Dear ZOS, you owe us (your customers & loyal community) a statement. The community just deserves it!

nookji · August 2022

It has happened exactly as many feared since the publication of the U35 combat changes and even worse.

Initially, you advertised "accessibility" and "power gap" to justify the update 35.
The result: massive changes to the combat system, which meets with massive rejection by 99% of the players. Nearly nobody was looking forward to the changes and you made no one happy.

On the PTS it then became clear, it is simply an ultimate bad change and the DPS losses are extremely heavy. It helped no one, the power gap remains if it doesnt even get bigger (lack of uptimes and so on does now result in even more dps loss for everybody) and the floor is nerfed literally below the floor. More accessibility also completely missed the targed while the dot duration changes and nerfs over everything made it just harder for every one... The super ingenious idea to nerf boss health for 10% is just a joke that doesnt work at all.

The 1% of players who liked the idea in the beginning or even still now just don't understand that the raid dummy gets significantly more damage than on pre U35. Or they do not play vet/hm content.
But enough I don't want to go into too much detail about the whole issue, it doesn't seem to be that difficult to find sad feedback and forum threads where players tell about their dissatisfaction with the new changes.

Now to my actual concern:

You are a company that (until recently) had a super great product on the market. A game that has been around for 8 years, that has a great community, in which you can do and experience so many different things and in which you can make massive improvements of your own skills through training and exchange with others players. There is so much to explore and so many different things to basically have something interessting for every individual.

Those points make me think even more how this U35 could have happened in general. What is the point of changing a good product just for the sake of "change" into a bad product? (regardless of the bugs that are known since years and other little things it made a lot of fun for the vast majority)

It does not matter at all, what you as ZOS think, the only thing what counts for a company is, to keep your product alive and profitable and to have a happy customer base (which you did)

And here we come to the point where is completely incomprehensible. You had a (in general I guess mostly) happy community. And this community told you even before PTS after reading the upcoming changes that this is an absolute uncool and unwanted move. Then PTS went live and you got sooo much negative feedback that every other smart company whould have pulled the emergency brake. Like why not? I mean if these people (we, the community) are happy with the product, spending lot of time and even more money for it, where is the point to change it in such a drastic and selfdestroying way?

We keep your product alive, with being active and being happy. We are/(were?) able to play such a cool game and you make changes that nearly no one wants? For the sake of what? Where is the benefit for you as company? I mean I guess it is crucial for you to make money and be profitable? I dont get it, I really dont.

We are tired, we are really sad and tired of getting massive changes every now and then. But with U35 you completely failed in all possible ways. It made everything so much worse, none, not one single part is welcome and you still went ahead. This is just extremely disrespectful your whole customer base. And after all the negative feedback it is even more disrespectful to just push it through.

What is so difficult to just be honest? Stand in front of your loyal community and just tell us that you did a mistake and you should have listened to us. That would be a strong move, that would show that the playerbase is important to you and that you respect your community. Just ignoring everyone while knowing exactly, that it was a mistake, but being too proud to admit it, is a very poor and unhealthy step.

And now? You feel that it was a huge mistake, the combat team completely failed in every single change they thought would be a good change. All of these changes now need so many follow-up balance changes across the whole game, it is just like a chain reaction. It generates so much more complicated work for most devs in the future. That's completely nuts doing such a thing as a company... Not mentioning that on top you get free advices from your long term player base and you just ignore most of it every single time.

In my opinion you have only one choice now and that is to COMPLETELY REVERT THE WHOLE U35 to preU35.
That would make the vast majority happy and also the floor players (that you nerfed into the ground more than everyone else for the sake of lowering the skill gap and accessibility).
And if you still feel that you have to change the whole game from scratch then take your time, postpone it and do it in an acceptable, well designed way.

And sadly I think that you already lost a huge part of your long term player base just because you increased the lack of trust in you as developers. A few will come back maybe but here comes the point where I mentioned in the thread title.

