bug reports thread, and I only count 7, and one of them can be easily avoided:

• A Book and its Cover from Summerset
• Surreptitiously Shadowed from Murkmire
• Giant Cheese Connoisseur from Greymoor
• Taking Up the Mantle from Blackreach
• A Friend in Deed from Markarth
• Adoring Admirer from Blackwood
• Innocent Scoundrel in Stros M'Kai - triggering this bug seems to be a real edge case. Just don't do Stros M'kai quests on two characters simultaneously.

Check better... should be tomofhyrule post on page 3, with a pretty long list at its end as spoiler.

Here: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7531289/#Comment_7531289

That's not a list of quests. It's a list of achievements under the "quests" category.

Edit: Also, I went back and counted, and there are 185 quests in that list. So where's the "50" coming from? Even if you exclude the museum quests / Kari's Hit List, it's still nowhere close.

There are several points of fact that I think are being lost by just tossing around the "50 broken quests" line without context:

1. @tomofhyrule's point was to request that the developers err on the side of caution and add all to the exclusions list until they could be tested. They explicitly did not test all of them.
2. One of the achievements on that list, "Hero of Bleakrock", was independently tested by two people (one of them @tomofhyrule themself) and found to have no issues.
3. @Wolf_Eye tested the entire Western Skyrim and Markarth zones' story lines and only reported two broken quests. The rest can probably be assumed to be working, or at least to only break under certain edge case conditions. That's another 20 or so achievements on the list right there.

Not mentioned in the bugs thread, but I also specifically tested the Kingmaker stuff in Wrothgar, and I had no issues there.

I'm not saying there aren't problems with questing, or that all of the quests on that list are fine. I'm just saying we shouldn't be assuming that they are all broken, and there's already been testing to say many are not broken.

There's enough to be sad about right now without adding in unverified speculation.

proprio.meb16_ESO wrote: »

silvereyes wrote: »

There's enough to be sad about right now without adding in unverified speculation.

Totally agree... I dont know where 50 is coming from, it has appeared twice in this thread afaik.
The first time is in the post of the person you've quoted, who evidently speaks from his personal estimation. The second is your post.

My bad i've linked it to tomofhyrule post, honestly i hadn't counted them.

I thought I'd seen the 50 broken quests thing mentioned before, but the only thing I can find is the following, and it was talking about how many quests to keep account-wide, not character-specific.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/7530850#Comment_7530850

So, my mistake as well, thinking this claim was more widespread.

Still, I'd be interested to know where you came up with the 50 broken quests estimate, @wolfie1.0..

Jaraal wrote: »

dzugarueb17_ESO wrote: »

Dark_Lord_Kuro wrote: »

Kesstryl wrote: »

Us old TES fans who came here for an Elder Scrolls experience have been pushed aside for you.

Sorry but dont throw all tes fan that came here for a tes game all in the same bucket
Acheivement while more important for some than others arent a mandatory part of being a tes fan

Acheivements surely arent. Being able to play the game more than once is.

This is all purely speculational for now, but what do you plan to do when this thing is pushed to live regardless? I'm going to spam the hell out of guild and zone chats, reddit and forums about how you can play a (great) Elder Scrolls game only once.

And this isn't some balance change, or set rework, or other minor change that players will forget about in a few months. This is a major change in gameplay for everyone, and especially those who have cultivated carefully crafted identities for their characters, and for those who have done everything they wanted on one character and are currently replaying the game from scratch on their alts.

No, this is something that will be a sore point and keep people resentful for as long as the game is still active. People won't forget having years of hard work and in many cases lots of money spent on their individual characters just casually erased.... for any reason. And especially not one that won't be showing any immediate changes in performance..... which in itself is a bitter pill for many ("Year of Performance", etc.) And it will become even more egregious if performance continues to degrade, and the character history wipe will prove to be in vain.

Unfortunately, this one won't be easily swept under the rug. And new players will be constantly informed about how the game used to be, what we used to be able to do, how NPCs used to only make remarks to the characters that actually did the content, how titles used to be meaningful and were good identifiers of what the character was able to accomplish. It will be like folks who talk about the VR days, except 1,000 times more prevalent.

I fear you are correct.

Not only that, but it will serve as an ongoing divide amongst the community (for those that even stay) as some people will say they are sick of hearing about it while anyone who is sad about it will have CONSTANT reminders of what they lost, and likely won't be able to help commenting on it. It will make them even more skeptical and lose any faith that ZOS listens, understands, and will ever reverse anything on PTS, since they didn't do anything about this and there were so many stories and so many reasons. Anytime anyone ever expresses concern about an upcoming change, people will say "Don't bother - remember AwA? ZOS doesn't listen. If they'll delete character data, nothing is ever off the table." I'm also waiting for ZOS performance memes.

In fact, it's starting already. I'm seeing players denigrating each other on the forums, on reddit, etc. for simply having an opinion, when really the entire community should be united and saddened by the loss of a significant play style and the unwillingness of ZOS to adapt or listen... even the folks who personally only have one character and don't care about this at all. It's just an awful outcome. Not only the actual implementation, but how we got here. The divided community, the inadequate communication and engagement, the long silence while dedicated and hopeful community members kept communicating and believing in the process, the angst and emotional responses and desperate attempts from first time forum posters, trying to be heard. While just a video game, it's like watching a plane crash in slow motion and not being able to do anything about it.