Cross Save / Cross Platform / Cross Play coming?

tomofhyrule · August 29

amiiegee wrote: »

On reddit there is a lot of discussion too but people are respectfully and not everyone thinks they are right, because we simply dont know anything yet.

I wish the discussion tone on this forum would be more like this too.

Overall people are looking forward to this but also discussing concerns, how it should be in a community.

[...]

the upvote rate speaks for itsself. People want the feature. Zos are working on it, for the rest trust the progress and have some faith in the deav team who brought us here overr all these years.

Counterpoint: just because someone raises an issue, that doesn't mean they're being toxic. The ones who are actually like "your issue is irrelevant because that doesn't affect me personally and this is a good things so stfu" are more toxic than the ones who are like "oh, I hope they consider this issue before they do something they can't walk back."

And I don't really see any of the people raising the character name/trade guild issues as being against crossplay in the first place. They're mostly saying "this is a problem that ZOS should address before merging the servers." Even then, they're still saying that crossplay should happen, just after the problem is fixed.

Finally, there are a lot of players who have been told to "trust the devs" for years, and that's not been altogether positive. A lot of players who have been around a while know that things tend to get overlooked by the time they hit PTS, by which time it's too late to fix it. There are a lot of players who have left the game because the implementations of things like Account-wide achieves or Subclassing have ruined their game, even though they would have supported those if they had been done in a different way.

ZOS_Kevin · August 29

DragonRacer wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As Rich noted during Gamescom, crossplay is being worked on. There is a lot of work to go through because ESO was built way before crossplay was part of the industry. And there is 11yrs worth of content, systems and data to go through. The last thing we want is for systems to be heavily impacted by crossplay and have it an impact on your overall gameplay experience. So it's something we have to be extra careful about. Nothing else to report right now, but there is a team focused on crossplay.

@ZOS_Kevin - out of curiosity, what are the team's thoughts on how to handle trading guilds if we all become merged together on one or two major servers? Everything else, I can see logically functioning as it does now but on a wider scale/more instances such as Cyrodiil campaigns and Group Finder/ToT/BG queues. But there is a finite number of guild traders available which, yes, already a countless number of guilds compete for via blind bid but that's not quite the same as suddenly shoving eeeeeeverybody together with the same finite number of traders and saying "Good luck, have fun, your bids are gonna quadruple or worse."

Just want to flag this. Folks are getting a little ahead of themselves. Totally get it, but we are not in a position to share anything at this moment. However, happy to take suggestions to the team.

amiiegee · August 29

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As Rich noted during Gamescom, crossplay is being worked on. There is a lot of work to go through because ESO was built way before crossplay was part of the industry. And there is 11yrs worth of content, systems and data to go through. The last thing we want is for systems to be heavily impacted by crossplay and have it an impact on your overall gameplay experience. So it's something we have to be extra careful about. Nothing else to report right now, but there is a team focused on crossplay.

@ZOS_Kevin - out of curiosity, what are the team's thoughts on how to handle trading guilds if we all become merged together on one or two major servers? Everything else, I can see logically functioning as it does now but on a wider scale/more instances such as Cyrodiil campaigns and Group Finder/ToT/BG queues. But there is a finite number of guild traders available which, yes, already a countless number of guilds compete for via blind bid but that's not quite the same as suddenly shoving eeeeeeverybody together with the same finite number of traders and saying "Good luck, have fun, your bids are gonna quadruple or worse."

Just want to flag this. Folks are getting a little ahead of themselves. Totally get it, but we are not in a position to share anything at this moment. However, happy to take suggestions to the team.

Thank you Kevin. I guess its gonna be a long way till anything happens, if it happens

DenverRalphy · August 29

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As Rich noted during Gamescom, crossplay is being worked on. There is a lot of work to go through because ESO was built way before crossplay was part of the industry. And there is 11yrs worth of content, systems and data to go through. The last thing we want is for systems to be heavily impacted by crossplay and have it an impact on your overall gameplay experience. So it's something we have to be extra careful about. Nothing else to report right now, but there is a team focused on crossplay.