You owe us insight in your vision, in which direction it should go in future.

-> Will you revert this absolute madness that destroyed already so many communities and guilds, no matter which skill level they had?
-> What are your future plans, will you continue to act the same way? (Completely ignoring the long term community)
-> Will you proceed with making changes that nobody wants, even if tested on PTS and considered as bad?
-> Will you improve the communication to your community in future?
-> Will you take care about the communities wishes and suggestions in future?
-> Any insights in the long term roadmap?

I really hope that you get back on track and who knows, maybe someone from ZOS reads and takes care about the whole thing here.

Hope to see you guys back in Tamriel soon, but for now, Im gone until I see changes.

Have a good time, cheers

Alienoutlaw · August 2022

this is what happens when you have degrading code filled with bugs that either cant be found or the code has be "over written" so much its impossible to fix, that with 13yr old servers and an increasing player count the infrastructer simply cannot cope, its far cheaper to blame the players and "control" what they can or cant do than to re-write the code and install new servers.........the buy out by microsoft had a small ray of hope of this maybe happening but alas nothing but increased prices in the crown store, more "QOL" products behind a paywall. my personal opinion is stop realising new content for a year and fix what has been allowed to degrade for the last 6yrs

Tandor · August 2022

I hope you get an official statement, but it's more than we got for AwA when it took the record by a country mile for the longest (almost entirely negative) feedback thread on the PTS forum.

nookji · August 2022

I mean, honestly I dont care about if "I" get an answer... It should be a statement from ZOS for the whole community. As the state of now just shows that they failed literally in every single point (as we all predicted) and the biggest fears of the community came true now on live. I just made this thread in the hope of a statement for us all

Artim_X · August 2022

99% of the players is a "bit" of a stretch. As one of the 1% who tested on the pts (3 million dummy to get accurate numbers), I changed some things around to compensate for the nerf to my playstyle and for the most part everything is fine. My only gripe is that my dots in PvP got butchered. Nerf patches are never fun, but the live patch is significantly better than the day one pts patch.

adamsmith42 · August 2022

nookji wrote: »

It has happened exactly as many feared since the publication of the U35 combat changes and even worse.

Initially, you advertised "accessibility" and "power gap" to justify the update 35.
The result: massive changes to the combat system, which meets with massive rejection by 99% of the players. Nearly nobody was looking forward to the changes and you made no one happy.

On the PTS it then became clear, it is simply an ultimate bad change and the DPS losses are extremely heavy. It helped no one, the power gap remains if it doesnt even get bigger (lack of uptimes and so on does now result in even more dps loss for everybody) and the floor is nerfed literally below the floor. More accessibility also completely missed the targed while the dot duration changes and nerfs over everything made it just harder for every one... The super ingenious idea to nerf boss health for 10% is just a joke that doesnt work at all.

The 1% of players who liked the idea in the beginning or even still now just don't understand that the raid dummy gets significantly more damage than on pre U35. Or they do not play vet content.
But enough I don't want to go into too much detail about the whole issue, it doesn't seem to be that difficult to find sad feedback and forum threads where players tell about their dissatisfaction with the new changes.

Now to my actual concern:

You are a company that (until recently) had a super great product on the market. A game that has been around for 8 years, that has a great community, in which you can do and experience so many different things and in which you can make massive improvements of your own skills through training and exchange with others players. There is so much to explore and so many different things to basically have something interessting for every individual.

Those points make me think even more how this U35 could have happened in general. What is the point of changing a good product just for the sake of "change" into a bad product? (regardless of the bugs that are known since years and other little things it made a lot of fun for the vast majority)

It does not matter at all, what you as ZOS think, the only thing what counts for a company is, to keep your product alive and profitable and to have a happy customer base (which you did)

And here we come to the point where is completely incomprehensible. You had a (in general I guess mostly) happy community. And this community told you even before PTS after reading the upcoming changes that this is an absolute uncool and unwanted move. Then PTS went live and you got sooo much negative feedback that every other smart company whould have pulled the emergency brake. Like why not? I mean if these people (we, the community) are happy with the product, spending lot of time and even more money for it, where is the point to change it in such a drastic and selfdestroying way?

