Developer Arrogance and Disrespect to the Player Base is killing this game. (REAL FEEDBACK)

martinhpb16_ESO · September 2022

Lady_Galadhiel wrote: »

You got an awesome from me OP

And you have my bow OP, well said

ADarklore · September 2022

I think the OP is pretty spot-on! When you have the person in charge basically disregarding criticism and blatantly chiding players for their feelings about the patch in a Twitter post... it really shows how the devs feel about player's opinions and feedback. I also recall this same person saying a few years ago in a forum post, that basically 'players are not forced to play ESO, they are free to leave'. That's coming from the TOP at ZOS... so it shouldn't be any surprise to anyone when they completely disregard player feedback. The only reason that Update 35 got some changes is due to the overwhelming outrage from both streamers and online gaming sites. Without that outrage, I have no doubt we would have ended up with closer to what we saw week one on PTS.

Freelancer_ESO · September 2022

Fundamentally, this sort of thing is the flaw of passion driven games that are marketed towards a large audience.

Imagine your dream game that you could make with today's technology using your own IP:

Do you really think tens of millions of people would want to pay to play it?

For most of us (myself included), the answer is probably no and the same answer is true for most developers.

This means that developers are constantly stuck choosing between what they want to make and what the audience wants and as many of them are passion driven they would choose what they want.

At the present, they generally get away with choosing what they want on AAA projects because they get carried by the IP/Budget.

Dr_Con · September 2022

[snip]

the comment below mine sums up the the outlook pretty well. They tried to listen but people gave conflicting reports, now they mostly have themselves to listen to, which can be good for a creative environment.

I did want to touch on feedback that another poster stated, and it compared the players to mice in a corporate machine chasing after the next bit of OP cheese. While there's some truth to this, the analogy you used is way too cynical. I just accept it as a norm that op sets will come out and get nerfed in cycles just as they always do, as is normal for any game.

As of recently, however, the newer sets get more and more complicated as the devs try to be more and more original- players now have to satisfy conditions for the procs to do their thing. I would much prefer if they start to release entire sets built around a single class ability or morph as they don't need to make stuff that's like "cyclone appears below you after you heavy attack an opponent and travels toward them, granting your allies 10% increased movement speed and stam/magicka regen so long as they are in the cyclone while damaging enemies for 666 damage per second" however this desire falls on deaf ears. They've tried this already with arena weapons but those focus more on weapon abilities. I find it highly unusual that some innovative genius or all-knowing dremora hasn't mastered the art of making a set bonus that specifically buffs an ability like crystal fragments, or causes it to have an additional effect, outside of raising their magicka pool or spell damage.

[Edited for Baiting]

Tandor · September 2022

DizzyMac wrote: »

i always sit in amazement at the people who, despite see the destruction right across the board, will just take the disrespect thrown at them as customers & part of the community by ZOS..

I mean seriously, if your partner treated you with the same disrespect ZOS treats players, would you still want to be in that relationship?

It's only some players who see it as destruction and disrespect. Based primarily on playstyle, many - probably even most - players simply aren't impacted. Would they show more support to the impacted players if there hadn't been so many people crying wolf, insulting them as toxic casuals who are only playing the game to decorate their houses or pick flowers? Probably.

SilverBride · September 2022

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

Agenericname · September 2022

Tandor wrote: »

DizzyMac wrote: »

i always sit in amazement at the people who, despite see the destruction right across the board, will just take the disrespect thrown at them as customers & part of the community by ZOS..

I mean seriously, if your partner treated you with the same disrespect ZOS treats players, would you still want to be in that relationship?

It's only some players who see it as destruction and disrespect. Based primarily on playstyle, many - probably even most - players simply aren't impacted. Would they show more support to the impacted players if there hadn't been so many people crying wolf, insulting them as toxic casuals who are only playing the game to decorate their houses or pick flowers? Probably.

Did they when AwA hit? It seemed pretty well divided then as well, and it was mostly a change agnostic to one preference of difficulty or skill level. I dont think it would be different at all.