@ZOS_Kevin - out of curiosity, what are the team's thoughts on how to handle trading guilds if we all become merged together on one or two major servers? Everything else, I can see logically functioning as it does now but on a wider scale/more instances such as Cyrodiil campaigns and Group Finder/ToT/BG queues. But there is a finite number of guild traders available which, yes, already a countless number of guilds compete for via blind bid but that's not quite the same as suddenly shoving eeeeeeverybody together with the same finite number of traders and saying "Good luck, have fun, your bids are gonna quadruple or worse."

Just want to flag this. Folks are getting a little ahead of themselves. Totally get it, but we are not in a position to share anything at this moment. However, happy to take suggestions to the team.

Thank you for this. While I'm not eager for crossplay to happen, I'm glad to see that it appears to be getting a thorough workshop treatment. Because if done wrong.. I don't even wish to speculate. I hope the workshopping is given all the time it needs.

Erickson9610 · August 29

I hope Crossplay comes sooner, rather than later. The game would be much better off with it.

DenverRalphy · August 29

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I hope Crossplay comes sooner, rather than later. The game would be much better off with it.

Honest question..

Can you name one online video game that went crossplay and console players didn't get the short end of the stick? Or didn't ensure a "consoles only" option?

DragonRacer · August 29

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As Rich noted during Gamescom, crossplay is being worked on. There is a lot of work to go through because ESO was built way before crossplay was part of the industry. And there is 11yrs worth of content, systems and data to go through. The last thing we want is for systems to be heavily impacted by crossplay and have it an impact on your overall gameplay experience. So it's something we have to be extra careful about. Nothing else to report right now, but there is a team focused on crossplay.

@ZOS_Kevin - out of curiosity, what are the team's thoughts on how to handle trading guilds if we all become merged together on one or two major servers? Everything else, I can see logically functioning as it does now but on a wider scale/more instances such as Cyrodiil campaigns and Group Finder/ToT/BG queues. But there is a finite number of guild traders available which, yes, already a countless number of guilds compete for via blind bid but that's not quite the same as suddenly shoving eeeeeeverybody together with the same finite number of traders and saying "Good luck, have fun, your bids are gonna quadruple or worse."

Just want to flag this. Folks are getting a little ahead of themselves. Totally get it, but we are not in a position to share anything at this moment. However, happy to take suggestions to the team.

I appreciate you noting this! I don’t immediately have suggestions since this is a new thought process, for sure, and I’m definitely not against the idea of crossplay personally. The guild trader situation rang my internal alarms since that’s the particular wheelhouse I play in, so wanted to be sure the team had that potential issue on the radar as things are discussed and sorted through.

I will try to think of possible suggestions/solutions over the weekend and come back to toss them in the ring, for whatever they’re worth.

It may also be a chill idea to pull together a second GM Summit for something so game-changing and revolutionary? Especially with new leadership easing into their roles as well? The last one had a really good atmosphere, I thought, and it was good hearing from GMs of all types of guilds. I realize when I post, it is only from one specialized niche silo and it’s a limited one at that (assuming there are far more, say, social guilds than trading guilds, etc).

Now go enjoy the long holiday weekend, brother!

TX12001rwb17_ESO · August 30

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

NoticeMeArkay · August 30

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As Rich noted during Gamescom, crossplay is being worked on. There is a lot of work to go through because ESO was built way before crossplay was part of the industry. And there is 11yrs worth of content, systems and data to go through. The last thing we want is for systems to be heavily impacted by crossplay and have it an impact on your overall gameplay experience. So it's something we have to be extra careful about. Nothing else to report right now, but there is a team focused on crossplay.

Hey Kevin, do you know if there are any plans on merging the store profiles for NA and EU accounts?
So that player accounts wouldn't in theory have to purchase everything twice if they just want to switch the server and play with friends from a different continent?

DragonRacer · August 30

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

DragonRacer wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

As Rich noted during Gamescom, crossplay is being worked on. There is a lot of work to go through because ESO was built way before crossplay was part of the industry. And there is 11yrs worth of content, systems and data to go through. The last thing we want is for systems to be heavily impacted by crossplay and have it an impact on your overall gameplay experience. So it's something we have to be extra careful about. Nothing else to report right now, but there is a team focused on crossplay.

