This game is similar to a gold mine. Regardless of age, It's been made stronger and stronger over the years. Economy tactics, styles and problems come and go. Imho, this phase is a rebuilding phase, It's highly doubtful this game'll disappear any time soon.

Budget cuts happen in every game and they recover to make it better than ever before. A basically good game holds it's ground. A few sensible tweaks and some large, solidly delivered new content will land this game on the top.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Chrisilis wrote: »

Hopefully once they figure it out they'll let us know. We shall see.

They already did. They told us at around the beginning of the year how ESO is changing. They ended the chapter model. We can see the result in the game right now.

I keep repeating myself because I'm amazed that people can't see what's right in front of them. They didn't just change the name of the annual update for no reason. ESO has entered a new phase.

It's an 11 year old game, so this kind of thing is to be expected.

Let's not forget that some people in these forums had been complaining for years about how the annual chapter releases had become formulaic in structure-- every year, there was a new dungeon DLC in Q1, a chapter in Q2, another dungeon DLC in Q3, and a zone DLC concluding the year-long story in Q4. To be sure, there were also people who defended that formula and said they liked the year-long stories. But if I remember correctly, there were even some people posting polls about this topic.

ZOS responded by announcing that the year-long story formula was going to be changed up by making story arcs spanning multiple years. Naturally, some people reacted negatively to that announcement.

Also, there had been people complaining for years that there were too few bug fixes. Again, some people suggested dropping one of the quarterly DLCs each year for a release of bug fixes, and even posted polls in these forums about that topic.

ZOS responded by announcing that the Q3 and Q4 DLCs would focus more on fixing bugs and adding new game systems. It may have been part of the decision to do away with year-long story arcs and do more story arcs that span multiple years-- I'm hazy on the specifics-- but my point is, it was more or less something that people had been suggesting in these forums, and of course some people reacted negatively to it.

I could go on.

The card game that a vocal percentage of the playerbase loves to hate on and has said ZOS needs to delete from the game? A response to people in these forums asking ZOS to incorporate Legends into ESO (which I don't think would have worked) or add some kind of "tavern game."

The first version of the Vengeance test where we had very limited templates of skills and sets to reduce the calculations the server needs to deal with? A response to people in these forums voicing their opinions about how unbalanced PvP is, how ZOS needs to balance PvE and PvP separately, praising other MMOs where PvP and PvE have separate gear sets, etc.

And etc. (Destructible bridges.) And etc. (Update old zones with new graphics.) And etc. (You get the idea.)

It seems to me that ZOS has been bending over backwards for years listening to the playerbase and trying to give the people some workable version of what have they been asking for. And whenever ZOS has announced some change that's essentially a response to suggestions or complaints in these forums, somebody starts yelling about "maintenance mode."

It seems to me like it's tiime for the players to go look in their bathroom mirrors for answers.

Yes, lots of good points there. However, I feared that straying from the so-called formulaic structure for each zone would result in this, and indeed it did.

Also, the bug fixes ended up being less than expected so I don’t think that one is on us. We gave up content to get some bug fixes. I don’t think it was a fair trade, and I voted against it like I voted against the formulaic zone content.

katanagirl1 wrote: »

Maybe that would help, but for me the excitement is a whole new zone to explore, something new to see. It’s always been my favorite part, and a smaller zone just isn’t as exciting as a larger zone with more content.

I feel the same, but I doubt we'll get chapters again.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

It seems to me that ZOS has been bending over backwards for years listening to the playerbase and trying to give the people some workable version of what have they been asking for. And whenever ZOS has announced some change that's essentially a response to suggestions or complaints in these forums, somebody starts yelling about "maintenance mode."

Most companies know better than to take direction from forum posters, who often aren't a true representation of the playerbase. And it would be next to impossible anyway. With few exceptions, every time there's a suggestion made here, there are people for and against it. So who would they listen to? Nobody. It would be crazy for them to invest time and money into something just because people are posting about it.

But when announcing changes, they'll sometimes say, "We've heard you, and so..." which is just pandering, because they didn't implement the new feature or change due to forum posts. They were going to do it anyway. I remember when ToT was announced, and they said, "Players have been asking for this for a long time." Like, where? Who? Perhaps it was mentioned somewhere a couple of times, but they made it sound like everyone was chomping at the bit for a card game. It sounds better to announce it that way.

Having said that, I do think some of the QoL changes have been in response to listening to pain points from players, but from a wide variety of sources, not just from the forums.

ZOS completely refactored ESO from its original vision starting with 1.6 and culminating in 2.6 also known as One Tamriel. The effort actually began a few months after launch and took over 2 years to complete, in response to player feedback.

They didn't stop there, but that's the point when the game became stable from a feature point of view and from which they have iterated since. A few months later, they added Homestead and then started the chapter model which was basically a large annual DLC focused on single player story gameplay -- in contrast the its original vision as the ultimate MMO.

Notably, they made the game much easier, removed vet levels, implemented battle levelling across the board and put a major core gamer feature, AvAvA, on the backburner for 10 years.

