Reinvest the game's profits into the game rather than live events that not many can attend to

ZOS_Kevin · June 12

Destai wrote: »

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

This is where we're we may have to agree to disagree, which is fine. This isn't a matter of being defensive, but rather a matter of perspective. The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier. Development resources are not impacted by holding in-person events.

But let's touch on the notion of content as that is a fair callout. We have adjusted content to try to accommodate what players have asked for. This is a personal anecdote, but when I first started here about three years ago, two of the biggest requests I saw were, please deliver more repeatable tentpole systems, and please deliver more quality of life improvements to the game. In fact, many ask for us to dedicate a quarter of content toward those quality of life improvements. Obviously this is among the multitude of other requests, but those stood out as really important to the team. And it's taken a bit of time, but we are in that cadence now. We delivered Infinite Archive, a system built from the ground up with new tech and will be supported over time. We dedicated Q3 last year to quality of life improvements and some system overhauls. We plan to do the same this year and you'll see those when PTS rolls around. On top of that we delivered a new class, another widely requested feature and that took about 18 months. And we just delivered Scribing, another long requested feature, that will be supported over time. The group finder being added last year. And we have the new PvP content coming in Q4. And all of that is on top of dungeons, trials, quests, and things we can't discuss yet. So yes, players may not be getting things like a second set of dungeons like they did a few years ago, but we believe the shift to meet player requests for systems and improvements is worth the shift.

We understand everything is not perfect and we are not trying to say that at all. We know more improvements need to be made and discussed more, there are more quality of life features that are being explored, and the team is constantly trying to work out how to make those happen while still delivering new content. And no one is saying not to be critical of things that you believe are not up to par. That is why we have several avenues for players to note these things. Just think the notion of painting a picture that we are using player's money to go on European vacations isn't a sound one and does everyone a disservice.

Soarora · June 12

All I’ll say and all I can say about this is that I did not feel like I really got an understanding on the Chapter like previous years because of the event. I watched the stream, at least I think that it was the stream showing Gold Road, but I didn’t even know there’s a WWB in the zone until someone in zone chat said where the WWB is. I didn’t understand how the new incursions worked until I tried it and I’m still not certain.

I have my frustrations with ZOS, I’m sure we all do. I can’t think of a single player around me nowadays who plays the game like they used to let alone spends money like they used to. We’re not happy but I can appreciate that ZOS does listen (sometimes), it could be worse. I can imagine it’s difficult when so much of the community is so negative towards everything, and not always constructive. Thank you Kevin for your posts here because honestly I also thought it was a vacation to the Netherlands, I didn’t think about how COVID cancelled European events let alone the other insights.

Gaebriel0410 · June 12

The conspiracy theories I sometimes see on this forum boggle my mind, and I sincerely hope I am not the only one.

Yeah sure they go on merry holiday with our sub money drinking tequila sunrise in Amsterdam lol.

I assume that everyone who ever worked at a company knows that events and trade shows are pretty hard work, both the event itself and the preparations beforehand. Also, budgets exist. People making crown store stuff probably aren't the same people who handle servers, or bugs, or anything. It's like the "lazy devs" that you also often see online. Or "oh just add x, an intern can do it". It is so incredibly dismissive and rude. I know nothing of game development, but I can imagine that, like with many other things in life, things that seem simple from the outside are likely a whole lot more complicated behind the scenes.

When I worked at a company doing events, staff going to trade fairs or cons always got some days off afterwards because those event days are long and exhausting with often little chance for a break. And despite loving crowds and people in general, I usually passed on coming along, as my brain had already exploded during the long and often stressful weeks of preparations.

Some people are just grasping at straws to be as negative as possible at all times, shouting their brain rot into the void to farm easy outrage likes. I don't think ESO is perfect either, nor is any game for that matter, but if you are focused so much on the negative, why even play? If I had that many issues with this game I would've quit long ago.

Tornaad · June 12

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Generally, the notion that there is a pot of money and that it should mostly go toward one thing is not how budgets work. Especially when you consider we are one development team under the ZeniMax umbrella that is under the Xbox umbrella. These events have been budgeted out well in advance and not at the expense of the development team. These budgets are separate. So even if we did not hold these events, it's not like the money just goes to another team. That's not how budgets work.

Some of us can appreciate the realities of how corporate budgets work. But, there's others whose emotional reality isn't even going to consider that. It's like when people complain about crown store stuff getting fixed before PVP. Of course, they're different teams with different budgets and technologies. I know that. You know that. But it's not a consideration when there's issues. And if there's a history - which there is - of not addressing issues head-on or providing roadmaps or context or whatever, then you're going to deal with uncomfortable topics.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Marketing/Advertising aside, we do believe at a community level that having in-person meet-ups is very important for community culture and the overall health of the game. It give players the opportunity to bond with each other, but the opportunity to directly engage with the dev team. Beyond through a screen or text. Having opportunities like this are very important. We've heard that first hand from fellow players who have attended.

Live events are wonderful - if you're in attendance. But the conversations there do not make it back to the larger audience. There are so many frequent complaints and topics that need to be addressed, that don't get addressed. That's why you get posts like this.

And I get that you guys want to have the fanfare with each release, but you have to take inventory of the other issues that haunt you here and on streams. If you're not going to talk about performance plans, combat issues, grinding for new items, and whatever other issues have arisen, then you're going to deal with them in a more uncomfortable fashion.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

This is not an indie developer. I am not suggesting they stop advertising completely, but these live events are just not it. Honestly, just seems like the staff wanted an excuse to go on a holiday to Europe. The company won't die but the game will.

Also wanted to touch on this, because honestly comments like this belittle the hard work our teams do. They do not deserve to read comments that, intentional or not, attempt to devalue their work. Our teams plan, review, and practice for months to be able to produce an event for those who choose to spend their time and money with us. This isn't some vacation ploy, no company would approve that. The company has a generous PTO policy for vacation when we need it. We listened to feedback from players in Europe that they would like the opportunity to attend events, but rarely get an opportunity to, especially after COVID lockdown. That's why we held our event in Europe this time around.

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

In all reality, when you take money away from promotions like the live events, you also slow company growth. When you slow the growth of the company.

One the flip side, when you properly promote a product like ESO even through live events you bring increased revenue in for the company, which in turn, allows them more money for things like what you want to see fixed.

From a company perspective, if you really want to know if a game is dying or not look at its add spending. When they stop promoting it, the game will start dying.

spartaxoxo · June 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

This is where we're we may have to agree to disagree, which is fine. This isn't a matter of being defensive, but rather a matter of perspective. The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier. Development resources are not impacted by holding in-person events.

But let's touch on the notion of content as that is a fair callout. We have adjusted content to try to accommodate what players have asked for. This is a personal anecdote, but when I first started here about three years ago, two of the biggest requests I saw were, please deliver more repeatable tentpole systems, and please deliver more quality of life improvements to the game. In fact, many ask for us to dedicate a quarter of content toward those quality of life improvements. Obviously this is among the multitude of other requests, but those stood out as really important to the team. And it's taken a bit of time, but we are in that cadence now. We delivered Infinite Archive, a system built from the ground up with new tech and will be supported over time. We dedicated Q3 last year to quality of life improvements and some system overhauls. We plan to do the same this year and you'll see those when PTS rolls around. On top of that we delivered a new class, another widely requested feature and that took about 18 months. And we just delivered Scribing, another long requested feature, that will be supported over time. The group finder being added last year. And we have the new PvP content coming in Q4. And all of that is on top of dungeons, trials, quests, and things we can't discuss yet. So yes, players may not be getting things like a second set of dungeons like they did a few years ago, but we believe the shift to meet player requests for systems and improvements is worth the shift.

We understand everything is not perfect and we are not trying to say that at all. We know more improvements need to be made and discussed more, there are more quality of life features that are being explored, and the team is constantly trying to work out how to make those happen while still delivering new content. And no one is saying not to be critical of things that you believe are not up to par. That is why we have several avenues for players to note these things. Just think the notion of painting a picture that we are using player's money to go on European vacations isn't a sound one and does everyone a disservice.

I'm glad to see you defend your colleagues. This is honestly the part of video gaming I dislike the most. So many times I've seen, across countless different games, where people are relentlessly negative. And it often manifests as dismissiveness and disrespect towards the people who make the games. I'm not saying that this post was necessarily disrespectful, but I see it a lot as a general rule.