We keep your product alive, with being active and being happy. We are/(were?) able to play such a cool game and you make changes that nearly no one wants? For the sake of what? Where is the benefit for you as company? I mean I guess it is crucial for you to make money and be profitable? I dont get it, I really dont.

We are tired, we are really sad and tired of getting massive changes every now and then. But with U35 you completely failed in all possible ways. It made everything so much worse, none, not one single part is welcome and you still went ahead. This is just extremely disrespectful your whole customer base. And after all the negative feedback it is even more disrespectful to just push it through.

What is so difficult to just be honest? Stand in front of your loyal community and just tell us that you did a mistake and you should have listened to us. That would be a strong move, that would show that the playerbase is important to you and that you respect your community. Just ignoring everyone while knowing exactly, that it was a mistake, but being too proud to admit it, is a very poor and unhealthy step.

And now? You feel that it was a huge mistake, the combat team completely failed in every single change they thought would be a good change. All of these changes now need so many follow-up balance changes across the whole game, it is just like a chain reaction. It generates so much more complicated work for most devs in the future. That's completely nuts doing such a thing as a company... Not mentioning that on top you get free advices from your long term player base and you just ignore most of it every single time.

In my opinion you have only one choice now and that is to COMPLETELY REVERT THE WHOLE U35 to preU35.
That would make the vast majority happy and also the floor players (that you nerfed into the ground more than everyone else for the sake of lowering the skill gap and accessibility).
And if you still feel that you have to change the whole game from scratch then take your time, postpone it and do it in an acceptable, well designed way.

And sadly I think that you already lost a huge part of your long term player base just because you increased the lack of trust in you as developers. A few will come back maybe but here comes the point where I mentioned in the thread title.

You owe us insight in your vision, in which direction it should go in future.

-> Will you revert this absolute madness that destroyed already so many communities and guilds, no matter which skill level they had?
-> What are your future plans, will you continue to act the same way? (Completely ignoring the long term community)
-> Will you proceed with making changes that nobody wants, even if tested on PTS and considered as bad?
-> Will you improve the communication to your community in future?
-> Will you take care about the communities wishes and suggestions in future?

I really hope that you get back on track and who knows, maybe someone from ZOS reads and takes care about the whole thing here.

Hope to see you guys back in Tamriel soon, but for now, Im gone until I see changes.

Have a good time, cheers

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_Gilliam

Are you guys reading the forums and passing this on to the decision makers? The forums are awash with these sentiments (and the PTS spent 6 weeks telling you this was going to happen) but this post really puts it all together in one place... You guys should be in major damage control mode right now, but the only thing I've seen from ZoS is critical threads being closed for being "unconstructive". This patch has massively impacted me as supposedly the kind of player that you were trying to target with this update, a relatively new player (started in January) who is getting into vet trials... Just the patch notes dropping greatly hurt my ability to do this because so many of the more experienced players that I grouped with quit the game because they saw the writing on the wall (and I guess because they had been around long enough to not have the hope that I did that you would course-correct). Now that the update has gone live, the game feels like a ghost town, my friends list, which would normally have 20-30 people online right now, has... 5. So really, at this point, I don't know if I am even able to do the content I was doing 2 days ago, because I can't even put a group together to try... Please listen to the OP, find some humility, and revert all of the changes except the dungeon release (especially the change of templar sweeps/jabs from a spear to a VAMPIRIC broom/shovel).

Oh, and one last note:

PLEASE accept the fact that your attempts to balance things are ALWAYS going to fail until you separate the balancing of PVP and PVE... Two examples that I have seen MANY times on the PTS...

Healing: nerfs were really were not enough for PVP, but horrible for PVE; could have been solved by limiting the number of stacked heals of a given type to two.

