Please STOP pushing threads into "Players helping Players" section

OutLaw_Nynx · April 2023

@ZOS_Kevin
Please don’t forget this

valenwood_vegan · May 2023

This is still an ongoing issue and I hope it's still being looked at.

I don't mean to suggest that things are being done randomly on Zos' end, but to players it frequently appears that threads are randomly being moved at random times to random sub-forums. Examples have been linked, so I'm not gonna link more... but this is absolutely still happening.

As for my relevant feedback:

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
What are your most viewed sections of the forum? [Folded these into one question].

- Usually look at General + Recent Discussions + PTS if it's active (like with Necrom on there right now). Rarely look at any other categories unless there is some specific issue I'm following.

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

- Absolutely. Way too many. And the bigger issue is that many of them are minimally active - if a thread gets moved to a sub-forum, it often goes there to die.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

- Yes, but really just "recent".

Lumenn · May 2023

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

This is still an ongoing issue and I hope it's still being looked at.

I don't mean to suggest that things are being done randomly on Zos' end, but to players it frequently appears that threads are randomly being moved at random times to random sub-forums.

Oh no. I certainly wouldn't call it random. At all.

Four_Fingers · May 2023

They don't all seem to be making move decisions from the same playbook.

Baconlad · May 2023

Imagine being a new player...getting stumped with something in game, asking a question on a popular forum, and comming back later for your answer just to discover that the only reply you have is from a dev saying "[snip] your post wasn't in the correct forums. we're moving you question to a place that it will die unanswered".

[snip]...the irony of moving these questions

[edited for baiting and avoiding curse filter]

festegios · May 2023

I only check general and pts personally.

Destai · May 2023

Baconlad wrote: »

Imagine being a new player...getting stumped with something in game, asking a question on a popular forum, and comming back later for your answer just to discover that the only reply you have is from a dev saying "your post wasn't in the correct forums. we're moving you question to a place that it will die unanswered".

Here.

kringled_1 · May 2023

"Events and Contests" is also pretty terrible. A majority of the front page posts have been moved there, and most of those never see any followup after the move.

Destai · May 2023

kringled_1 wrote: »

"Events and Contests" is also pretty terrible. A majority of the front page posts have been moved there, and most of those never see any followup after the move.

It really begs the question of what can we actually post here in general. I'm not being facetious or sarcastic when I asked that.

virtus753 · May 2023

Why did Bowd’s weekly luxury furnisher post get moved?

And if that got moved, why didn’t the golden?

At this point I really have to echo that there seems to be no consistency here. I have no idea where we should be putting things or why the things that are moved get moved while the things that don’t don’t.

valenwood_vegan · May 2023

Seriously - Bowd's lux furnishing post has been a thing for as long as I can remember. Suddenly it's not appropriate for general discussion anymore? This is *exactly* what I'm talking about a few posts up @ZOS_Kevin

What, specifically, ARE we allowed to post in general discussion?

spartaxoxo · May 2023

Honestly, some sub-forums are so low traffic that it's honestly disheartening to post in the correct forum. And it's disheartening when threads get moved there, even though it's the right place for them.

They should really condense some of them. I would personally like to see dungeons and housing be allowed in GD because they are just general gameplay. There's already a guides section that guides can go into, but just general gameplay should be discussed in GD imo. But I know others would prefer something else. The PvP sub-forums could maybe all become one.

baltic1284 · May 2023

Sarannah wrote: »

Gotta agree here, "playes helping players" is not helping... ironically. Let those threads stay in general discussion, so every player can see them. Once they have run their course, they move from the frontpage anyways.

Just remove players helping players.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.
How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?
Personally I only use the general discussion forum, bug forum, technical support forum, and check the news post forum if an interesting article was posted on the main ESO website. But 99 out of a 100 visits it is only general discussion I visit. And I'm trying to be as helpful as I can be, in the forums I visit.

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?
General discussion, bug, technical support, and news post forum. And general discussion is the 100% always!

Do you think the forums have to many categories?
Yes! Bigtime yes. When posts about events, PvP, new player questions, dungeons, and other threads are moved, I know the discussion is dead.

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)
None to all. I just click the few forums I visit. Or go throught my profile and check my last few replies to find a (moved) discussion.

Thanks for your response, will answer your questions in bold above.

