Would you be OK with ZOS not releasing 1 or 2 content updates and fixed bugs instead?

mzprx · September 2022

howdy folks,

since we now have another "new and exciting feature" in the game, a.k.a. controller UI error when entering a dungeon and since it's not a Crown Store issue it will take ages for ZOS to fix it. most probably. but what i've been thinking about for a long time is this -

would you be OK with it if the developers decided to not release a new Chapter or DLC and took their time to fix the existing bugs instead and provide some QoL upgrades?

meaning we'd get bug fixes instead of a couple of dungeons. bugs like weapon surfing (yes that one is still alive and kicking, even after all these years), eternal "in combat" problem and many, many more, too many to list here. because it seems to me that if we, the players, find a "hotfix" to these issues ZOS just leaves those issues be. like, turning the Polymorph helmet fixes the weapon surfing. so they (ZOS) just left it in game for years. or "fixing" some graphics issues. for example if you want to create a bald Nord character you'll get this -

come on, ZOS, it's not 1995 any more. or some staff motifs protruding way too high above a character's shoulders for whatever reason. i could go on and on but why bother, we all know the various bugs and issues we encounter in game on a daily basis. so... would you be fine with not having one or two dungeon updates so we all can have a better gaming experience?

redlink1979 · September 2022

Fix Bugs

But... Fixing bugs doesn't sell content.
So, my expectations are very low regarding this.

Naftal · September 2022

So do I need to pay for a chapter and eso+ to get the bug fixes applied to myself?

mzprx · September 2022

Fix Bugs

Naftal wrote: »

So do I need to pay for a chapter and eso+ to get the bug fixes applied to myself?

i guess they can monetize anything, but my idea was no, instead of a DLC update they would release a free, available to all update with bug fixes and QoL upgrades..

bmnoble · September 2022

More PvE Updates

mzprx wrote: »

Naftal wrote: »

So do I need to pay for a chapter and eso+ to get the bug fixes applied to myself?

i guess they can monetize anything, but my idea was no, instead of a DLC update they would release a free, available to all update with bug fixes and QoL upgrades..

Isn't the flaw of this kinda approach that once they start releasing content again, they will break a bunch of stuff and add a bunch of new bugs putting us right back to where we started, players might put up with it once or twice but if they create an artificial content drought people will start leaving.

I would rather they work on fixing the problems alongside making new content. A delay is one thing, no new content at all defeats the purpose of a live service game to me, we are buying chapters, subscribing to ESO+ on the basis that we are funding the upkeep of the game and the development of new content to enjoy.

agelonestar · September 2022

Fix Bugs

It would be easy to drop one group dungeon dlc and one "new map" dlc in favour of significant updates to existing zones - including bug fixes, but also quality of life improvements.

Danikat · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

They already did a year long 'performance improvement plan' in 2019 and 2020: https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/56681

They didn't completely stop making new updates but did reduce the size and scope of the ones they made and prioritised bug fixes and things which affect performance behind the scenes. The end result of that is the game we have now.

I'm not convinced doing it again would be produce different results. I think they should continue to work on the games performance and bug fixes, as they do (every patch includes a long list of fixes) but making a big fuss about putting all their time into it and reducing or delaying new releases to accommodate that didn't seem to achieve anything different so I don't see the point in doing it again.

mzprx · September 2022

Fix Bugs

bmnoble wrote: »

...I would rather they work on fixing the problems alongside making new content. A delay is one thing, no new content at all defeats the purpose of a live service game to me, we are buying chapters, subscribing to ESO+ on the basis that we are funding the upkeep of the game and the development of new content to enjoy.

i would love to see that as well. but...

how many years has the "weapon surfing" been in the game? not days or months. years! but again, we found how to "fix" that one so they don't really care about it. fixing it doesn't bring any money. then there is that endless "in combat" issue. you can be stuck in combat for ever. until you relog, reload UI or die. that "fixes" it (most of the time, but not always), so why bother fixing it for real? but having a Crown Store issue will force them to shut down the servers immediately until you can buy stuff in the Crown Store again. so imagine not having a two-dungeon DLC, instead of that them spending 3 months to figure out what the issues are and getting rid of them so their playerbase can have a game that is enjoyable for all..