It could genuinely be called bending over backwards.

I've been a pretty huge ZOS critic, and one of my biggest criticisms over the years was the degree to which they have changed the game based on player feedback versus what they had originally marketed -- turning the game from one designed for the audience I am part of -- core gamer -- to one appealing to ultra-casual single player TES fans, especially those who started with Skyrim (which represents the vast majority of TES fans).

So of course not everyone feels their feedback was listened to. That's not possible. But in general, they have been incredibly responsive, making ESO largely "Play how you want."

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Let's not forget that some people in these forums had been complaining for years about how the annual chapter releases had become formulaic in structure-- every year, there was a new dungeon DLC in Q1, a chapter in Q2, another dungeon DLC in Q3, and a zone DLC concluding the year-long story in Q4. To be sure, there were also people who defended that formula and said they liked the year-long stories. But if I remember correctly, there were even some people posting polls about this topic.

ZOS responded by announcing that the year-long story formula was going to be changed up by making story arcs spanning multiple years. Naturally, some people reacted negatively to that announcement.

So overall, you make some good points. While there were some issues with the YLS format, I didn't get the impression that overall sentiment was "don't do it". Not to say there weren't people wanting something different, but I think in aggregate it was more about stories being better executed, not a desire for less content.

The pivot from YLS to years-spanning stories lasted what - like 2 releases? I don't know. I think that player sentiment definitely influences things, but I also think there's business factors that, when they align with that sentiment, it's easier to frame changes that way.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

Also, there had been people complaining for years that there were too few bug fixes. Again, some people suggested dropping one of the quarterly DLCs each year for a release of bug fixes, and even posted polls in these forums about that topic.

ZOS responded by announcing that the Q3 and Q4 DLCs would focus more on fixing bugs and adding new game systems. It may have been part of the decision to do away with year-long story arcs and do more story arcs that span multiple years-- I'm hazy on the specifics-- but my point is, it was more or less something that people had been suggesting in these forums, and of course some people reacted negatively to it.

I think some skepticism towards their bug-fixing commitment was pretty fair. 2020 had the year of performance, and it was like 2 years before it really stabilized. Yes, the pandemic influenced that, but it's not like the game's been known for performing well. It has gotten much better overall, at least in my experience, but all too often we get little acknowledgement on the big pain points like Cyrodiil and being stuck in combat. There's a lot of issues that take years to resolve. And other studios release way more content with the releases, just look at Guild Wars 2. I get they're different games built on different technologies, but I think this is an area where the salt is justified, to some degree.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

The card game that a vocal percentage of the playerbase loves to hate on and has said ZOS needs to delete from the game? A response to people in these forums asking ZOS to incorporate Legends into ESO (which I don't think would have worked) or add some kind of "tavern game."

That's a fair point to raise. It wasn't well received, I think because people were expecting a more widely applicable flagship feature - like a new class or something. It's nice that they released it, I'm sure some people enjoy it, but I never touch it.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

The first version of the Vengeance test where we had very limited templates of skills and sets to reduce the calculations the server needs to deal with? A response to people in these forums voicing their opinions about how unbalanced PvP is, how ZOS needs to balance PvE and PvP separately, praising other MMOs where PvP and PvE have separate gear sets, etc.

Not that I'm a PVPer, but I feel Vengeance has been great. I really think that PVP should be a very different beast from PVE, so skills are easier to balance and we can all enjoy a more stable approach to combat fixes. Personally, I want Vengeance to be the PVP mode for those reasons.

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

It seems to me that ZOS has been bending over backwards for years listening to the playerbase and trying to give the people some workable version of what have they been asking for. And whenever ZOS has announced some change that's essentially a response to suggestions or complaints in these forums, somebody starts yelling about "maintenance mode.".

I think this is fair, and you had a really good post here. I do disagree that they're bending over backwards though. There's been so many times where a lot of drama could've been avoided if they had listened sooner. Yes, they do changes things based on feedback, but I think it's at such a lag from when the feedback was delivered, that some people just don't care. Hate to bring it up yet again, but like that's something that should've happened on U35 and other controversial patches/changes (like jabs or permaglow) where it felt like they were digging in their heels. For U47, we finally saw them fully revert a change based on feedback.

But I can put myself in their shoes and appreciate how frustrating it can be. I wouldn't be surprised if some devs read this and yell "what do you want?!" at the screen. So, I get where you're coming from, and there's some merit to it. But, there's also their misgivings that haven't helped any. I just hope now, following the MS layoffs, that the studio can remain encouraged, which I'm sure is a challenge. I'm just grateful the game's still going and appreciate the effort people do put into it.

ImmortalCX wrote: »

While it will be traumatic for many players, I think we should look forward to an elevated experience available in the near future.

Sounds like people should be looking forward to more slop than ever due to developers not understanding what's can be done with help of AI and what's should remain hand crafted in their pursuit of having to deal less with professionals and workers that value their craft in favour of playing way less for some Asian cheap labour. It's same difference as reading magazines and cheap novels that multiply every day rather than timeless classic and specific genre stuff written by a person with deep knowledge base

I just realized that MS also owns another big company with another even bigger and older MMO (you know what I'm talking about). I wonder, is that game experiencing similar issues after the acquisition? Or different kind of issues? Is there any issues at all or is it only ESO who's not in favor?