Even if it was a company vacation/retreat/team building thing, which an event is not, that would be perfectly fine. Developers aren't companions to be ordered around at a whim. They deserve holidays. They deserve sick days. They deserve grace when mistakes are made.

FelisCatus · June 12

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Generally, the notion that there is a pot of money and that it should mostly go toward one thing is not how budgets work. Especially when you consider we are one development team under the ZeniMax umbrella that is under the Xbox umbrella. These events have been budgeted out well in advance and not at the expense of the development team. These budgets are separate. So even if we did not hold these events, it's not like the money just goes to another team. That's not how budgets work.

Some of us can appreciate the realities of how corporate budgets work. But, there's others whose emotional reality isn't even going to consider that. It's like when people complain about crown store stuff getting fixed before PVP. Of course, they're different teams with different budgets and technologies. I know that. You know that. But it's not a consideration when there's issues. And if there's a history - which there is - of not addressing issues head-on or providing roadmaps or context or whatever, then you're going to deal with uncomfortable topics.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Marketing/Advertising aside, we do believe at a community level that having in-person meet-ups is very important for community culture and the overall health of the game. It give players the opportunity to bond with each other, but the opportunity to directly engage with the dev team. Beyond through a screen or text. Having opportunities like this are very important. We've heard that first hand from fellow players who have attended.

Live events are wonderful - if you're in attendance. But the conversations there do not make it back to the larger audience. There are so many frequent complaints and topics that need to be addressed, that don't get addressed. That's why you get posts like this.

And I get that you guys want to have the fanfare with each release, but you have to take inventory of the other issues that haunt you here and on streams. If you're not going to talk about performance plans, combat issues, grinding for new items, and whatever other issues have arisen, then you're going to deal with them in a more uncomfortable fashion.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

This is not an indie developer. I am not suggesting they stop advertising completely, but these live events are just not it. Honestly, just seems like the staff wanted an excuse to go on a holiday to Europe. The company won't die but the game will.

Also wanted to touch on this, because honestly comments like this belittle the hard work our teams do. They do not deserve to read comments that, intentional or not, attempt to devalue their work. Our teams plan, review, and practice for months to be able to produce an event for those who choose to spend their time and money with us. This isn't some vacation ploy, no company would approve that. The company has a generous PTO policy for vacation when we need it. We listened to feedback from players in Europe that they would like the opportunity to attend events, but rarely get an opportunity to, especially after COVID lockdown. That's why we held our event in Europe this time around.

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

This is exactly how I would of responded too. You constantly see people saying fix pvp or class change token or other stuff on live streams only for it to get censored and ignored. When Q&A posts/sessions happen we all know that responses are personally cherry picked to be the most comfortable to answer for the devs rather than addressing the real issues everyone is complaining about.

I don't want to be some cranky gamer who makes the devs feel awful but they are the ones with the power to fix these problems and yet they don't. Yeah I understand that there are different departments at play all on marionette strings dangled by upper corporate executives. If you don't want to keep hearing these issues then fix them but the longer the complaints go unheard the more frustrated we all become. Which leads to feedback and criticism being a lot more charged/emotional and uncomfortable.

It sucks but we have serious issues and like it was already said you're charging us more for less content. We all want to give money to ESO but we want to see value in return. The average person is struggling a lot due to inflation, cost of living rises and world events. I'm not trying to ruin your day or just be some prophet of doom. I speak with genuine passion and concern. The players need re-assurance and not in the form of hollow words, we need to see our issues fixed and addressed.

It's especially irritating when PTS testers warn of issues and they get ignored or when updates get pushed that nobody asks for (U35 for example) and even with significant backlash we are told to trust the process, with little rationale or explanation.

spartaxoxo · June 12

CrazyKitty wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The game is getting plenty of development. Advertising is a normal part of video games and will always take part of the budget. Games don't exist without players. Live events are a great way to promote the game and connect with the community. This is why they are so common in the industry.

No it's not. They've cut their content releases in half lately. And Cyodiil has suffered pop cap reductions over and over and over and over and over again since 2018.

And while advertising is a normal investment for a company to invest in, overseas trips to high profile tourist destinations for staff is more than what can be considered normal by a pretty fair margin.

No. It's absolutely not more than considered normal in the video game industry. Almost all of the big companies do live events. The advertising budget is separate to the development budget anyway.

They still delivered a lot of content last year despite the cut, as well. Infinite Archive was a big boon. And if IA is anything to go by, new PvP activity in Q4 will be quite good.

ESO+ might be a worse deal now, but they did very well by the base game

The only new things in IA are the puzzles. Everything else is repackaged content from other parts of the game. Essentially there is nothing new in IA at all. And I've never heard of another game manufacturer sending a bunch of employees and youtubers overseas to promote their game.

Last year was the least amount of content ESO has ever had since creation, and this year's going to be even less.

Are we talking about the same game?

The scaling system is new. The puzzles are new. The concept is new. Tho'at is new.

Video game conferences are extremely common. There's absolute nothing outside of the norm about them. Also, ESO is in Europe too. I still remember the days when live events used to be even bigger. I wish I had attended one back then.

Destai · June 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

But let's touch on the notion of content as that is a fair callout. We have adjusted content to try to accommodate what players have asked for. This is a personal anecdote, but when I first started here about three years ago, two of the biggest requests I saw were, please deliver more repeatable tentpole systems, and please deliver more quality of life improvements to the game. In fact, many ask for us to dedicate a quarter of content toward those quality of life improvements. Obviously this is among the multitude of other requests, but those stood out as really important to the team. And it's taken a bit of time, but we are in that cadence now. We delivered Infinite Archive, a system built from the ground up with new tech and will be supported over time. We dedicated Q3 last year to quality of life improvements and some system overhauls. We plan to do the same this year and you'll see those when PTS rolls around. On top of that we delivered a new class, another widely requested feature and that took about 18 months. And we just delivered Scribing, another long requested feature, that will be supported over time. The group finder being added last year. And we have the new PvP content coming in Q4. And all of that is on top of dungeons, trails, quests, and things we can't discuss yet. So yes, players may not be getting things like a second set of dungeons like they did a few years ago, but we believe the shift to meet player requests for systems and improvements is worth the shift.

This is a great answer, thank you. I think this is the commentary needed here. And I think you're right, those have been the frequent requests. I totally respect the challenges you guys have in releasing content. I truly believe you guys try very hard. Obviously, I've spent $1000s on the game over its lifecycle, so clearly it's valued. I know I was one of them asking for a QoL quarter, so yeah, I support that direction.

I think the general concern here is the last few years have set a precedence for what each chapter will roughly have. That includes a certain amount of quests, companions, etc. This chapter, things have shifted, which is fine. But, there's less quests and Scribing hasn't landed as well as it should've. So, I think there's this sentiment that you changed the flagship feature for something that needs a lot more tweaking. I think if you guys can address the grind (more than what you already have) on scribing, then it would help. It would also help if things like the scribing mount weren't time limited, and all zone motifs were earnable from the dailies day one.

FelisCatus · June 12

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

This is where we're we may have to agree to disagree, which is fine. This isn't a matter of being defensive, but rather a matter of perspective. The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier. Development resources are not impacted by holding in-person events.

But let's touch on the notion of content as that is a fair callout. We have adjusted content to try to accommodate what players have asked for. This is a personal anecdote, but when I first started here about three years ago, two of the biggest requests I saw were, please deliver more repeatable tentpole systems, and please deliver more quality of life improvements to the game. In fact, many ask for us to dedicate a quarter of content toward those quality of life improvements. Obviously this is among the multitude of other requests, but those stood out as really important to the team. And it's taken a bit of time, but we are in that cadence now. We delivered Infinite Archive, a system built from the ground up with new tech and will be supported over time. We dedicated Q3 last year to quality of life improvements and some system overhauls. We plan to do the same this year and you'll see those when PTS rolls around. On top of that we delivered a new class, another widely requested feature and that took about 18 months. And we just delivered Scribing, another long requested feature, that will be supported over time. The group finder being added last year. And we have the new PvP content coming in Q4. And all of that is on top of dungeons, trials, quests, and things we can't discuss yet. So yes, players may not be getting things like a second set of dungeons like they did a few years ago, but we believe the shift to meet player requests for systems and improvements is worth the shift.