Danikat wrote: »

...I think they should continue to work on the games performance and bug fixes, as they do (every patch includes a long list of fixes)...

yes, every patch includes a list of fixes. like this one -

Fixed an issue where new indicators on Outfit Styles wouldn't clear when hovering or focusing on them.

or this one -

Fixed some instances of "death hopper" being incorrectly hyphenated or capitalized when it shouldn't be (the big frog monster).

while i agree that those "bugs" can be annoying to some a bug when you can't ride your horse or interract with things, open doors and change skills/abilities because you are stuck in eternal combat can be more frustrating than that. or imagine a new player that knows nothing about the game running around Tamriel, doing quests and all of a sudden their weapons are gone. they have empty hands and if they aren't standing on a really flat ground or road they will not be able to see their weapons under their feet. why would they even look for them there? what can possibly be worse for a player - seeing a monster incorrectly hyphenated or not seeing their weapons at all? would you not be happier if they fixed things in one patch (and i mean really fixed things, bugs that have been reported for years) instead of giving us 2 new dungeons?

Grizzbeorn · September 2022

No.
It's not an either/or situation. Both already happen constantly, simultaneously.
That's how game development works.

LesserCircle · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

I voted other, but I'm leaning more towards yes. But only because less content means less updates to combat.

Ragnarok0130 · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

ZoS is a big boy company owned by an even bigger company so I have zero sympathy for them at this point. What we're seeing is Bethesdas' well earned reputation for releasing buggy messes being embraced by their parent company, and unlike in a BGS game the community can't fix it for ZoS with unofficial patches and mods since it's an MMO and not a single player game. Disturbingly enough releasing buggy and broken games and fixing them after they go live to meet deadlines seems to be a rather common business model for studios in the era of live services

So where does that leave us now? ZoS needs to continue to release content on schedule because content is what keeps an MMO alive and a bug free dead game brings in little money. At the same time ZoS must fix the ever increasing bugs they keep introducing with each patch so like any large company their have a choice to make, either make your employees work late to fix the bugs they introduced or hire additional employees or temporary contractors to correct the issues until they hit their goal.

Concurrently, the number of bugs introduced with U35 is higher than usual, and it vindicates us in the community who said this patch was too large for a 5 week PTS cycle and that it needed to be broken up into sets of smaller changes or get a 3-6 month PTS cycle so ZoS needs to conduct a rather lengthy after action review on their project management team as well.

TaSheen · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

I personally don't encounter bugs in the content I play (overland and questing). I wouldn't be very happy without content releases.

ForumBully · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

I would have voted for "More PvE/PvP updates" but only because expecting bug fixes is a hopeless dream. They'll get to the low hanging ones after a year or so but anything that's lasted longer is just here to stay and they've opted to pretend it's not there.
So...might as well let the content flow.

Danikat · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

mzprx wrote: »

Danikat wrote: »

...I think they should continue to work on the games performance and bug fixes, as they do (every patch includes a long list of fixes)...

yes, every patch includes a list of fixes. like this one -

Fixed an issue where new indicators on Outfit Styles wouldn't clear when hovering or focusing on them.

or this one -

Fixed some instances of "death hopper" being incorrectly hyphenated or capitalized when it shouldn't be (the big frog monster).

while i agree that those "bugs" can be annoying to some a bug when you can't ride your horse or interract with things, open doors and change skills/abilities because you are stuck in eternal combat can be more frustrating than that. or imagine a new player that knows nothing about the game running around Tamriel, doing quests and all of a sudden their weapons are gone. they have empty hands and if they aren't standing on a really flat ground or road they will not be able to see their weapons under their feet. why would they even look for them there? what can possibly be worse for a player - seeing a monster incorrectly hyphenated or not seeing their weapons at all? would you not be happier if they fixed things in one patch (and i mean really fixed things, bugs that have been reported for years) instead of giving us 2 new dungeons?

How about reading the entire post instead of part of one sentence?

The idea in the OP which I was responding to was not whether or not they currently prioritise the most important bugs to fix first but whether they should put everything else on hold while they fix them. The fragment you quoted was part of me saying there's no need to do only one or the other because they currently do both and when they tried to draw more attention to their bug fixes it didn't achieve anything.

I know it's easier to respond if you pull something out of context and pretend it was making a different point, but all it really achieves is making your post irrelevant to the overall discussion because you're then responding to the wrong issue.

BlueRaven · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

Bug fixes and content creation are not the same group of people. You can’t just take a sound engineer or digital artist, plop them in front of a computer and expect them to code.

the1andonlyskwex · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

The teams responsible for developing content and fixing bugs are almost completely separate with different skill sets. An artist or writer can't just drop everything and start fixing bugs instead.

Sure, I suppose ZOS could lay off all of the people responsible for making new content and use the money saved to hire new programmers, but that's not likely to satisfy anyone. Hiring and training new staff takes a lot of time, so turning over the staff to focus on bugs would take years before yielding significant benefits, and would then put ZOS in a terrible position to transition back to new content creation afterward.

Sure, I guess it would be nice to have a larger team squashing bugs, but realistically I don't really encounter all that many game-breaking bugs day-to-day as it is, and ZOS doesn't have an unlimited budget to grow their development team.