ZOS_Icy · September 2022

Greetings, as we've removed a few non-constructive and bashing comments, please remember that while it’s all right to disagree or even debate with each other, provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community.

Bashing and Slanderous Comments: We do not permit the bashing of individuals (including ZeniMax employees), groups, or other companies on our forums. We believe that doing so is neither constructive nor in spirit of our game and community.

This is a friendly reminder that comments need to adhere to our Community Rules to avoid thread derailment.

Thank you for your understanding.

Parasaurolophus · September 2022

You have been given a smart drop and a stickerbook system so you don't have any problems farming sets. But you are still not happy.

Living_Tribunal · September 2022

For Pete's sake, it's a video game.

deleted221205-002626 · September 2022

I think the flavour on this forum and many other is so far off its beyond. The rage hate and anger is next level. Do anyone here sit in lets say General Motors forum DEMANDING cars be built the way they want them or does that just sound rediculous? ESO is a product and they make it the way they see fit and we either like it or we dont.

Four_Fingers · September 2022

I don't know if that is a good analogy as I would not buy a car that wasn't what I wanted.
And my red car would not turn blue 2 years later.

SaffronCitrusflower · September 2022

SilverBride wrote: »

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

How long as ZOS "been working on it" when it comes to PvP improvements with nothing to show for it? Three years? Longer? Instead the players get mocked and ridiculed and banned on twitch for doing nothing other than typing PvP in chat.

The players pay to be here. It's our right to complain when mistreated. Instead we get responses like "Wah wah wah, they're working on it." and "if you don' like it, you can go play something else" instead of actual fixes and improvements.

Respect is, in fact, a two way street.

Dr_Con · September 2022

sinnereso wrote: »

I think the flavour on this forum and many other is so far off its beyond. The rage hate and anger is next level. Do anyone here sit in lets say General Motors forum DEMANDING cars be built the way they want them or does that just sound rediculous? ESO is a product and they make it the way they see fit and we either like it or we dont.

Here here. Great comment. In the early days of this game, when they weren't sure if it would survive, the devs had to listen to the playerbase and produce results to get players to keep subscribing. Then they added more stuff for players to do. Now, they have a uniform system that works and a lot of things for players to do that will keep them subscribed and participating in this world of the second era of the Elder Scrolls franchise.

I think the worst thing of all must be the feeling some of the devs must have of wanting to help the players but knowing that adjusting the points in either direction will result in criticism. I think the best we can do is provide data, not loud complaints, about what we perceive to be wrong, and to trust the devs to make decisions based off of that. Posts like these, especially in looking at the post history of the OP, come across as Karens wanting to complain to corporate or rile the community up to perceive a problem that really isn't there. But this isn't the case. In truth, if you look at his post history, the OP has been a consistently dissatisfied consumer of this franchise who does not* feel like his complaints are being heard or addressed by the team- he has found fault in many things and blows them out of proportion because he is passionate about the game - that's why he keeps making topics like this. There are some good points he makes and there are some questionable ones that I don't see or agree with, but I think the main takeaway from this thread is that the little communication we've gotten on certain issues has been off-putting. I think this topic was unnecessary but I do feel more transparency is needed in the form of explaining why changes were made and based off what data- not that you have to justify every change. They do this already in some of the patch notes, but many feel this is not enough.

Many don't look at the PTS section or engage with devs on the test server, which is also a lost opportunity, but again "not listening" was a complaint of some content creators (i.e. mara's balm release). We never got told why it got released in a broken state, but had they said that they needed live testing rather than making assumptions based off controlled environment testing I feel people would have understoood where the devs were coming from.

