DenverRalphy wrote: »

To be fair, when they did make changes, ZOS did go out of their way to mention that those changes were made uniformly across all servers. Do they have the ability to control how fast they are completed? Sure. But barring any evidence to the contrary, the only manipulation thus far has been to ensure the first place server can't hit Phase 3 before U48 lands on consoles. But again, as far as we know those changes are being made uniformly across all servers. Regardless which server is in the lead.

This is false.

The changes to the PC/NA server were made only on that server.
They rolled the numbers back on PC/NA when it was moving too fast, and a few days later they jumped the numbers up, again, just on PC/NA, when it was moving too slow.

They’re not adjusting based on participation.
They’re adjusting based on timing.
And that’s not speculation, it’s visible in the data.

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Really? Please show me where only PC NA was changed.

I was there both times, when they rolled it back just after launch, and when they pushed it forward to 26%.
Both adjustments were only reported on PC/NA.
They weren’t mirrored on the other platforms at that time.

The rollback was observed and discussed by PC/NA players in multiple threads.
A few days later, when the meter stalled around 6–8%, it jumped to 26%, again, only reported on PC/NA.
I’ve searched the forums and haven’t found a single post from EU or console players reporting similar rollbacks or sudden jumps.
If those changes had been applied across all platforms, we’d expect to see at least some discussion from those communities, but there’s been nothing.

So while ZOS hasn’t explicitly said these were platform-specific, the available evidence strongly suggests they were.
It’s a pattern visible in the timeline and the community response.

If you have a source confirming that these changes were applied uniformly across all servers, I’d genuinely like to see it.
So far, I haven’t seen anything from ZOS or the community to support that claim.

Syldras wrote: »

Interesting to see players are going against each other because of some made-up competition, instead of criticizing who's responsible for this unimaginative, repetative, boring and lore-lacking event. It almost feels like the artificial rivalry this event brought up has come to fruition. How convenient people are ignoring the actual problems about it.

That is what ZOS wanted right? Us to see people on other servers not as fellow players (and future allies once cross-play come in) but our opponents who must be beaten and defeated for the glory of...content pass owners finally getting permission to play what they've already paid for.

They never managed to get in-fighting between Alliances to catch on outside of Cyrodiil (and even then only because you have to choose a team if you want to play PvP at all) so I guess this is their last-ditch effort to get us to see each other as competition before they lose that option entirely. I'm still not sure why they'd want to do that, but a lot of design choices in ESO seem to be based on old-fashioned attitudes in MMOs and "faction loyalty" and getting players to argue about them with each other was one of those.

They overestimated the amount of active PCNA players.

It's clear every server has a different target, and ZOS missed the mark for PCNA. That's all that happened.

It doesn't matter if bars are fake or not. The customers have paid for the content, and ZOS have deadlines for releasing it. Even if all participants log off and progress stops, the Wall will fall at some point. Either bar will move on (if it's fake indeed), or ZOS cancel it on X% and say "well, a pity" (if it's not fake). I'd say, this is not about fakeness, it's all about meaning. Bars are meaningless, there's no way ZOS giving players the power to prevent the content release.

Furyous wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Really? Please show me where only PC NA was changed.

I was there both times, when they rolled it back just after launch, and when they pushed it forward to 26%.
Both adjustments were only reported on PC/NA.
They weren’t mirrored on the other platforms at that time.

The rollback was observed and discussed by PC/NA players in multiple threads.
A few days later, when the meter stalled around 6–8%, it jumped to 26%, again, only reported on PC/NA.
I’ve searched the forums and haven’t found a single post from EU or console players reporting similar rollbacks or sudden jumps.
If those changes had been applied across all platforms, we’d expect to see at least some discussion from those communities, but there’s been nothing.

So while ZOS hasn’t explicitly said these were platform-specific, the available evidence strongly suggests they were.
It’s a pattern visible in the timeline and the community response.

If you have a source confirming that these changes were applied uniformly across all servers, I’d genuinely like to see it.
So far, I haven’t seen anything from ZOS or the community to support that claim.