We understand everything is not perfect and we are not trying to say that at all. We know more improvements need to be made and discussed more, there are more quality of life features that are being explored, and the team is constantly trying to work out how to make those happen while still delivering new content. And no one is saying not to be critical of things that you believe are not up to par. That is why we have several avenues for players to note these things. Just think the notion of painting a picture that we are using player's money to go on European vacations isn't a sound one and does everyone a disservice.

I'm glad to see you defend your colleagues. This is honestly the part of video gaming I dislike the most. So many times I've seen, across countless different games, where people are relentlessly negative. And it often manifests as dismissiveness and disrespect towards the people who make the games. I'm not saying that this post was necessarily disrespectful, but I see it a lot as a general rule.

Even if it was a company vacation/retreat/team building thing, which an event is not, that would be perfectly fine. Developers aren't companions to be ordered around at a whim. They deserve holidays. They deserve sick days. They deserve grace when mistakes are made.

When did anyone say they were not allowed holidays or sick days? You are straw manning the entire point of the post. I know they are humans, and it's often the higher ups that make the bad decisions and the customer facing workers face the brunt. Anyone who works in retail or the food industry knows that. Who else do we go to fix the issue or at least raise awareness on the issue? Sometimes we are heard but often we are ignored. These events only appeal and reach a tiny fraction of the grand scale of the player base so they ultimately feel out of touch to the average player. That's the issue and when you have all these other issues ongoing some have been ongoing for years (combat bug, the state of pvp, etc) it feels almost tone-deaf or ignorant. I would be a lot more understanding if this was a game made by a small team but again it's a massive company that's owns another massive company that owns another massive company so it's not crazy to expect more. So yes as someone said earlier: "Sure it does look like "the house is burning" while "the hosts are partying else where"

Destai · June 12

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

And I get that you guys want to have the fanfare with each release, but you have to take inventory of the other issues that haunt you here and on streams. If you're not going to talk about performance plans, combat issues, grinding for new items, and whatever other issues have arisen, then you're going to deal with them in a more uncomfortable fashion.

I see where you're coming from with these bigger issues, but is it fair to say that they can't do any promotional content without having people blast them for their personal issues with the game?

I feel like they can do a fun stream promoting Gold Road without people spamming "Cyrodiil Cyrodiil Cyrodiil class balance." Otherwise, they would have to stop doing promotional content until the game was flawless, right? Leading every single event, stream, article, or post with "Hey, we know that necromancer is still not performing as well as we like" is not very hype lol.

People requested more live events, and they met that demand. If a PvP patch is released, should people be spamming it with "But this is not addressing the major community issue of the lack of events in Europe and you need to address that before anyone can be positive"? I don't think so, but I hope I'm not paraphrasing that in bad faith. : P

No, I think live events are great, and I don't want to discourage them. Really where I was coming from is just trying to help identify where posts like this come from and what they can do about it. There's nothing wrong with commercial events, there's nothing with streams. But, I don't see a fraction of the communication towards the things that pockmark those events. We had performance roadmaps in the past, we had class reps and class identity statements in the past. That should be consistent, the same way commercial things are. That's all I'm trying to say.

FelisCatus · June 12

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

This is where we're we may have to agree to disagree, which is fine. This isn't a matter of being defensive, but rather a matter of perspective. The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier. Development resources are not impacted by holding in-person events.

But let's touch on the notion of content as that is a fair callout. We have adjusted content to try to accommodate what players have asked for. This is a personal anecdote, but when I first started here about three years ago, two of the biggest requests I saw were, please deliver more repeatable tentpole systems, and please deliver more quality of life improvements to the game. In fact, many ask for us to dedicate a quarter of content toward those quality of life improvements. Obviously this is among the multitude of other requests, but those stood out as really important to the team. And it's taken a bit of time, but we are in that cadence now. We delivered Infinite Archive, a system built from the ground up with new tech and will be supported over time. We dedicated Q3 last year to quality of life improvements and some system overhauls. We plan to do the same this year and you'll see those when PTS rolls around. On top of that we delivered a new class, another widely requested feature and that took about 18 months. And we just delivered Scribing, another long requested feature, that will be supported over time. The group finder being added last year. And we have the new PvP content coming in Q4. And all of that is on top of dungeons, trials, quests, and things we can't discuss yet. So yes, players may not be getting things like a second set of dungeons like they did a few years ago, but we believe the shift to meet player requests for systems and improvements is worth the shift.

We understand everything is not perfect and we are not trying to say that at all. We know more improvements need to be made and discussed more, there are more quality of life features that are being explored, and the team is constantly trying to work out how to make those happen while still delivering new content. And no one is saying not to be critical of things that you believe are not up to par. That is why we have several avenues for players to note these things. Just think the notion of painting a picture that we are using player's money to go on European vacations isn't a sound one and does everyone a disservice.

I have to say as the OP of this thread that you are one of the more "on it" moderators and I appreciate that you actually take time to engage even if we disagree at times. Your communication I have even noticed on the largely neglected Steam Forums. Communication has always been something ZOS has been bad at but if there was more of you then it would really go along way.

I know you are not at liberty to disclose budgets and what not, but if it is taking a long time to develop content to the point where you have to deliver less each year as some of the QoL is more intensive to implement, would it not make sense to hire more staff?

I've heard often that the original developers from launch have mostly left and moved on and in their wake spaghetti code has hindered future endeavours, are you able to comment on this? I know it maybe embarrassing but if your company is honest, and genuine in what it can offer I think it'll win a lot of customer trust back. Which will allow players to temper their expectations.

spartaxoxo · June 12

FelisCatus wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

These are all fair points. You're justified in your answer, but being defensive isn't going to resolve this. You guys need to address the core issues being raised - that we're getting less content for the same price and the game consistently has performance issues. Those should be addressed as visibly the answers you provided to prevent future moments like this.

This is where we're we may have to agree to disagree, which is fine. This isn't a matter of being defensive, but rather a matter of perspective. The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier. Development resources are not impacted by holding in-person events.

But let's touch on the notion of content as that is a fair callout. We have adjusted content to try to accommodate what players have asked for. This is a personal anecdote, but when I first started here about three years ago, two of the biggest requests I saw were, please deliver more repeatable tentpole systems, and please deliver more quality of life improvements to the game. In fact, many ask for us to dedicate a quarter of content toward those quality of life improvements. Obviously this is among the multitude of other requests, but those stood out as really important to the team. And it's taken a bit of time, but we are in that cadence now. We delivered Infinite Archive, a system built from the ground up with new tech and will be supported over time. We dedicated Q3 last year to quality of life improvements and some system overhauls. We plan to do the same this year and you'll see those when PTS rolls around. On top of that we delivered a new class, another widely requested feature and that took about 18 months. And we just delivered Scribing, another long requested feature, that will be supported over time. The group finder being added last year. And we have the new PvP content coming in Q4. And all of that is on top of dungeons, trials, quests, and things we can't discuss yet. So yes, players may not be getting things like a second set of dungeons like they did a few years ago, but we believe the shift to meet player requests for systems and improvements is worth the shift.

We understand everything is not perfect and we are not trying to say that at all. We know more improvements need to be made and discussed more, there are more quality of life features that are being explored, and the team is constantly trying to work out how to make those happen while still delivering new content. And no one is saying not to be critical of things that you believe are not up to par. That is why we have several avenues for players to note these things. Just think the notion of painting a picture that we are using player's money to go on European vacations isn't a sound one and does everyone a disservice.

I'm glad to see you defend your colleagues. This is honestly the part of video gaming I dislike the most. So many times I've seen, across countless different games, where people are relentlessly negative. And it often manifests as dismissiveness and disrespect towards the people who make the games. I'm not saying that this post was necessarily disrespectful, but I see it a lot as a general rule.

Even if it was a company vacation/retreat/team building thing, which an event is not, that would be perfectly fine. Developers aren't companions to be ordered around at a whim. They deserve holidays. They deserve sick days. They deserve grace when mistakes are made.