Anyways, I am going to add communication to the list of obscure concerns in the community concerns list. I feel that this is a double edged sword in doing so, but if I am to remain objective I have seen this concern come up many times and it deserves a mention.

carlos424 · September 2022

Kingsindarkness wrote: »

I personally never understood these rants about the meta from players that (lets face it) aren't going to actually leave the game for any reason whatsoever...and even in the off chance they do they will still unload the exact same rants (or rants that they copy/paste from other threads) over and over again not for some hope of resolution or improvement of the game, but rather to induce yet another flame war where they sit back and report post they disagree with in hopes of garnering some type of forum action from the moderators.

Honestly is there anyone left on the forums who dosen't understand that this is what is actually happening anymore? I highly doubt it.....

I'm usually a lot more upbeat than this, but the disingenuousness of the forums lately has really got me down. Maybe it's the so called "Stream Team" content creators that regularly uses hate speech to describe players who don't run Vet Trials or are against Carries for money...or maybe it's just being sick of crybullies calling anyone who has anything positive to say "a toxic causal"...either way I'm done keeping my mouth shut.....

I know that if ESO shut down tomorrow the very same people who rant about how dead or dying the game is on multiple accounts on a almost hourly basis would be the first to make wistful post about that amazing gone too soon MMO ESO.

Hell they probably are the same folks that do it for SWG on multiple forums....even though more than likely they were screaming their heads off about NGE right up until the servers shut down.

People get unhappy and want to vent their frustrations. I don’t see that as being disingenuous? Maybe a bit counterproductive, depending on the way things are written but disingenuous? I don’t think this was written to trigger other players. And “hate speech?” I’d like to see a reference so that it can be exposed.

deleted221205-002626 · September 2022

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

How long as ZOS "been working on it" when it comes to PvP improvements with nothing to show for it? Three years? Longer? Instead the players get mocked and ridiculed and banned on twitch for doing nothing other than typing PvP in chat.

The players pay to be here. It's our right to complain when mistreated. Instead we get responses like "Wah wah wah, they're working on it." and "if you don' like it, you can go play something else" instead of actual fixes and improvements.

Respect is, in fact, a two way street.

Not everything is instant and they have multiple platforms to consider and hardware on they're end and ours.. Not to mention you only see your view while theyre getting a butt load of opposite opinions on this forum, tickets and likly dont even know which way to turn. Going back to my original analogy, if you demanded you want your passenger doors ROUND its not as simple as just making them circles without likly adjjusting the rest of the car too!

SilverBride · September 2022

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

How long as ZOS "been working on it" when it comes to PvP improvements with nothing to show for it? Three years? Longer? Instead the players get mocked and ridiculed and banned on twitch for doing nothing other than typing PvP in chat.

The players pay to be here. It's our right to complain when mistreated. Instead we get responses like "Wah wah wah, they're working on it." and "if you don' like it, you can go play something else" instead of actual fixes and improvements.

Respect is, in fact, a two way street.

I agree that Rich's wife was way out of line with her comments and should not have even been on his stream as far as I'm concerned. But that was his wife, not him and he no longer streams because of it.

But every single time there is a change the forums are flooded with insults and bashing. That is not the way to be heard.

Kalle_Demos · September 2022

SilverBride wrote: »

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

How long as ZOS "been working on it" when it comes to PvP improvements with nothing to show for it? Three years? Longer? Instead the players get mocked and ridiculed and banned on twitch for doing nothing other than typing PvP in chat.

The players pay to be here. It's our right to complain when mistreated. Instead we get responses like "Wah wah wah, they're working on it." and "if you don' like it, you can go play something else" instead of actual fixes and improvements.

Respect is, in fact, a two way street.

I agree that Rich's wife was way out of line with her comments and should not have even been on his stream as far as I'm concerned. But that was his wife, not him and he no longer streams because of it.

But every single time there is a change the forums are flooded with insults and bashing. That is not the way to be heard.

What a wild misunderstanding of the situation. The notion that the devs are somehow innocent and the big bad paying customers are somehow the cause of all strife here is blatantly false. Take the current disaster. People are not upset because of general change but because said change had the opposite affect of stated goals and has negatively affected gameplay across the board.