Msoft thought gaming and streaming was the next big thing and the growth after covid didnt materialize yet the way they thought and now they think ai is the next big thing and shift resources towards that...

dk_dunkirk wrote: »

Versalium wrote: »

I just realized that MS also owns another big company with another even bigger and older MMO (you know what I'm talking about). I wonder, is that game experiencing similar issues after the acquisition? Or different kind of issues? Is there any issues at all or is it only ESO who's not in favor?

I don't think there's a reason to avoid naming the elephant in the room. Blizzard was also impacted with Microsoft's recent moves, though they reportedly "only" lost 100 people, and their mobile game got put on life support.

I floated the specter of what Microsoft would do when they had two fantasy MMORPG's under one "tent," where one was much larger than the other, and no one wanted to touch those comments with a 10 foot pole either. WOW Classic alone has 5x the daily players of ESO, and WOW Retail has 16x more. So WOW is literally 20x bigger than ESO. If you were in charge of such decisions at Microsoft, what would you do with ESO in the presence of WOW?

Asked a different way: If you had 2 stock market investments, and one was making $1M a year, and another was making $20M, would you keep the $1M stock, or sell it off, and roll that money into the $20M stock?

i would change eso so it preserves the ip but doesnt directly compete with wow. Why get rid of it if its making money? Im surprised they havent gotten this direction already.

randconfig wrote: »

ArchMikem wrote: »

It's an incredible pity that Zenimax didn't/couldnt go private, instead of being acquired by Microsoft.

Agreed. All publicly traded companies fall prey to enshittification due to a lack of government regulations. Really sad to see Microsoft cannibalize it's own studios and force AI & no privacy on everyone.

I still have hope Zenimax can weather the storm, maybe find a way to buy back their own stock/go private (I don't know how that works or if it's possible though), and I wish the all the laid off devs and their families the best, I hope they can find new work easily.. And the devs still here, I hope they don't burn themselves out by overworking to make up for Microsoft's failings.

ZOS was private. They were actively shopping for buyers. When their deal to sell to EA fell through, they made a conscious decision to sell to Microsoft. It's not like Microsoft forcibly swallowed them up.

ImmortalCX wrote: »

Ai is going to fundamentally change the way MMOs and video games are developed as they can automate much of the content creation. AI generated voices are probably going to replace all the voice actors, but that is just the tip of the iceberg.

Good voice acting can lift a good gaming experience into something transcendental, just as bad voice acting can ruin a game. I don't know how any developer can think that voice acting can just be relegated to AI.

I find the idea of AI generated gaming content utterly, immeasurably depressing. I'm not spending time and money on mundane dreck.

Nemesis7884 wrote: »

Msoft thought gaming and streaming was the next big thing and the growth after covid didnt materialize yet the way they thought and now they think ai is the next big thing and shift resources towards that...

Yup. AI is the future unless some serious regulations come in. I expect this is going to happen more people and not just in tech.

Only in the ESO forums is TES possibly a valuable IP!

And AI is the future of content creation, period. There is nothing stopping this train outside of global conflict. It is completely misunderstood by most people. It will not replace human creativity and ingenuity, it will enhance it.

This kind of misunderstanding exists for every new technological paradigm. There were people who believed the ballista would result in the end of human civilization.

It's not even inherently dangerous. Do you know what is actually dangerous? Humans. WE are the only thing that makes AI potentially dangerous. But the same goes for a knife or a car or pretty much every technological advancement. I mean, read the news. It's violent and ignorant humans with malicious and selfish intent we should be scared about, regardless of which tools they use.

Resist technological advancement at your own peril, like the stone chipper who didn't adapt to bronze.

BretonMage wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

Only in the ESO forums is TES possibly a valuable IP!

TES is valuable to Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind players as well.

I was being critical of someone saying that it is possibly valuable when the series is actually extremely valuable.

Not if most of the creatives get laid off.

Yeah, like all the magazine airbrushers and typesetters did. That's progress.

BretonMage wrote: »

Desiato wrote: »

I was being critical of someone saying that it is possibly valuable when the series is actually extremely valuable.

Ah, got it.

Yeah, like all the magazine airbrushers and typesetters did. That's progress.

Those aren't creatives though, I'm worried about elements like writing and acting, which need a human creative element. You can't, for example, expect AI to be able to act out subtle emotional nuances, that is something even inexperienced VAs have trouble doing.

Those were legitimate forms of art!

How general consumers use AI to meme isn't how creative professionals will. Just because AI can code, doesn't mean engineering expertise becomes irrelevant. However software engineers who can adapt to vibe coding will have an advantage compared to those who don't. The same goes for artists of all kinds. It is a new frontier.

Just like it was in the late 80s when new professionals used the power of adobe illustrator to make dinosaurs of the extremely talented and well trained professionals who used traditional methods.