When did anyone say they were not allowed holidays or sick days? You are straw manning the entire point of the post. I know they are humans, and it's often the higher ups that make the bad decisions and the customer facing workers face the brunt. Anyone who works in retail or the food industry knows that. Who else do we go to fix the issue or at least raise awareness on the issue? Sometimes we are heard but often we are ignored. These events only appeal and reach a tiny fraction of the grand scale of the player base so they ultimately feel out of touch to the average player. That's the issue and when you have all these other issues ongoing some have been ongoing for years (combat bug, the state of pvp, etc) it feels almost tone-deaf or ignorant. I would be a lot more understand if this was a game made by a small team but again it's a massive company that's owns another massive company that owns another massive company so it's not crazy to expect more. So yes as someone said earlier: "Sure it does look like "the house is burning" while "the hosts are partying else where"

That's exactly how it comes across when a post begrudges a group of employees what you view as a corporate retreat. I'm going to be honest. I have always found the argument "The video game isn't the way I want it to be, so nobody else is allowed to have fun, including the employees," to be the argument that's tone deaf. Taking someone else having fun as a personal affront is tone deaf. Whenever I start feeling that bitter about a game, I take a break from it. Some, I have never returned. And I'm much happier for it.

Video games appeal to a large range of people. There will never be a perfect video game. All video games will always have performance issues, content that isn't as popular, etc. All of them, all the time, no exceptions. That is absolutely no basis for content not to be added, events to not be thrown, or anything else.

Legitimate criticism is a good thing. The game DOES have its issues. PvP performance and the lack of new content for PvP being chief among them. But that doesn't make all other content bad. It doesn't make events disrespectful. It doesn't make other people having fun with the game mediocre. It doesn't make the developers of the game tone deaf for "having an overseas vacation."

sayswhoto · June 13

I have to agree with ZOS_Kevin on this one, especially since ZOS is under the Xbox division.

Someone more financially knowledgeable can correct me, but one look at Microsoft's FY24Q3 earnings for the More Personal Computer section and you can see the scale of money the parent company works with (dollar amount in billions). I don't think one event in Europe is going to matter. That said, the decision to commit resources to certain projects probably depends on the usual set of factors (justification, business need, priorities etc.). The money is there, but how much of it gets allocated to ZOS is another question.

Vulkunne · June 13

FelisCatus wrote: »

Live events are great for those who live nearby or can afford to go or for the content creators who get invited. However for most players it's not relevant. Fix PvP, fix the servers, the writing, the balance, add more content and update the old textures/animations. Increase housing slots. Add new skill lines, classes, a class change token (how many threads do we have to make old man?). It's pretty tiring seeing so many IRL events being hosted for the anniversary whilst the anniversary event itself was a low drop monotonous grind fest. We receive yet another lack lustre chapter with poor, predictable writing. We get a few new enemies but most are just reskins. The last decent chapter was Summerset. I get the anniversary gives you an excuse to have a company holiday and pat yourselves on the back but many this game is in a mess and manned by a skeleton crew. Crownstore and crown crates get way more development time and attention than most of the chapters it seems. I was hyped for scribing and it turned out to be a half-baked grindfest. With most scribing skills being more for utility, roleplay and niche. Skill styles are nice but some of the best ones are locked behind a grind. I have no doubt that you'll monetise this cool earnable/rewarding feature. I wouldn't be surprised if scribing gets monetised either. West Weald is a tiny zone with little to do. The Bosmer feel shoehorned in for fan service and Ithelia was as predictable as she was irrelevant and boring. The new trial was at least different and difficult so props for that. The environmental screen dimming and resolution reduction should be made optional you can keep it on by default but at least give us an option to turn it off. I was hyped for this chapter (except Ithelia) I was largely disappointed though, and each chapter since Summerset has been disappointing. I'd love for this game to return to its golden peak but as the years go on I feel more uncertain.

Like many of you I too have been with ESO for a very long time, and you know ESO has been a good thing. And that's why ... many of us try to come to the forums and post the changes we would like to see and the things we're kind of critical about. I think that even with the good ESO has done there really is like an 'iron wall' that sits between those of us who disagree with things and seeing meaningful change in the game itself.

Take this grind business ... this fresh and hot madness that has been unleashed on us between Infinite Archive (IA), 10th anniv and Gold Road ... IA, 10th anniv and Gold Road are great examples. The grind for the things we wanted to see, features like dyes, certain styles, given the run, etc, uhhh the grind is insane. Why does everything have to be locked behind a quest? Why? I mean saying this in a calm, rational manner, what the hell? C'mon. Why lock dyes behind quests no one wants to do ... wants to do right away? Like High Isle for example, I did the main quest later but here it takes forever to do some of the new achievements (unless I want to buy the trophies, if I can) or wait probably an entire MONTH if not more to gather scraps and trophies for each achievement? Why do this to us? The dyes never should have been put behind a grind. Just unlock 'em and let us alone. Although, I could understand why the devs would not make every dye available because things can get weird with look-a-like skill effects, so I get this. But still...

I have been grinding PvE content for the last 6 months.

Yes, I chose to do it, yet it made sense to do these PvE tasks for their rewards, and then if I want more from the newer content, I have an even LONGER GRIND. In IA (especially) and the quests from Gold Road, I mean it really feels like this has become a second job. So with that said, many of us aren't happy with not just the grind but the difficulty as well as the bugs, again, especially in things like IA. Holy molies I could sit here and write all day about how much I have learned to both hate and respect IA. But the thing is, I really think the difficulty in IA is too difficult, its killer content ... literally. In the past I have voiced support for more challenging, more difficult content but things like Vet Vateshran or Vet Malestrom are in scope with where I'm coming from. Ok Vat pushes that sentiment to its limit. But IA like I'm ashamed to admit but I've reached the point where I can't do a single side portal other than butcher and bridge. The difficulty for other arenas like Filer and angry little Bosmer chick's shed of horror are just too much. It's like there's a reason why I don't run dungeons on HM.

Another thing, a big problem with IA is I can't find anyone to run with lol. And so my reason for mentioning this, is I've seen in other threads how they talk about you know the rich and those with connections getting stronger and everyone else is getting filtered out of this game, and I think it's happening. Nothing sells in the store anymore because you guys blew it with the 10 yr anniversary event killing any value from mats but mainly from surplus and some exclusive stock. I have actually thrown expensive stock away to make room in my inventory because *now* no one is buying any of it. So, getting back on track, that's like with IA, its a roaring hell trying to grind what I need out of that place as solo. Its hell and not surprisingly, no one else wants to join me. But I'm just kind of taken back at how abrasive things have become and lack of interest in the community and speaking of the community and feed back to ZOS.

So the idea here isn't to rant, maybe to vent a little but like ... what is the point of the forums? You know ... what is it? I mean is the place where we come to praise ZOS and certain exclusive forum folks for being just so awesome. Oh, what wonderful whatever. I mean, some of us come on here and say, "This is terrible, here's why and it's a real problem" or perhaps anyone has an idea and then we have like these 6 or7 people, usually the same people and they're trying to shoot down the post and not even acknowledge the idea or the problem. You know, that's not free-world behavior, that's behavior I'd expect to see from a totalitarian country somewhere. Which is ironic because these same folks have taken it out on me in the past for saying this and that when I'm just trying to talk about an idea or a possible new feature, but people like me, our posts are just crowded by these guys. And quite frankly I'm tired of being judged for thinking different.

And so, you know, there's just alot I don't understand, there's alot of problems with this game, ok. Like stuck in combat bug and other things ... many of us have in the past spent more than we should in the Crown Store and on subscriptions, but not only does it do no good to share our feedback, but we can't attend you know whichever game event in-person. And I wouldn't ever try and speak for others but we don't have the money to go overseas or what not. You know, I'm not trying to tell ZOS how to budget and many of us aren't either but we're funding a game where our feedback isn't regarded, or the post is harassed, or it just disappears and so neither can we attend these nice events but yet the problems remain. I'm sitting here thinking and really just not looking for trouble but also trying to understand what I first saw about this game because the way things are I don't even really recognize ESO from memory ... sort of. Its like this is some other game I wouldn't play, or perhaps one I made a mistake playing for a short while there and I'm just coming to the realization that my expectations and what I think has no place in this game. While you guys' kind of party with all the happy photos, shoot us down and rebuff every post that says what you don't want to hear and meanwhile it's like parts of the game are on fire. And Dante ... he's out there trying to save the souls of ESO players stuck in grinding hell.