@ZOS_Kevin - out of curiosity, what are the team's thoughts on how to handle trading guilds if we all become merged together on one or two major servers? Everything else, I can see logically functioning as it does now but on a wider scale/more instances such as Cyrodiil campaigns and Group Finder/ToT/BG queues. But there is a finite number of guild traders available which, yes, already a countless number of guilds compete for via blind bid but that's not quite the same as suddenly shoving eeeeeeverybody together with the same finite number of traders and saying "Good luck, have fun, your bids are gonna quadruple or worse."

Just want to flag this. Folks are getting a little ahead of themselves. Totally get it, but we are not in a position to share anything at this moment. However, happy to take suggestions to the team.

@ZOS_Kevin

Having mulled it overnight, this may be the suggestion that keeps things as close to how they currently are as possible without completely revamping the current trader system or adding a boatload more NPCs/trading hubs to bid on. This is also assuming crossplay would not merge NA and EU servers, but simply assuming PC NA/XBox NA/PS NA would all be together in one server and PC EU/XBox EU/PS EU would all be together in their server (although I suppose you could modify/expand this suggestion if it were the case of NA and EU also merging together).

Instanced guild traders with platform dropdown selection.

Let's look at Huzzin in Alinor. My fear, if we're all tossed together into the same pot, is that PS NA trader guilds are now expected to also compete against XBox NA guilds and PC NA guilds (the latter of which, due to economy difference, has amassed much bigger bidding war chests than their console brethren and would immediately own all our traders). If traders could be instanced in a way that the competing bids are kept platform-specific, that would keep things fair and how they are now aka only PC NA guilds bidding against other PC NA guilds. The highest bidder from each platform would win Huzzin that week - one PC NA guild, one XBox NA guild, and one PS NA guild. When shoppers click the Guild Store option on Huzzin, they are given a dropdown where they can select to shop the PC NA guild store, the XBox NA guild store, the PS NA guild store, or (if we wanna get super fancy) a "Shop All Guild Stores" option that merges all three platform stores together (that might be more difficult/less fair with the differing economies until everyone melds together over time).

Something like that would keep competition among trading guilds identical to what it is right now where separate platforms only compete against their own platform's trader guilds, while actually expanding the shopping power of players by essentially tripling their selection at each guild trader.

alternatelder · August 30

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

DenverRalphy · August 30

alternatelder wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

PC has a lot more gold in it simply because they've always had a significantly higher population to generate that gold. As well they've had 10 years of addons to assist in generating that gold. Consoles have a fraction of the population, and a couple of months of addons helping generate said gold.

That's why the going rate for gold to crowns on PC is 10 times greater than the going rate on PSNA. I like being able to purchase crown items at 100-200per. Especially given that I can purchase a furnished house for less gold from a crown seller than I would have paid straight up gold for the unfurnished version.

alternatelder · August 30

DenverRalphy wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

PC has a lot more gold in it simply because they've always had a significantly higher population to generate that gold. As well they've had 10 years of addons to assist in generating that gold. Consoles have a fraction of the population, and a couple of months of addons helping generate said gold.

I know people on console, many of them, including myself who have hundreds of millions of gold, some have reached the billions and this was years ago. Addons weren't needed to achieve that, it really isn't that difficult to earn millions without them.
The higher population is not fact as you do not have actual numbers, just spewing years old data, and at this point I would argue console has probably reached very close to equal population with PC IF not exceeded it.

DenverRalphy · August 30

alternatelder wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

PC has a lot more gold in it simply because they've always had a significantly higher population to generate that gold. As well they've had 10 years of addons to assist in generating that gold. Consoles have a fraction of the population, and a couple of months of addons helping generate said gold.

I know people on console, many of them, including myself who have hundreds of millions of gold, some have reached the billions and this was years ago. Addons weren't needed to achieve that, it really isn't that difficult to earn millions without them.
The higher population is not fact as you do not have actual numbers, just spewing years old data, and at this point I would argue console has probably reached very close to equal population with PC IF not exceeded it.

Sure there are players on console who have amassed large amounts of gold. That's not the point. It's the total amount of gold in existence, as well total in and out of circulation within each server as a whole. Not whether individual players have amassed personal wealth.

You're equating players personal wealth to average wealth. The two are entirely different.

amiiegee · August 30

alternatelder wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

PC has a lot more gold in it simply because they've always had a significantly higher population to generate that gold. As well they've had 10 years of addons to assist in generating that gold. Consoles have a fraction of the population, and a couple of months of addons helping generate said gold.