Another thing I'd like to note is: We need an off-topic forum, where we can discuss basically anything. Including other games. I still visit forums for games I have quit a long time ago(path of exile, diablo 3, etc), just to see what players think about certain topics in their off-topic forums. Another plus about that is, retired players will be more likely to catch ESO news(new expansions, etc), or get the tingle to try ESO again in the future. As they are still visiting the forums after quitting, they still get all the ESO related updates. Things an off-topic forum could include are real world events, like covid, earthquake, crypto, other things like that. Movies/tv-shows, other games(what do players think about Diablo 4, etc), any reallife/relationship issue they want advice on, etc. Basically almost anything. Moderation would have to be on their toes to prevent major arguments/fights though, and some things like war/religion should always stay off limits/forbidden topics.

PS: Thanks for not moving this topic to "players helping moderators".
PPS: Make old threads(6+ months old) automatically become locked, to prevent necroing threads. With the exceptions of pinned threads ofcourse.

A agree with the removal players helping players as when you do ask a question like i did for a specific shield I was looking for a new character nothing happened to it at that moment except some smart remarks and attacks to me. I know if it was in General, I probably already have an answer by now it is also not helping anyone at all at the moment player wise as most either don't visit it or just do other things to those players.

AliasRed · May 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.
How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

I have played the game for 9 years and in that time my forum visits are as thus;
1. I Almost exclusively view "General ESO Discussion" with an occasional visit to "housing"
2. General ESO Discussion.
3. Waay to many categories, if I have to go rooting for the information (which I may or may not find), My limited time is better used actually playing ESO.
4. Not really.

Kiralyn2000 · May 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

1) I visit General Discussion. That's my lone bookmark for any ESO web presence (once in a blue moon, I might go to the ESO game site to look at News>Events, but that's only because I'm following a link from General Discussion)

2) General DIscussion

3) Maybe? I haven't looked at them to know what they all are. I just visit General Discussion.

4) No, your question made me go to look at them, because I couldn't picture them from memory. Never really paid attention to that part of the forum page.

spartaxoxo · May 2023

I think should put this feedback here instead as this is the thread for moved thread feedback, but I think that some threads may also be more general purpose. Technically they may belong on a certain sub-forum but they'd be of more use being discussed by the general public.

So for example, the threads about the weekend vendors. Those vendors are a part of general economic activity and not just of interest to the people more heavily into say pvp or housing. In fact, many of the people who buy them aren't into those activities at all. I used to know a reseller for example who was good at predicting the most popular items and resold them for over the initial price months after they were last available. Such a person wouldn't be in the housing forum because they didn't really decorate much.

Guild leaders also look for these threads since years now and post it as a bulletin board to their guild mates regardless if they are personally into housing.

That's not the only kind of example. The on-going discussion about HA builds are of both general interest and something specific to PTS too.

In my opinion General Discussion should be both for the few topics that can't neatly go into a sub-forum and for threads that have a general purpose interest across the playerbase rather than the more niche topics of the sub-forums. Something like how to cobble an item together belongs in housing because you're not gonna do that if you're not decorating. Whereas something like discussing materials or the vendors would be of broader more general interest since it effects multiple player groups.

That's just how I personally view General Discussion, as topics of general purpose. But, I don't know if that's necessarily how anyone else views it.

Varana · May 2023

This thread exists. One of the mods even closed a thread by linking here. Kevin has posted here, even asked for feedback about this practice. Feedback has been pretty clear.

And still, someone felt the need to trample on the efforts of those who have consistently helped the community by posting these threads, by burying them in some sub-forum where few people ever go, and only a fraction of people who are interested in these threads will ever look. I would've assumed that to anyone even glancing over the feedback in this thread, it would've become clear that whatever the intention was, the sub-forums are not used. And letting threads wither and die over there, won't bring them magically to life.

But no, without explanation, without reasoning, and without ever engaging any feedback from this thread (and elsewhere), one of the institutions of this forum has been killed by moving it. I won't mention how criticism of this move is being handled.

DragonRacer · May 2023

Good Lord, the traditional weekend Lux Vendor post getting banished to the Housing forum is honestly infuriating.

It’s a service to everyone. We all look for it here in General. It’s only “a bother” to General for the length of the weekend.

If the moderators are that bored, I don’t even know what to say.

What are we allowed to post/discuss in General then? Got a list?

tmbrinks · May 2023

There's been plenty of feedback here.

No dev comments since the questions were asked.