Oakensoul: OP for certain builds in PVP, (DK corrosive armor God mode) but was doing exactly what the stated goals for this update were in PVE, raising the floor w/o raising the ceiling... Now it's useless for those who were using it to get into vet content (especially since they already have minor slayer anyways) All you had to do was make battle spirit remove the heroism & berserk (and maybe force) in PVP ONLY... Now it's useless, except to make gankblades stronger when they stack major buffs on the harder-to-get minors.

Riptide · August 2022

There is such a disconnect between what Kevin and Gina say (both are entirely reasonable) and in what is done that in point of fact I’m not terribly keen on grand statements.

Only demonstrable positive actions at this point merit interest, and I doubt I am alone in that sentiment.

I will resub is I see results. I certainly won’t do so over broad messaging or cherry picked Q&As and the like.

redlink1979 · August 2022

You should expect nothing.

Just a reminder
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/445841/the-silence-of-zenimax/p1

LesserCircle · August 2022

Please ZOS, just revert the combat changes. It wa all just fine before and now everyone hates it. Like come on now.

psychotrip · August 2022

What is so difficult to just be honest? Stand in front of your loyal community and just tell us that you did a mistake and you should have listened to us.

Because admitting mistakes hurts investor confidence.

That would be a strong move, that would show that the playerbase is important to you and that you respect your community.

...What makes you think they do? Individual devs? Sure. The corporation itself? ...The answer will get me snipped.

Just ignoring everyone while knowing exactly, that it was a mistake, but being too proud to admit it, is a very poor and unhealthy step.

It's not just pride for the execs. It's math.

They will only let the devs make a statement when the cost of ignoring us is outweighed by the cost to their reputation, and the cost of investors losing confidence in their company.

It's not about us. It never was.

FelisCatus · August 2022

Alienoutlaw wrote: »

this is what happens when you have degrading code filled with bugs that either cant be found or the code has be "over written" so much its impossible to fix, that with 13yr old servers and an increasing player count the infrastructer simply cannot cope, its far cheaper to blame the players and "control" what they can or cant do than to re-write the code and install new servers.........the buy out by microsoft had a small ray of hope of this maybe happening but alas nothing but increased prices in the crown store, more "QOL" products behind a paywall. my personal opinion is stop realising new content for a year and fix what has been allowed to degrade for the last 6yrs

This is exactly why they made up all these non-sense tests for PvP about proc sets causing lag when the tests revealed it didn't really change much. They just didn't want to admit even though they knew and we all knew it was the servers being old. So they made up these random excuses and put up smoke and mirrors to deflect from the real issue. Which is they cheap out. There is of course also old gen consoles holding back PC which is really wrong and unfair but I won't go into that here.

They aren't indie devs, they're one of the big gaming companies and now that Microsoft owns them that budget you'd of thought would of increased. There is no excuse. They need to communicate with us better and provide an actual road map and share their plans (outside of the chapter formula). They need to cater to what the market/consumers want. We are the ones paying them. They should also run polls to gauge an interest on what we want and then provide and then we'd pay. Otherwise they are gonna kill this amazing game, perhaps that's their plan though? To phase it out to leave you only hyped for ES6.

francesinhalover · August 2022

Hell no! Dont revert.

I love the dot duration increase. At least let me enjoy that for a while.

Amphithoe · August 2022

Back to treating ESO like a singe player TES title. I just started recently to get into more group oriented PvE and even some PvP.

Now I just feel like dropping the whole endeavor because honestly, I do not have time to keep up with this level of constant changes.

Jaimeh · August 2022

Riptide wrote: »

There is such a disconnect between what Kevin and Gina say (both are entirely reasonable) and in what is done that in point of fact I’m not terribly keen on grand statements.

Only demonstrable positive actions at this point merit interest, and I doubt I am alone in that sentiment.

I will resub is I see results. I certainly won’t do so over broad messaging or cherry picked Q&As and the like.