I'm glad everyone had a great time at the party but not only did many of us NOT have a good time during YOUR 10th Anniversary Event but then things resulting from that event are causing problems. What if there are some out there who don't want to grind all this stuff ... just like they how they didn't wish to grind for event items? ... I also saw more than a few during the event waiting for bosses to spawn who were wearing questionable content, like items glowing with different colors and so forth, maybe it was something from IA? Not sure so I could be wrong, but it didn't look right, it just makes me ask what is that and how did they get this? No, I don't have a screen capture but was too tired to think much about it at the time. Anyways, while its true I don't have many friends, I would never treat a friend the way it feels like ESO is treating us. And if the forums aren't here for us to talk with ZOS then they're really of no use. I can judge things for myself and see the problems for what they are.

FelisCatus · June 13

Vulkunne wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

Live events are great for those who live nearby or can afford to go or for the content creators who get invited. However for most players it's not relevant. Fix PvP, fix the servers, the writing, the balance, add more content and update the old textures/animations. Increase housing slots. Add new skill lines, classes, a class change token (how many threads do we have to make old man?). It's pretty tiring seeing so many IRL events being hosted for the anniversary whilst the anniversary event itself was a low drop monotonous grind fest. We receive yet another lack lustre chapter with poor, predictable writing. We get a few new enemies but most are just reskins. The last decent chapter was Summerset. I get the anniversary gives you an excuse to have a company holiday and pat yourselves on the back but many this game is in a mess and manned by a skeleton crew. Crownstore and crown crates get way more development time and attention than most of the chapters it seems. I was hyped for scribing and it turned out to be a half-baked grindfest. With most scribing skills being more for utility, roleplay and niche. Skill styles are nice but some of the best ones are locked behind a grind. I have no doubt that you'll monetise this cool earnable/rewarding feature. I wouldn't be surprised if scribing gets monetised either. West Weald is a tiny zone with little to do. The Bosmer feel shoehorned in for fan service and Ithelia was as predictable as she was irrelevant and boring. The new trial was at least different and difficult so props for that. The environmental screen dimming and resolution reduction should be made optional you can keep it on by default but at least give us an option to turn it off. I was hyped for this chapter (except Ithelia) I was largely disappointed though, and each chapter since Summerset has been disappointing. I'd love for this game to return to its golden peak but as the years go on I feel more uncertain.

Like many of you I too have been with ESO for a very long time, and you know ESO has been a good thing. And that's why ... many of us try to come to the forums and post the changes we would like to see and the things we're kind of critical about. I think that even with the good ESO has done there really is like an 'iron wall' that sits between those of us who disagree with things and seeing meaningful change in the game itself.

Take this grind business ... this fresh and hot madness that has been unleashed on us between Infinite Archive (IA), 10th anniv and Gold Road ... IA, 10th anniv and Gold Road are great examples. The grind for the things we wanted to see, features like dyes, certain styles, given the run, etc, uhhh the grind is insane. Why does everything have to be locked behind a quest? Why? I mean saying this in a calm, rational manner, what the hell? C'mon. Why lock dyes behind quests no one wants to do ... wants to do right away? Like High Isle for example, I did the main quest later but here it takes forever to do some of the new achievements (unless I want to buy the trophies, if I can) or wait probably an entire MONTH if not more to gather scraps and trophies for each achievement? Why do this to us? The dyes never should have been put behind a grind. Just unlock 'em and let us alone. Although, I could understand why the devs would not make every dye available because things can get weird with look-a-like skill effects, so I get this. But still...

I have been grinding PvE content for the last 6 months. Yes, I chose to do it, yet it made sense to do these PvE tasks for their rewards, and then if I want more from the newer content, I have an even LONGER GRIND. In IA (especially) and the quests from Gold Road, I mean it really feels like this has become a second job. So with that said, many of us aren't happy with not just the grind but the difficulty as well as the bugs, again, especially in things like IA. Holy molies I could sit here and write all day about how much I have learned to both hate and respect IA. But the thing is, I really think the difficulty in IA is too difficult, its killer content ... literally. In the past I have voiced support for more challenging, more difficult content but things like Vet Vateshran or Vet Malestrom are in scope with where I'm coming from. Ok Vat pushes that sentiment to its limit. But IA like I'm ashamed to admit but I've reached the point where I can't do a single side portal other than butcher and bridge. The difficulty for other arenas like Filer and angry little Bosmer chick's shed of horror are just too much. It's like there's a reason why I don't run dungeons on HM.

Another thing, a big problem with IA is I can't find anyone to run with lol. And so my reason for mentioning this, is I've seen in other threads how they talk about you know the rich and those with connections getting stronger and everyone else is getting filtered out of this game, and I think it's happening. Nothing sells in the store anymore because you guys blew it with the 10 yr anniversary event killing any value from mats but mainly from surplus and some exclusive stock. I have actually thrown expensive stock away to make room in my inventory because *now* no one is buying any of it. So, getting back on track, that's like with IA, its a roaring hell trying to grind what I need out of that place as solo. Its hell and not surprisingly, no one else wants to join me. But I'm just kind of taken back at how abrasive things have become and lack of interest in the community and speaking of the community and feed back to ZOS.

So the idea here isn't to rant, maybe to vent a little but like ... what is the point of the forums? You know ... what is it? I mean is the place where we come to praise ZOS and certain exclusive forum folks for being just so awesome. Oh, what wonderful whatever. I mean, some of us come on here and say, "This is terrible, here's why and it's a real problem" or perhaps anyone has an idea and then we have like these 6 or7 people, usually the same people and they're trying to shoot down the post and not even acknowledge the idea or the problem. You know, that's not free-world behavior, that's behavior I'd expect to see from a totalitarian country somewhere. Which is ironic because these same folks have taken it out on me in the past for saying this and that when I'm just trying to talk about an idea or a possible new feature, but people like me, our posts are just crowded by these guys. And quite frankly I'm tired of being judged for thinking different.

And so, you know, there's just alot I don't understand, there's alot of problems with this game, ok. Like stuck in combat bug and other things ... many of us have in the past spent more than we should in the Crown Store and on subscriptions, but not only does it do no good to share our feedback, but we can't attend you know whichever game event in-person. And I wouldn't ever try and speak for others but we don't have the money to go overseas or what not. You know, I'm not trying to tell ZOS how to budget and many of us aren't either but we're funding a game where our feedback isn't regarded, or the post is harassed, or it just disappears and so neither can we attend these nice events but yet the problems remain. I'm sitting here thinking and really just not looking for trouble but also trying to understand what I first saw about this game because the way things are I don't even really recognize ESO from memory ... sort of. Its like this is some other game I wouldn't play, or perhaps one I made a mistake playing for a short while there and I'm just coming to the realization that my expectations and what I think has no place in this game. While you guys' kind of party with all the happy photos, shoot us down and rebuff every post that says what you don't want to hear and meanwhile it's like parts of the game are on fire. And Dante ... he's out there trying to save the souls of ESO players stuck in grinding hell.

I'm glad everyone had a great time at the party but not only did many of us NOT have a good time during YOUR 10th Anniversary Event but then things resulting from that event are causing problems. What if there are some out there who don't want to grind all this stuff ... just like they how they didn't wish to grind for event items? ... I also saw more than a few during the event waiting for bosses to spawn who were wearing questionable content, like items glowing with different colors and so forth, maybe it was something from IA? Not sure so I could be wrong, but it didn't look right, it just makes me ask what is that and how did they get this? No, I don't have a screen capture but was too tired to think much about it at the time. Anyways, while its true I don't have many friends, I would never treat a friend the way it feels like ESO is treating us. And if the forums aren't here for us to talk with ZOS then they're really of no use. I can judge things for myself and see the problems for what they are.

I agree with many of your points.

Unfortunately it is the same people who come in to shoot down posts. There's 4-5 names I can think of off the top of my head which aren't official ZOS staff. Some of which are on nearly every forum post daily that it makes me wonder why they have so much free time or conviction to fanboy or troll for the devs. Could honestly be a case of devs on personal accounts rather than official accounts. It's always fishy though.