Especially it seems for the players the patch was meant for. The 'accessibility' patch has made things more difficult for disabled players and I can only commend them for the grace displayed in dealing with this conundrum. Worse, all this was predictable.

For weeks during PTS, concerns about the consequences of the proposed changes were discussed at length but concerns were ultimately ignored. The breakdown in this relationship is not on our end but Zos'. And this is not the first time massive negative impacts have made it to live despite the community's outcry.

Remember that time that Healing was dead is ESO? HEALING! A cornerstone of MMORPG gaming since the dawn of time was dead in ESO for weeks after community feedback was ignored. And SizanLopkniht is right. PVP has been a joke for YEARS. And it's even worse now. People have been paying into the game for years on promised content and quality updates and have seen NOTHING for their investment.

We are doing our part over here. In every medium from the forums, twitter, twitch, official live streams we are screaming to be heard but ignored and even insulted at each turn. Of course there is frustration. The devs are falling short. Repeatedly. The anger you see here in the forums and other media is justified and has been building for a long time.

Elsonso · September 2022

Rampeal wrote: »

AvalonRanger wrote: »

Why we can define length of 1meter?

Because, there're basis of length of 1meter in our world. And 1 meter is always same length
all over the world. And we keep using this same basis through the long human history.

If people keep changing those "basis" just each of the year, We can't made any of decent
man-made products. Then manufacturing process fall in chaos.

ZOS keep changing "basis" of game design with too much high speed rate.
So players are confused each time strange patch released.
Why they can't define reliable 1meter basis of ESO?

Actually it has changed many times since 1791. It is mathematical science, and it is always changing.

Yes, as the means to define it became more precise, the length of a meter changed. Still, if ZOS was able to keep their game within 1/2 a millimeter over the span of 230 years, I doubt anyone would be complaining.

The choice of comparing to a meter is interesting. The original point is taken, though. At least, as I take it, ZOS really needs to sit down and decide what their game is, and then stop trying to change that. This year has been all about change, like ZOS is having some sort of mid-life crisis and has run off to buy a Harley and join a biker gang.

SilverBride · September 2022

Kalle_Demos wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

How long as ZOS "been working on it" when it comes to PvP improvements with nothing to show for it? Three years? Longer? Instead the players get mocked and ridiculed and banned on twitch for doing nothing other than typing PvP in chat.

The players pay to be here. It's our right to complain when mistreated. Instead we get responses like "Wah wah wah, they're working on it." and "if you don' like it, you can go play something else" instead of actual fixes and improvements.

Respect is, in fact, a two way street.

I agree that Rich's wife was way out of line with her comments and should not have even been on his stream as far as I'm concerned. But that was his wife, not him and he no longer streams because of it.

But every single time there is a change the forums are flooded with insults and bashing. That is not the way to be heard.

What a wild misunderstanding of the situation. The notion that the devs are somehow innocent and the big bad paying customers are somehow the cause of all strife here is blatantly false. Take the current disaster. People are not upset because of general change but because said change had the opposite affect of stated goals and has negatively affected gameplay across the board.

Especially it seems for the players the patch was meant for. The 'accessibility' patch has made things more difficult for disabled players and I can only commend them for the grace displayed in dealing with this conundrum. Worse, all this was predictable.

For weeks during PTS, concerns about the consequences of the proposed changes were discussed at length but concerns were ultimately ignored. The breakdown in this relationship is not on our end but Zos'. And this is not the first time massive negative impacts have made it to live despite the community's outcry.

Remember that time that Healing was dead is ESO? HEALING! A cornerstone of MMORPG gaming since the dawn of time was dead in ESO for weeks after community feedback was ignored. And SizanLopkniht is right. PVP has been a joke for YEARS. And it's even worse now. People have been paying into the game for years on promised content and quality updates and have seen NOTHING for their investment.

We are doing our part over here. In every medium from the forums, twitter, twitch, official live streams we are screaming to be heard but ignored and even insulted at each turn. Of course there is frustration. The devs are falling short. Repeatedly. The anger you see here in the forums and other media is justified and has been building for a long time.