Amottica · September 2022

It will not happen for very good reasons. Much of the team that creates new content lacks the skills to fix bugs. It is irrelevant to the work they do. Zenimax would not pay them to stand around and look pretty, and they will likely not be available when Zenimax tries to bring them back from being laid off.

It is also bad for business. I have been told of a mass exodus when Zenimax ceased adding new content for about a year. Players that told me about this said many of their guildmates that left during that period never returned to ESO. So nothing about this makes sense for Zenimax.

Sheridan · September 2022

More PvE Updates

mzprx wrote: »

meaning we'd get bug fixes instead of a couple of dungeons

Instead of couple of dungeons - yes. I can be fine without it anyway. Instead of a new Chapter or story DLC - absolutely no. I play for the story, and none of the bugs is gamebreaking enough for me to spend 2 years without new content. Also, it does not work that way, but you've already been told it in the previous comments.

N00BxV1 · September 2022

Fix Bugs

I'm all for bug fixes, although receiving less content instead isn't always favorable. I would rather they stop releasing rushed content with so many bugs in the first place, and put more effort into fixing bugs reported by their customers.

I believe the internet has spoiled developers over the years. It has allowed them to focus less on in-house testing and just let the paying customers do their live testing for them. It also allows them to knowingly release bugged content and just update/patch/hotfix it later. And the customers have become conditioned to "just accept it" because "all software has bugs" and "developing is hard"...

Freelancer_ESO · September 2022

More PvE Updates

Depending on what one does in game, the amount of significant bugs one hits can be rather limited which makes the pitch to halt new content to fix them a bit unappealing.

Tornaad · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

It's not an either/or situation. If they abandon focus on new content, the game will quickly stagnate and then die. But, as is evidenced by this thread, if they ignore the bugs, then users become unhappy and find other means of entertainment. Thus, they must do both.

kargen27 · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

This isn't an "either" issue. Different teams work on different aspects of the game. The design team and the bug hunting team likely have very different skill sets.

ForumBully · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

kargen27 wrote: »

This isn't an "either" issue. Different teams work on different aspects of the game. The design team and the bug hunting team likely have very different skill sets.

Well, for their sake I hope the bug hunting team are very good at cooking or something.

Tandor · September 2022

More PvE Updates

TaSheen wrote: »

I personally don't encounter bugs in the content I play (overland and questing). I wouldn't be very happy without content releases.

Same here.

Plus, of course, content creators and bug-fixers are two very different jobs and aren't in competition with each other.

Belegnole · September 2022

Fix Bugs

I do believe that I have seen this poll before. However everything, bugs included remains the same.

AvalonRanger · September 2022

Fix Bugs

Imao, I'm really confused.
Each time new update pop up, then ZOS make new several stupid bugs also.
Sometimes, ZOS let the players do dangerous exploiting, or steal player's item by unfair reason by bugs.

Seriously, why!? What kind of game system keep spawning such a hilarious bugs.

Lixiviant · September 2022

Fix Bugs

Just fix the damn bugs ZOS. Getting excited about an event just to have the bugs ruin it sucks. Skills, weapons repeatedly lock up, can't even log out of the game now. Have to do a hard exit to get back to the PS screen.

Thanks Zos for making the dungeon runs so much fun now as we all randomly die from lack of combat skills.

AvalonRanger · September 2022

Fix Bugs

Think about this. For example...

"We've fixed door or gate malfunction of the group dungeon." > "OK, thanks! players accepted"
But few minutes later after patch released, "Ah...ZOS? We keep receiving infinity reward. Is it really OK?"
ZOS>!!!!! Then server shut down.

What kind of relationship between "dungeon door mechanic" and "daily reward system"?

Why ZOS try to change unnecessary source code of the game data?

Are you....crazy?

CoronHR · September 2022

other (please elaborate)

no way they can just fix bugs. no way bosses would agree to that. they need to create content to sell it. i'm sceptical that they know how to fix the bugs

the weapon surfing thing...i use an addon called Clutch which fixes it. i've used it for so long that i didn't realise weapon surfing still happened.

although it still happens rarely, they did fix the bug where you'd walk on your mount

ljl227 · September 2022

Fix Bugs

TaSheen wrote: »

I personally don't encounter bugs in the content I play (overland and questing). I wouldn't be very happy without content releases.

Interesting, I can't even get mail without encountering a bug.

PrimusTiberius · September 2022

Name one digital game that doesn't have bugs......this topic is getting old

The Elder Scrolls Online

Would you be OK with ZOS not releasing 1 or 2 content updates and fixed bugs instead?

Would you be OK with ZOS not releasing 1 or 2 content updates and fixed bugs instead? 310 votes