I know people on console, many of them, including myself who have hundreds of millions of gold, some have reached the billions and this was years ago. Addons weren't needed to achieve that, it really isn't that difficult to earn millions without them.
The higher population is not fact as you do not have actual numbers, just spewing years old data, and at this point I would argue console has probably reached very close to equal population with PC IF not exceeded it.

They have way higher population

Finedaible · August 30

Don't forget that if Crossplay does somehow happen, PC will very likely be subject to the same update scheduling as consoles since certification is a thing. In some other games this led to further delay windows in bug fixing since they can't deploy hotfixes as easily. Other restrictions may apply to PC as well.

alternatelder · August 31

amiiegee wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

PC has a lot more gold in it simply because they've always had a significantly higher population to generate that gold. As well they've had 10 years of addons to assist in generating that gold. Consoles have a fraction of the population, and a couple of months of addons helping generate said gold.

I know people on console, many of them, including myself who have hundreds of millions of gold, some have reached the billions and this was years ago. Addons weren't needed to achieve that, it really isn't that difficult to earn millions without them.
The higher population is not fact as you do not have actual numbers, just spewing years old data, and at this point I would argue console has probably reached very close to equal population with PC IF not exceeded it.

They have way higher population

No source, no fact. Please be sure to read thoroughly. Sure, the devs said this years ago. But I'll bet my gold that gap has closed quite a lot. There's nothing else I need to say about it. 🤷

amiiegee · August 31

alternatelder wrote: »

amiiegee wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

alternatelder wrote: »

TX12001rwb17_ESO wrote: »

A real problem with cross play is the impact on the in-game economy

Console players have FAR less gold than PC players, when they implement it suddenly the vast majority of console players will not beable to afford things, the smart thing for them to do would be to spend all their gold on materials that they could then sell for significantly more than they paid for them once cross-play was implemented.

Just because PC has a year on console players doesn't mean this is true at all, lol. 🤔 Some have more money, but nice try on trying to get the "poor" playerbase to waste their gold. 😅

PC has a lot more gold in it simply because they've always had a significantly higher population to generate that gold. As well they've had 10 years of addons to assist in generating that gold. Consoles have a fraction of the population, and a couple of months of addons helping generate said gold.

I know people on console, many of them, including myself who have hundreds of millions of gold, some have reached the billions and this was years ago. Addons weren't needed to achieve that, it really isn't that difficult to earn millions without them.
The higher population is not fact as you do not have actual numbers, just spewing years old data, and at this point I would argue console has probably reached very close to equal population with PC IF not exceeded it.

They have way higher population

No source, no fact. Please be sure to read thoroughly. Sure, the devs said this years ago. But I'll bet my gold that gap has closed quite a lot. There's nothing else I need to say about it. 🤷

I dont need to have that discussion either. [snip]
[edited for baiting]

Grizzbeorn · September 1

Finedaible wrote: »

Don't forget that if Crossplay does somehow happen, PC will very likely be subject to the same update scheduling as consoles since certification is a thing. In some other games this led to further delay windows in bug fixing since they can't deploy hotfixes as easily. Other restrictions may apply to PC as well.

This is why I don't want PC/Console cross-play to happen.

fizzybeef · September 14

Are there any news / further informations about that?

tomofhyrule · September 14

fizzybeef wrote: »

Are there any news / further informations about that?

Did you see the Reddit AMA?

From ZOS_Susan

We are actively in development on crossplay at this point. There's more levels of detail, but roughly, the plan is that it will be regional (EU/EU and NA/NA) with play spanning all platforms. It's going to take time though - the game wasn't fundamentally architected with this in mind, and there is a lot of design work going into making sure it remains balanced for all when we bring everyone together.

Ishtarknows · September 14

Elowen_Starveil wrote: »

I've just looked, and prices for dreugh wax on console have fallen precipitously over the past few months. Maybe that's because of a flood of materials because of people doing more writs, and maybe this will settle down and normalize again. And maybe I have no idea what I'm talking about.

Dreugh wax price has increased around 80-100% recently (XBEU) [previously 4-5k, now 9k+] while the price of Temps has about halved [8-9k and now 4-5k]. I put the latter down to an increased bot activity in recent months, but I may be wrong.