My entire post was straw manned at one point and completely taken out of context. It's easier to take down a paper tiger though then address the actual argument, am I right? The bulk of my complaints ignored and I were treated as if I was here to *** on the devs. No there are serious issues with this game. They are often unaddressed, ignored or intentionally censored. I don't think anything I said either is anything new or shocking. I am just one of many whom are concerned and disgruntled.

You can see by my post I'm not coming here (wasting my free time) to troll or be maliscious to the developers. I am just a passionate, disappointed, fan, player and customer. I've spent 9 years of my life on this game and hundreds if not thousands. I have the same issues that the vast majority of the player base have. It was said earlier that if the communication isn't there and these issues that some of which have plagued us for more than 5 years or in some cases since launch. You are going to see feedback, that will eventually lose its patience and will be delivered in a more abrupt and abrasive manner.

The effectivness of live events and their impact as a medium of advertising is dubious at best. As I stated in a previous post on this thread. Cinematic trailers (that look nothing like the game) tend to get the most views online, gameplay trailers less. Content creators for the game only attracted a few hundred to thousand views and most on Twitch likely come from people idling for drops. People only seem to tune in for global reveals and cinematic trailers. Although existing players will be watching global reveals. Cinematics will reach out to peple who don't even play the game. Remember how popular the Ascendant Lord became outside of the existing playerbase? As I said before the live events are only relevant to a small group of people, not everyone can afford the costs or find the time to get out of work or other committments. So as I quoted before:
"Sure it does look like "the house is burning" while "the hosts are partying else where"

Maybe the devs need to ask their higher ups for a higher budget to hire more staff to address the issues we're facing. Maybe they could outsource labour to different countries like a lot of game developers do. To cut down on costs. A prime example? Creative Assembly (the company that makes total war) outsource labour to Bulgaria to make DLC and the quality is decent and it saves the company a lot of money.

Again not an indie dev and I know they hate hearing this. Everyone would be more forgiving if you were. They are a massive company ZOS. Which owns Bethesda. Who owns Zos? Microsoft. There should be no excuse. You may not have the budget mandated to you but the money is there. We know as much as you guys told us at the anniversary event how profitable the game is. So talk to whatever executive you need to pour more money into this game and more money will keep coming back to you. Also please communicate more, it's very important.

Year by year more people are leaving the game after disappointment and lacklustre content. It's very noticeable, it's why we have barely any tanks and soon healers are starting to dwindle. PUGs are pretty much the only way to do stuff as a lot of guilds have slowed down how often they do guild runs and there are far less PvE guilds that are active enough. We need veteran players to stick around as they teach newer players. Newer players don't often stick around due to learning curve. I know this from a personal level. I have got 9 friends to buy this game and I've tried getting them into it but they complain it's too difficult to learn. They hadn't returned since and only played for a few days.

xclassgaming · June 13

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The game is getting plenty of development. Advertising is a normal part of video games and will always take part of the budget. Games don't exist without players. Live events are a great way to promote the game and connect with the community. This is why they are so common in the industry.

No it's not. They've cut their content releases in half lately. And Cyodiil has suffered pop cap reductions over and over and over and over and over again since 2018.

And while advertising is a normal investment for a company to invest in, overseas trips to high profile tourist destinations for staff is more than what can be considered normal by a pretty fair margin.

No. It's absolutely not more than considered normal in the video game industry. Almost all of the big companies do live events. The advertising budget is separate to the development budget anyway.

They still delivered a lot of content last year despite the cut, as well. Infinite Archive was a big boon. And if IA is anything to go by, new PvP activity in Q4 will be quite good.

ESO+ might be a worse deal now, but they did very well by the base game

what do you mean it might be a worst deal? they havent removed anything, they have just added.

Photosniper89 · June 13

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

And I get that you guys want to have the fanfare with each release, but you have to take inventory of the other issues that haunt you here and on streams. If you're not going to talk about performance plans, combat issues, grinding for new items, and whatever other issues have arisen, then you're going to deal with them in a more uncomfortable fashion.

I see where you're coming from with these bigger issues, but is it fair to say that they can't do any promotional content without having people blast them for their personal issues with the game?

I feel like they can do a fun stream promoting Gold Road without people spamming "Cyrodiil Cyrodiil Cyrodiil class balance." Otherwise, they would have to stop doing promotional content until the game was flawless, right? Leading every single event, stream, article, or post with "Hey, we know that necromancer is still not performing as well as we like" is not very hype lol.

People requested more live events, and they met that demand. If a PvP patch is released, should people be spamming it with "But this is not addressing the major community issue of the lack of events in Europe and you need to address that before anyone can be positive"? I don't think so, but I hope I'm not paraphrasing that in bad faith. : P

I see where you are coming from but lets take a step back and look at it from people who have been playing this game since beta and are massive PvP'ers.

There hasn't been any true content added in 7+ years for Cyro. Sure you have BGs and what not but most people when they say PvP they mean Cyro.

There has been insane performance issues in PvP for almost 7 years now with little to no communication/acknowledgment from ZOS (although Kevin has kind of taken lead on coms here on the forums as of late and it's been an A++++ job from him IMO).

So, how can people get questions answered about PvP when they feel ignored on here - the only way is to bring it up during streams.

The mods on the streams delete chats/timeout virtually every person who mentions Cyro or PvP.

This is where all of the frustration comes from and why you see people spamming it. I understand the mindset of this is a PvE stream why are you mentioning PvP but... again... there hasn't been anything PvP in almost 7 years - the player base is extremely frustrated.

twev · June 13

spartaxoxo wrote: »

JustLovely wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

The game is getting plenty of development. Advertising is a normal part of video games and will always take part of the budget. Games don't exist without players. Live events are a great way to promote the game and connect with the community. This is why they are so common in the industry.

No it's not. They've cut their content releases in half lately. And Cyodiil has suffered pop cap reductions over and over and over and over and over again since 2018.

And while advertising is a normal investment for a company to invest in, overseas trips to high profile tourist destinations for staff is more than what can be considered normal by a pretty fair margin.

No. It's absolutely not more than considered normal in the video game industry. Almost all of the big companies do live events. The advertising budget is separate to the development budget anyway.

They still delivered a lot of content last year despite the cut, as well. Infinite Archive was a big boon. And if IA is anything to go by, new PvP activity in Q4 will be quite good.

ESO+ might be a worse deal now, but they did very well by the base game

And the dollars come out of the same zero-sum pot of money that ZOS invests in the game.
A company can invest dollars in the game by taking money from the advertisement budget, or invest dollars in talking about the game by taking money from the development budget.

If a game is good, and being developed well - free word-of-mouth is it's own big return.
If a game is poorly developed - no amount of advertising makes it sustainable, and poor word-of-mouth wins in the end.

reazea · June 13

I want to preface the rest of what I'm going to say in this post by complementing Kevin. He's a very welcome addition to the forum and is doing a very good job of dealing with a challenging situation due to ZOS' history of such poor communication in the past. So kudos to Kevin. Thank you. Keep up the good work in a tough situation.

But, unless Kevin was a PvP player in Cyrodiil since inception, like many of us have been, he has no idea just how poorly ZOS has treated their customers in the past. Virtually nothing ZOS has promised regarding PvP has been implemented. All the PvP community has gotten is reduced population caps to the point that the cap is now literally 10% of what it was originally, and we still have poor performance in the zone. Yet we've seen over and over and over again that ZOS is fully capable of making changes that improve performance in Cyrodiil, and that if ZOS wanted to we could have higher population caps and far, far more attention given to the zone, and ZOS would still be highly profitable from the corporate standpoint, maybe even more profitable due to PvP players spending more per capita on the game than any other subset of the player base. And restoring Cyrodiil would certainly bring back at least a portion of the population that gave up on ESO due to so many years of neglect and mistreatment. The silencing of players who mention PvP or Cyrodiil during live streams is inexcusable and just plain disrespectful and breeds animosity.