I don't nee big statements either; remember the year of performance letter? The promise to focus more on fixing longstanding issues with the game? To have better communication? Statements not followed by actions are like pointless PR damage control. Besides ZOS has a history of not owning up to their faux-pas, or doing it with greeted teeth. I'd rather see actions from now on.

Hämähäkki · August 2022

To be honest, I would like to see a ZOS statement on what they did here and how they stand to it, but I guess they just sit this one out.

joerginger · August 2022

Well, maybe we get an experience scroll and a shiny new recoloured pet?

Ragnarok0130 · August 2022

I cancelled my sub last night, if the Combat Team did a mea culpa and issued an apology (this is important after our their recent statements on social media) and immediately reverted the combat changes I would resub on the spot. Outside of the combat changes and the templar spear animation (which also needs to be reverted) U35 would have been fine, and even celebrated with the 2 excellent new dungeons that launched.

Ragnarok0130 · August 2022

psychotrip wrote: »

What is so difficult to just be honest? Stand in front of your loyal community and just tell us that you did a mistake and you should have listened to us.

Because admitting mistakes hurts investor confidence.
.

You know what else hurts investor confidence? Bad business decisions and negative interactions with their customers that have a demonstrable net negative effect on ZoS's revenue stream like U35 did with the sub cancellations. A company taking responsibility and repairing negative actions with their customers normally ease investor concerns rather than exacerbate them.

Greeed2025 · August 2022

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_GinaBruno
Dear Devs,
Can we please get an official response to the state of endgame PvE and to our feedback about U35? You said wait to the actual update and test it. We did and it is not good very polite said. The silence is hurting your community and our trust to you devs.

vivisectvib16_ESO · August 2022

adamsmith42 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_Gilliam

Are you guys reading the forums and passing this on to the decision makers?

A better question would be are @ZOS_MattFiror and Phil Spencer aware of this massive gong show that their employees are engaged in?

Ravensnut · August 2022

I'm hoping to hear something about the vision for combat in ESO soon. My yearly sub is up for renewal on the 29th and I'm not certain if the cost is a good investment if there's no roadmap or communication regarding the patch by then.

Paulytnz · August 2022

joerginger wrote: »

Well, maybe we get an experience scroll and a shiny new recoloured pet?

Don't forget a month or 2 of VERY awesome log in rewards....

GreatGildersleeve · August 2022

Greeed2025 wrote: »

@ZOS_Finn @ZOS_GinaBruno
Dear Devs,
Can we please get an official response to the state of endgame PvE and to our feedback about U35? You said wait to the actual update and test it. We did and it is not good very polite said. The silence is hurting your community and our trust to you devs.

I understand the sentiment but honestly, would prefer not to have empty platitudes right now. Nothing they say will repair the damage… and you could almost tell they (well, Gina at least) were expecting this in the stream… she introduced this and mentioned, through what I took as gritted teeth, about change fatigue.

I admit, I’m curious about their reactions but I don’t really care either way. My sub ended last night and it will take a lot of obvious combat repair from them to get me back. A statement does nothing.

psychotrip · August 2022

Ragnarok0130 wrote: »

psychotrip wrote: »

What is so difficult to just be honest? Stand in front of your loyal community and just tell us that you did a mistake and you should have listened to us.

Because admitting mistakes hurts investor confidence.
.

You know what else hurts investor confidence? Bad business decisions and negative interactions with their customers that have a demonstrable net negative effect on ZoS's revenue stream like U35 did with the sub cancellations. A company taking responsibility and repairing negative actions with their customers normally ease investor concerns rather than exacerbate them.

No one said corporations were smart. But they have more than enough money to make stupid decisions without facing any consequences. Thats another reason they dont admit mistakes. They're used to their mistakes not mattering, so they convince themselves they dont make mistakes at all.

Guess you all gotta prove them wrong, dont you?

SilverBride · August 2022

nookji wrote: »

You had a (in general I guess mostly) happy community.