I don't buy materials as I'm self sufficient but I've looked at prices over the past few weeks and, apart from this change to gold improvement mats everything else is pretty stable which is a bit of a relief.

fizzybeef · September 15

tomofhyrule wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Are there any news / further informations about that?

Did you see the Reddit AMA?

From ZOS_Susan

We are actively in development on crossplay at this point. There's more levels of detail, but roughly, the plan is that it will be regional (EU/EU and NA/NA) with play spanning all platforms. It's going to take time though - the game wasn't fundamentally architected with this in mind, and there is a lot of design work going into making sure it remains balanced for all when we bring everyone together.

I did actually not see that, thank you

Radiate77 · September 15

tomofhyrule wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Are there any news / further informations about that?

Did you see the Reddit AMA?

From ZOS_Susan

We are actively in development on crossplay at this point. There's more levels of detail, but roughly, the plan is that it will be regional (EU/EU and NA/NA) with play spanning all platforms. It's going to take time though - the game wasn't fundamentally architected with this in mind, and there is a lot of design work going into making sure it remains balanced for all when we bring everyone together.

My concern is this; while Crossplay would be a huge benefit to the game, it would need to be paired with a One Tamriel sized update to have any lasting effect.

Adding more players to a game that nobody wants to play, isn’t exactly a solution, and there are a LOT of us who feel like ESO is extremely outdated and have taken breaks from the game.

valenwood_vegan · September 15

Radiate77 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Are there any news / further informations about that?

Did you see the Reddit AMA?

From ZOS_Susan

We are actively in development on crossplay at this point. There's more levels of detail, but roughly, the plan is that it will be regional (EU/EU and NA/NA) with play spanning all platforms. It's going to take time though - the game wasn't fundamentally architected with this in mind, and there is a lot of design work going into making sure it remains balanced for all when we bring everyone together.

My concern is this; while Crossplay would be a huge benefit to the game, it would need to be paired with a One Tamriel sized update to have any lasting effect.

Adding more players to a game that nobody wants to play, isn’t exactly a solution, and there are a LOT of us who feel like ESO is extremely outdated and have taken breaks from the game.

Yeah this is sort of my issue with the whole crossplay thing. It doesn't add anything to the game in and of itself, and feels rather pointless if the game isn't generating excitement and people don't want to play. That of course doesn't mean they "shouldn't work on crossplay", but I hope it doesn't pull too many resources away from working on and adding to the game and they realize it's not a solution to many of the underlying problems that have driven players away.

tomofhyrule · September 15

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Radiate77 wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

fizzybeef wrote: »

Are there any news / further informations about that?

Did you see the Reddit AMA?

From ZOS_Susan

We are actively in development on crossplay at this point. There's more levels of detail, but roughly, the plan is that it will be regional (EU/EU and NA/NA) with play spanning all platforms. It's going to take time though - the game wasn't fundamentally architected with this in mind, and there is a lot of design work going into making sure it remains balanced for all when we bring everyone together.

My concern is this; while Crossplay would be a huge benefit to the game, it would need to be paired with a One Tamriel sized update to have any lasting effect.

Adding more players to a game that nobody wants to play, isn’t exactly a solution, and there are a LOT of us who feel like ESO is extremely outdated and have taken breaks from the game.

Yeah this is sort of my issue with the whole crossplay thing. It doesn't add anything to the game in and of itself, and feels rather pointless if the game isn't generating excitement and people don't want to play. That of course doesn't mean they "shouldn't work on crossplay", but I hope it doesn't pull too many resources away from working on and adding to the game and they realize it's not a solution to many of the underlying problems that have driven players away.

Agreed. Crossplay should definitely be done, but if the team is having to choose between “no new stuff, only crossplay” and “new stuff to drum up more interest in the game,” that’s not as good. After all, most PC players (and even a lot of PS) won’t see much of an improvement from crossplay since the populations aren’t in dire straits.
…yet.

That is something I can even say about Subclassing - sure, it let players have fun with swapping skills around (and forced them into hyper specific metas, but that’s a different topic). But it really didn’t add anything - no new skills, no new ways to play, just Oprah coming out with “You get Fatecarver! And you get Fatecarver! Everyone gets Fatecarver!!”

But I really hope the ZOS Crossplay team is considering how many ESO players care about their characters enough to leave the game if they’re forced to lose names. They’re still early in building this, so now is the time to address it.