As far as listening to the player base, according to Kevin's posts, ZOS is making decisions prioritizing the feedback they get in person at their community events that maybe, at best, 1% of the player population has the time and money to attend. It's fair to say that someone who takes the time and spends the money to go to live events is already enthralled with the game and is guaranteed to only have positive feedback to give about the game. For instance, when people in person and online requested QoL upgrades and bug fixes, they meant they wanted these improvements in addition to maintaining the same level of content creation. They didn't mean they wanted QoL upgrades and bug fixes instead of new content creation. We expected a company with the resources ZOS has to be able to do both things at the same time. (which is not an unreasonable expectation)

And finally, ZOS is a publicly traded company and we can see how much ZOS' profits have increased over the years. Yet, at the same time, we keep getting less and less content, and PvP has seen nothing but downgrades since about 2018 when it comes to population caps and performance. (with exception of a few weeks after the new servers were installed and after a couple of the "tests" the PvP community has had to endure) This makes it clear that ZOS absolutely has the ability to bring back a higher population in Cyodiil and improve performance at the same time if ZOS would just make the investment, which financial statements make it clear ZOS can easily afford to do.

So in a nutshell, overall, ZOS is making more and more money, while delivering less and less product for the players investment in time and dollars. This is a trend in corporate America that is nothing short of horrible for the consumers. That's why having a live event in Amsterdam is such a bad look from the consumer perspective. What did the 99.9% of ESO players who couldn't attend the event get out of that event? This is why such a high proportion of long time veteran ESO players are feeling like they're just being milked at this point and why so many have lost patience with ZOS as a company.

RomanRex · June 13

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier.

@ZOS_Kevin: God bless you. I know you are just the messenger.

E3 and other gaming conferences have become obsolete because they are expensive and offer poor returns on investment. I work in high-level U.S. politics and attend conferences all year, so I can confirm that conferences often serve as quasi-vacations for those who attend and work at them. I am at one now.

This isn’t an issue with the current year's budget; it stems from previous years' budget planning. All the money comes from the same pot when planning starts. Over the past year or two, many issues (such as server problems) have been raised that need funding for infrastructure and manpower to fix.

Marketing is important, of course, but when the game has so many issues, it seems counterproductive to hold a publicity event when people can’t even stay consistently connected to the server. We are all glad it’s still going strong after 10 years, but ZoS seems to gloss over the negatives and only address the positives. There is too much unwarranted back-patting.

Also, please stop paying creators to make propaganda. I despise seeing a video from a gamer and knowing it was sponsored by Bethesda/ZoS. It’s just inorganic, paid shilling.

twev · June 13

Tornaad wrote: »

FelisCatus wrote: »

Live events are great for those who live nearby or can afford to go or for the content creators who get invited. However for most players it's not relevant. Fix PvP, fix the servers, the writing, the balance, add more content and update the old textures/animations. Increase housing slots. Add new skill lines, classes, a class change token (how many threads do we have to make old man?). It's pretty tiring seeing so many IRL events being hosted for the anniversary whilst the anniversary event itself was a low drop monotonous grind fest. We receive yet another lack lustre chapter with poor, predictable writing. We get a few new enemies but most are just reskins. The last decent chapter was Summerset. I get the anniversary gives you an excuse to have a company holiday and pat yourselves on the back but many this game is in a mess and manned by a skeleton crew. Crownstore and crown crates get way more development time and attention than most of the chapters it seems. I was hyped for scribing and it turned out to be a half-baked grindfest. With most scribing skills being more for utility, roleplay and niche. Skill styles are nice but some of the best ones are locked behind a grind. I have no doubt that you'll monetise this cool earnable/rewarding feature. I wouldn't be surprised if scribing gets monetised either. West Weald is a tiny zone with little to do. The Bosmer feel shoehorned in for fan service and Ithelia was as predictable as she was irrelevant and boring. The new trial was at least different and difficult so props for that. The environmental screen dimming and resolution reduction should be made optional you can keep it on by default but at least give us an option to turn it off. I was hyped for this chapter (except Ithelia) I was largely disappointed though, and each chapter since Summerset has been disappointing. I'd love for this game to return to its golden peak but as the years go on I feel more uncertain.

It's not that simple.
For a business to continue to exist, it must be promoted. If they neglect the promotion of the business, then ESO will truly start dying. For things like a 10-year anniversary, they serve as both advertising for new customers, and for increasing the loyalty of existing customers.

A company that properly balances its books will have money dedicated towards advertising, money devoted towards product improvement, and money devoted towards things like developing new products. To neglect any of those would hinder the growth of the business, and thus would also result in the company starting to die.

And on a personal note. from the sounds of your post, you have not played Gold Road and Necrom. The two together are one of the most amazing Elder Scrolls stories I have ever experienced.

And the actual event was lower quality content and execution than the hype for the event.

ZOS_Kevin · June 13

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier.

@ZOS_Kevin: God bless you. I know you are just the messenger.

E3 and other gaming conferences have become obsolete because they are expensive and offer poor returns on investment. I work in high-level U.S. politics and attend conferences all year, so I can confirm that conferences often serve as quasi-vacations for those who attend and work at them. I am at one now.

So this is probably going to be the last response from me in this thread generally, as I think I've made general points clear enough. I'll also be sharing the general sentiment here to make sure our teams understand some of the player frustration and optics around items like in-person events. As we've always stated on the forum, we want your positive feedback as well as your criticism. The feedback is valuable and appreciated.

As a complete personal aside, I wanted to address this because I do have personal experience in this area as well. Prior to working at ZOS, I worked in the political sphere as well. Often times as one of the people arranging and manning events. I've worked and managed events at the Nation Press Club, The White House, and other institutions in DC. And I'll repeat what I shared above in another post, people spend months and many hours planning, developing, and practicing for events like those. They are not vacations for the people who work there. They are there to make sure the event runs smoothly, needed information is shared and make sure those who are attending have a great time.

We obviously enjoy doing these events because we love interacting with the community and enjoy the work that we do. It helps that we're in an entertainment medium here at ZOS which inherently makes things more fun. But I personally very much push back against the notion that these events are vacations or vacation adjacent as that rhetoric often trivializes the work we put in for these events.

RomanRex · June 13

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier.

@ZOS_Kevin: God bless you. I know you are just the messenger.

E3 and other gaming conferences have become obsolete because they are expensive and offer poor returns on investment. I work in high-level U.S. politics and attend conferences all year, so I can confirm that conferences often serve as quasi-vacations for those who attend and work at them. I am at one now.

So this is probably going to be the last response from me in this thread generally, as I think I've made general points clear enough. I'll also be sharing the general sentiment here to make sure our teams understand some of the player frustration and optics around items like in-person events. As we've always stated on the forum, we want your positive feedback as well as your criticism. The feedback is valuable and appreciated.

As a complete personal aside, I wanted to address this because I do have personal experience in this area as well. Prior to working at ZOS, I worked in the political sphere as well. Often times as one of the people arranging and manning events. I've worked and managed events at the Nation Press Club, The White House, and other institutions in DC. And I'll repeat what I shared above in another post, people spend months and many hours planning, developing, and practicing for events like those. They are not vacations for the people who work there. They are there to make sure the event runs smoothly, needed information is shared and make sure those who are attending have a great time.

We obviously enjoy doing these events because we love interacting with the community and enjoy the work that we do. It helps that we're in an entertainment medium here at ZOS which inherently makes things more fun. But I personally very much push back against the notion that these events are vacations or vacation adjacent as that rhetoric often trivializes the work we put in for these events.

@ZOS_Kevin: I appreciate the response. Agree to disagree! I also attend international conferences, and they are definitely considered quasi-vacations for those who work or attend. Yes, there is lots of planning and day-of running around, but there is also downtime and events that facilitate sightseeing or cultural appreciation while “working.” It’s not like people are going there to dig ditches.

Airfare, hotel, and meals are paid for, and there's time to have drinks and socialize after the evening wraps up. It's an opportunity to see a country or city you may never have otherwise visited.

For those who can’t even afford to travel (admittedly not me), the idea that these trips aren’t vacation-adjacent is mind-boggling.

sarahthes · June 13

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier.

@ZOS_Kevin: God bless you. I know you are just the messenger.

E3 and other gaming conferences have become obsolete because they are expensive and offer poor returns on investment. I work in high-level U.S. politics and attend conferences all year, so I can confirm that conferences often serve as quasi-vacations for those who attend and work at them. I am at one now.

So this is probably going to be the last response from me in this thread generally, as I think I've made general points clear enough. I'll also be sharing the general sentiment here to make sure our teams understand some of the player frustration and optics around items like in-person events. As we've always stated on the forum, we want your positive feedback as well as your criticism. The feedback is valuable and appreciated.