The in game community appeared mostly happy, and from what I've seen that hasn't changed much. But the forums have always had a lot of negativity.

But I don't see what ZoS owes a statement about. They announced the changes, tested the changes, then implemented the changes.

Riptide · August 2022

The disconnect is the combat team and the creative direction that tasked and empowered them. The resulting soup sandwich bled over so much that the encounters team had to duct tape bosses to keep the sandwich holding together.

And they are very likely standing firm and will continue to do so, while the majority of the rest of the teams see it for what it is and have to wait it out till it comes to a head. Only significant drops in revenue are going to force that. Internally the same creative direction will paint front end folks as reactionary and naive if they are standing firm on some sort of “vision” only they can see, if they were to forcibly bring our concerns to the table too much and too often.

In the end only numbers in spreadsheets will force the issue. And if I was caught between the rock and hard place that is the community and creative direction/combat team, I’d say as little as possible right now too. Do no harm, etc. So that part is understandable, to me, and my issue is not, at all, with the front end messaging part of the dev team.

psychotrip · August 2022

vivisectvib16_ESO wrote: »

adamsmith42 wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_Gilliam

Are you guys reading the forums and passing this on to the decision makers?

A better question would be are @ZOS_MattFiror and Phil Spencer aware of this massive gong show that their employees are engaged in?

Of course not. Execs are in their own corprate bubble. They dont engage with this stuff nearly as much as you may think. They probably think their jobs are too important to spend time listening to player-feedback.

Why should they listen to feedback when they can just throw their mods and devs into this furnace of toxicity instead? So we can all point the finger at them even though they're just doing their jobs.

But I guess this is convenient for the execs, isnt it? Getting us all to point the fingers at each other instead of at them. We're stuck in a circular firing line, and I guess that's ZOS's idea of "community management".

The players are sick of the devs not communicating, and the devs are likely sick of being thrown to the wolves whenever the execs force a stupid decision on us.

If only we'd realize that we're all in the same boat here. Devs, mods, players, we're all just annoying peasants to the corp. And we're pointing fingers at eachother instead of the root problem.

Holycannoli · August 2022

In the next patch or the one after after a lot of these nerfs will be reverted.

Live right now is being used as the final test of this patch, and mark my words they will be reverting much of it.

vivisectvib16_ESO · August 2022

SilverBride wrote: »

nookji wrote: »

You had a (in general I guess mostly) happy community.

The in game community appeared mostly happy, and from what I've seen that hasn't changed much. But the forums have always had a lot of negativity.

But I don't see what ZoS owes a statement about. They announced the changes, tested the changes, then implemented the changes.

The statement "owed" would be re: the massive backlash that is going on from the community right now. Their most dedicated players hate this patch and it's results. If they're being ignored, it's not a good sign, nor is it good business (source: me, someone who works in dev + marcom).

Riptide · August 2022

Holycannoli wrote: »

In the next patch or the one after after a lot of these nerfs will be reverted.

Live right now is being used as the final test of this patch, and mark my words they will be reverting much of it.

I doubt it. Rather by circuitous route they will get us back to where we were by leaving as much of it place as possible but bending other stuff to get us back there, so there is never an admission of any fault whatever. That may take multiple updates.

SilverBride · August 2022

vivisectvib16_ESO wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

nookji wrote: »

You had a (in general I guess mostly) happy community.

The in game community appeared mostly happy, and from what I've seen that hasn't changed much. But the forums have always had a lot of negativity.

But I don't see what ZoS owes a statement about. They announced the changes, tested the changes, then implemented the changes.

The statement "owed" would be re: the massive backlash that is going on from the community right now. Their most dedicated players hate this patch and it's results. If they're being ignored, it's not a good sign, nor is it good business (source: me, someone who works in dev + marcom).

I consider myself a most dedicated player and I don't hate this patch. I subscribe and play every day and put a lot of effort into the aspects of the game that I enjoy. Participating in end game isn't a requirement for dedication.