No change in behavior.

Disappointing.

freespirit · May 2023

DragonRacer wrote: »

Good Lord, the traditional weekend Lux Vendor post getting banished to the Housing forum is honestly infuriating.

It’s a service to everyone. We all look for it here in General. It’s only “a bother” to General for the length of the weekend.

If the moderators are that bored, I don’t even know what to say.

What are we allowed to post/discuss in General then? Got a list?

This ^^

Why on earth would anyone think this move was ok?

Do the moderators have quota's they must achieve? I ask because sometimes I open General Discussion and the page is just a huge mess of moved or closed threads. I feel it's as if somebody has gone "Oh I need to show I've done some work" and then picked threads randomly to move!

The Lux Vendor thread is one of the most useful threads on this forum and it should be brought back to where it has always been!!

I pretty much never read anything but General Discussion and I'm sure I'm not alone in that. ☹

Northwold · May 2023

Oh my goodness this is becoming almost art, now.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/633189/dear-zos-why-has-the-eso-luxury-furnishing-items-thread-been-moved-to-the-housing-forum#latest

I mean, maybe there should be some kind of award for this?

StaticWave · May 2023

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But since the conversation was started here, we'll ask some starting questions.
How do you use the forums currently? Are you going to one specific category or do you visit multiple?

What are your most viewed sections of the forum?

Do you think the forums have too many categories?

Do you use the navigation tabs at the top? (Categories, Dev Tracker, Recent, Unanswered, Participated)

I currently use the forums for balance discussions and new patch content. I frequently visit the General, Public Test Server, and Player vs Player sections.

From my past experience, the majority of players frequent the General section of the forums. Even threads helping new players are also started in the General section and in my opinion should remain there.

StaticWave · May 2023

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The PvP sub-forums could maybe all become one.

Agreed completely. They should merge all 4 sub-forums of the PvP section into 1 large one. Naturally the most engaged thread will remain at the top anyways.

StabatLM · May 2023

Come on! And now the usefull and complete guide to pelinal mayem by @VaranisArano has been thrown in some undisclosed dumpster (no mention of where it was moved). Way to reward engaged and nice players.
I had to search to find it back, it wasn't in any pvp categories, not in "players helping players", not in event discussion but in drum roooool... "Players guides"! Somewhere i din't even know it existed, with so much traffic that the first page is full of threads last commented in october.
Surely everyone will find it there.

virtus753 · May 2023

Also: whenever a thread is moved, certain characters do not appear as characters but as code. For example, a word in “quotes” in the title of a post becomes "quotes"

Can’t even reproduce it properly it’s that bad:

& q u o t ; quotes & q u o t ;

That’s easy enough to figure out but incredibly messy and not something I’d expect of a professional forum software. Perhaps something to raise with Vanilla?

IMO it adds unnecessarily to the visual distraction of the “Moved:” prefix and the misleading “closed” tag given to the stub left behind.

DragonRacer · May 2023

Really didn’t think making the forums LESS helpful and navigable was the ultimate goal, yet here we are…

Event guides need to stay in General Discussion for the general gaming population to benefit from them.

Because like the Lux Vendor thread banished to Housing this weekend, those extremely helpful threads have a time limit anyway. After the weekend/after the event, they drop off the front page rather quickly. They hurt NO ONE being in here and they help NO ONE by being moved to the abyss.

[snip]
[edited for minor bashing]

valenwood_vegan · May 2023

If the mods really need something to do, time could potentially be spent by looking for threads in which players are requesting assistance, and directing them to appropriate resources when possible.

Hiding useful guides created by the community is not helping anyone.

EDIT to add: Looking over General Discussion right now, pretty much every thread *could* be moved to some other location. Many of them have far less general importance to the community than a guide to *the event that starts in a few days*. How is this being decided?

I'll repeat my very genuine question, what are we supposed to be posting in General?.

Snamyap · May 2023

Would be nice if they announced a moratorium on moving threads until they had the time to analyse this thread. Literally nobody is in favor of this highly annoying and frustrating practice. This is not customer service.

DragonRacer · May 2023

Here come the snips, edits, and post deletions.

Guess that’s the end of this discussion. I can take a hint.

ZOS_Icy · May 2023

Greetings, as we've removed a few non-constructive 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. If there may be any questions in regards to the rules, please feel free to review them here.

Thank you for your understanding.