As a complete personal aside, I wanted to address this because I do have personal experience in this area as well. Prior to working at ZOS, I worked in the political sphere as well. Often times as one of the people arranging and manning events. I've worked and managed events at the Nation Press Club, The White House, and other institutions in DC. And I'll repeat what I shared above in another post, people spend months and many hours planning, developing, and practicing for events like those. They are not vacations for the people who work there. They are there to make sure the event runs smoothly, needed information is shared and make sure those who are attending have a great time.

We obviously enjoy doing these events because we love interacting with the community and enjoy the work that we do. It helps that we're in an entertainment medium here at ZOS which inherently makes things more fun. But I personally very much push back against the notion that these events are vacations or vacation adjacent as that rhetoric often trivializes the work we put in for these events.

@ZOS_Kevin: I appreciate the response. Agree to disagree! I also attend international conferences, and they are definitely considered quasi-vacations for those who work or attend. Yes, there is lots of planning and day-of running around, but there is also downtime and events that facilitate sightseeing or cultural appreciation while “working.” It’s not like people are going there to dig ditches.

Airfare, hotel, and meals are paid for, and there's time to have drinks and socialize after the evening wraps up. It's an opportunity to see a country or city you may never have otherwise visited.

For those who can’t even afford to travel (admittedly not me), the idea that these trips aren’t vacation-adjacent is mind-boggling.

"You're wrong that your work event is work."

RomanRex · June 13

sarahthes wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier.

@ZOS_Kevin: God bless you. I know you are just the messenger.

E3 and other gaming conferences have become obsolete because they are expensive and offer poor returns on investment. I work in high-level U.S. politics and attend conferences all year, so I can confirm that conferences often serve as quasi-vacations for those who attend and work at them. I am at one now.

So this is probably going to be the last response from me in this thread generally, as I think I've made general points clear enough. I'll also be sharing the general sentiment here to make sure our teams understand some of the player frustration and optics around items like in-person events. As we've always stated on the forum, we want your positive feedback as well as your criticism. The feedback is valuable and appreciated.

As a complete personal aside, I wanted to address this because I do have personal experience in this area as well. Prior to working at ZOS, I worked in the political sphere as well. Often times as one of the people arranging and manning events. I've worked and managed events at the Nation Press Club, The White House, and other institutions in DC. And I'll repeat what I shared above in another post, people spend months and many hours planning, developing, and practicing for events like those. They are not vacations for the people who work there. They are there to make sure the event runs smoothly, needed information is shared and make sure those who are attending have a great time.

We obviously enjoy doing these events because we love interacting with the community and enjoy the work that we do. It helps that we're in an entertainment medium here at ZOS which inherently makes things more fun. But I personally very much push back against the notion that these events are vacations or vacation adjacent as that rhetoric often trivializes the work we put in for these events.

@ZOS_Kevin: I appreciate the response. Agree to disagree! I also attend international conferences, and they are definitely considered quasi-vacations for those who work or attend. Yes, there is lots of planning and day-of running around, but there is also downtime and events that facilitate sightseeing or cultural appreciation while “working.” It’s not like people are going there to dig ditches.

Airfare, hotel, and meals are paid for, and there's time to have drinks and socialize after the evening wraps up. It's an opportunity to see a country or city you may never have otherwise visited.

For those who can’t even afford to travel (admittedly not me), the idea that these trips aren’t vacation-adjacent is mind-boggling.

"You're wrong that your work event is work."

Re-read what I wrote. Not at all what I said. It’s work, but it’s also a company paid trip with lots of perks. It is more of a “vacation” than many people will ever be able to afford.

I_killed_Vivec · June 13

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

people spend months and many hours planning, developing

It's a cheap shot, but I can't resist...

If only the devs put as many hours into planning, developing, and testing then Q3 content would not have to be abandoned in favour of "bug fixing".

The use of Q3 for QoL (didn't really see much of that) and bug fixing was advertised as a one-off, don't worry, full content will be resumed! But now it is a permanent fixture. It is unusual to say the least to have to pay for bug fixes, but with the loss of content for ESO+ that is what we are now doing.

We know that ZoS broke the bank with the original DLCs - Hews Bane, Gold Coast, IC, and most especially Wrothgar provided too much fun. In future the fun would have to be regulated, and regulated hard. All before your time @ZOS_Kevin , but only part of my ten and a half years play (continuous since January 2014, beta).

And so, since the introduction of chapters we have seen the progressive loss of content, culminating in High Isle, which I thought would be the end for me, Necrom, which I only bought in the sales, and now Gold Road. I really had high hopes, tenth anniversary and all that...

edward_frigidhands · June 13

Might be time to upgrade server hardware again.

furiouslog · June 13

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

RomanRex wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

The premise of this conversation is that we are using money on in-person events rather than investing in the game, which is not accurate based on how budgets work, as outlined earlier.

@ZOS_Kevin: God bless you. I know you are just the messenger.

E3 and other gaming conferences have become obsolete because they are expensive and offer poor returns on investment. I work in high-level U.S. politics and attend conferences all year, so I can confirm that conferences often serve as quasi-vacations for those who attend and work at them. I am at one now.

So this is probably going to be the last response from me in this thread generally, as I think I've made general points clear enough. I'll also be sharing the general sentiment here to make sure our teams understand some of the player frustration and optics around items like in-person events. As we've always stated on the forum, we want your positive feedback as well as your criticism. The feedback is valuable and appreciated.

As a complete personal aside, I wanted to address this because I do have personal experience in this area as well. Prior to working at ZOS, I worked in the political sphere as well. Often times as one of the people arranging and manning events. I've worked and managed events at the Nation Press Club, The White House, and other institutions in DC. And I'll repeat what I shared above in another post, people spend months and many hours planning, developing, and practicing for events like those. They are not vacations for the people who work there. They are there to make sure the event runs smoothly, needed information is shared and make sure those who are attending have a great time.

We obviously enjoy doing these events because we love interacting with the community and enjoy the work that we do. It helps that we're in an entertainment medium here at ZOS which inherently makes things more fun. But I personally very much push back against the notion that these events are vacations or vacation adjacent as that rhetoric often trivializes the work we put in for these events.

@ZOS_Kevin: I appreciate the response. Agree to disagree! I also attend international conferences, and they are definitely considered quasi-vacations for those who work or attend. Yes, there is lots of planning and day-of running around, but there is also downtime and events that facilitate sightseeing or cultural appreciation while “working.” It’s not like people are going there to dig ditches.

Airfare, hotel, and meals are paid for, and there's time to have drinks and socialize after the evening wraps up. It's an opportunity to see a country or city you may never have otherwise visited.

For those who can’t even afford to travel (admittedly not me), the idea that these trips aren’t vacation-adjacent is mind-boggling.

As someone who has both attended and hosted (with my company) events in a variety of locations, I agree that attending events is "vacation adjacent", but hosting them is definitely not. My former company used to do a thing in The Hague every year, and I can tell you, my fellow employees would try not to get sent if they could help it. Yeah, you can pay your own money to stay a couple of extra days and see the sights, but really the only fun time is when you go out for drinks after everything is all over and then you pretty much want to go home and pass out on the plane. The time that you are there for business is spent attempting to achieve all of the measured objectives your bosses have set out for you on top of dealing with any emergent issues that might threaten the opportunities inherent to the conference. In short, it's far more stressful than a regular work day, no joke whatsoever.

I used to have to attend to clients and present research as part of my duties, and in most cases, these were people I didn't mind meeting and who wanted to hear what I had to say, and it still stressed me out. I can't say that the ESO player community is as universally positive as that set of clients. I'm sure given some of my rants on this forum from past years, that Rich Lambert would probably dread seeing me walk up to him at one of these things or raise my hand during a presentation to get in his face about some of the design decisions that have been made in the past. Now add on top of that pile of stress the fact that it's being recorded (and in some cases livestreamed), so everything you say and do is going to show up somewhere and exposed to the full force of internet scrutiny and comment. That is the opposite of a vacation - it's stressful.

Hopefully that will stop your mind from boggling further.

ZOS_Hadeostry · June 13

Greetings everyone,

As this thread has run its course, we are now going to close it. We always encourage sharing opinions, but we ask that they remain respectful when doing so.

Thank you for your understanding, and please keep the Community Rules in mind when posting on the forums.