I am not misunderstanding. Every time there is a change the forums are filled with bashing because the developers developed their game in a way they thought would be beneficial to the player base. Not giving in to threats and completely removing something that hasn't even had enough time to fully realize its effect doesn't mean they aren't listening. They even made a lot of changes to Update 35 before it was released based on player feedback.

Androrix · September 2022

A thread about disrespectful developers filled with invectives hurled at the developers. No, sorry, no awesome from me.

Similar points about disappointment with the frequency and extensiveness of changes have been made in other posts. I share those concerns. So I don't think there is misunderstanding at all. Just a disagreement about how to express our concerns.

SilverBride · September 2022

@Androrix Thank you for clarifying.

MidniteOwl1913 · September 2022

If respect is a two-way street and it is paved with communication.

There has been plenty of communication from players, it's not all bashing. In fact, there is a lot of bewilderment, and sadness along with a number of suggestions for possible solutions.

But for many (and I find it hard to blame them) the utter lack of response to that bewilderment and sadness does turn to anger.

Ranger209 · September 2022

A guy walks into a bar. It's a small town bar, and they guy pouring the drinks also happens to own the bar. The guy sits down and orders a whiskey 7. After receiving his drink the guy takes a good long pull off of it, and says, "this stool is too hard, the lights are too low, and this drink is too weak." The tavern owner looks up from the cash register and says, "If you don't like the atmosphere and the drinks, go drink somewhere else." The guy gets up out of his seat and leaves.

Nope, that's not a joke, it's just the way things are.

TaSheen · September 2022

I actually do not believe the devs "develop the game in a way they thought would be beneficial to the player base". I think they have their vision for THEIR game, and they choose to develop their vision their way.

If people don't like the way the devs implement their vision for their game, well.... there are options for those people of course.

SilverBride · September 2022

Following their vision and benefiting the player base aren't exclusive. It is possible for a change to do both.

Klingenlied · September 2022

I kinda agree and disagree with OP. The way many players perceive communication and dev decisions has led to a really frosty, untrusting attitude. And to be quiet frank? That's not on the playerbase. The playerbase will always consist of those people that are drawn to the game. They will react on a base they feel towards this game, the decisions, the communication around it. So yea, there are several issues.

Where I don't agree? Well, nothing is killing the game in general; for a few players maybe, but surely not for everyone. I'd even go so far and say player numbers aren't even affected all that much - at least on console. Yes, a few people I did play with did stop playing. But I assume this is around a 5percentile pausing or quitting right now at max? Especially with the Undaunted event running, things seem busy, servers seem laggy and the game is the usual rollercoaster of cool new dungeon experiences mixed in with stupid bugs and errors - new and old.

Androrix · September 2022

SilverBride wrote: »

I am not sure what you are referring to, but I don't remember ever expressing disappoinment in the frequency or extensiveness of changes.

Oh no...you are right!! I was confusing you with Vylaera. Sorry.

I think the picture confused me. I will edit the post.

spartaxoxo · September 2022

SizanLopkniht wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

What about player arrogance and disrespect to the developers?

Every time there is a change there are going to be some who don't like it. Giving feedback about why it's undesirable is a lot more effective than bashing and threats.

Respect is a two way street.

How long as ZOS "been working on it" when it comes to PvP improvements with nothing to show for it? Three years?

We've been in a global pandemic for most of that time. One of the problems is the hardware failing, and they haven't been able to get all the parts they needed due to Covid. They explained and apologized for these delays.

spartaxoxo · September 2022

Player disrespect is a major contributing factor to why many game developers have chosen not to communicate with players and instead rely on play data, and I don't see the title of this thread as any different. The criticism around U35 has been very valid. It is a bad update, and it should be fixed with U36, since it is too late to scrap the worst changes from U35. I think the damage from this update will take a long time to fix. But, respectful communication is also important if players want the devs to actually read their comments. If I was a dev, I would skip this thread due to the title.