Here's one of the posts from ZOS staff stating they were applied evenly across all servers.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8379526/#Comment_8379526

We were all here to witness the "corrections" made to the progression bars. Each time PCNA or PCEU were changed, so too were consoles. I have yet to see any adjustments to the progression bars that were solely for the PC servers.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Furyous wrote: »

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Really? Please show me where only PC NA was changed.

I was there both times, when they rolled it back just after launch, and when they pushed it forward to 26%.
Both adjustments were only reported on PC/NA.
They weren’t mirrored on the other platforms at that time.

The rollback was observed and discussed by PC/NA players in multiple threads.
A few days later, when the meter stalled around 6–8%, it jumped to 26%, again, only reported on PC/NA.
I’ve searched the forums and haven’t found a single post from EU or console players reporting similar rollbacks or sudden jumps.
If those changes had been applied across all platforms, we’d expect to see at least some discussion from those communities, but there’s been nothing.

So while ZOS hasn’t explicitly said these were platform-specific, the available evidence strongly suggests they were.
It’s a pattern visible in the timeline and the community response.

If you have a source confirming that these changes were applied uniformly across all servers, I’d genuinely like to see it.
So far, I haven’t seen anything from ZOS or the community to support that claim.

Here's one of the posts from ZOS staff stating they were applied evenly across all servers.
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/comment/8379526/#Comment_8379526

We were all here to witness the "corrections" made to the progression bars. Each time PCNA or PCEU were changed, so too were consoles. I have yet to see any adjustments to the progression bars that were solely for the PC servers.

And here's a graph of the first 9 hours of the event, polled every 5 minutes

TheMrPancake wrote: »

I have tracked the percentages shown on the website over the last 9 hours. Here is a graph of them.



(Data was polled once every 5 minutes. Every horizontal major gridline is 1 hour.)

Anywhere the value goes down is manipulation from zos.

It is also suspicious to me that ps4 NA, xbox NA and PC NA went up sequentially twice.

Notice how each server is correcting at a different time. If ZOS changed it all at once (like they said), shouldn't the readjustments happen all at the same time? And not multiple times per server as we see for XBEU?

ZOS can say whatever they want. That doesn't make it true.

And if you want to go by that graph, it's showing console servers being corrected down the most. Whereas PC servers impacted much less.

But even still.. All servers even out by the end of the graph.

Syldras wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

But the whole thing is that some people took ZOS’s stupid “you should have server pride!” event to its inevitable conclusion: trashtalking other servers because they’re not your server. Remember when ESO used to be about making community instead of driving division?

They still do that "ESOFam" stuff. Today's take:

I feel ashamed now because while Questing thru Summerset with one of my Khajiit, I felt she would've gotten smitten while talking to him on Artaeum...

Funny to see that Xbox EU was WAY ahead of Playstation EU.
But ZOS must have been in and adjusted something (as they always do)
Because now Playstation is in the forest.

I've lost all faith in the event bar, because ZOS adjusts as they please, it probably depends on who they want to reach 100% first, and not us

twisttop138 wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Well, if we're now gonna start broadly generalizing about different groups of players based on the fake participation meter, then I'm proud to be playing on PC/NA, where we're intelligent enough to realize that our efforts are meaningless and our time is better spent doing something other than this event

You clearly believe that it's a "fake participation meter," and many others have essentially voiced that same sentiment. And it seems that you all believe your unproven conspiracy theory is a fact, and I suppose you feel that anyone who doesn't buy into that unproven conspiracy theory clearly isn't "inteligent enough to realize that our efforts are meaningless." Abd I feel like that is precisely why PCNA's progress is so far behind the other servers' progress.

If you don't care about the event and the race to unlock Eastern Solstice, then that's fine. But when there are a whole bunch of players on PCNA who feel the same way and cannot be bothered to participate, don't blame the lack of progress in the meter on some conspiracy theory, because the real reason for the slow progress is staring back at you from your bathroom mirror.

Whatever. The rest of us will get Eastern Solstice unlocked sooner or later. Your help would be welcomed, but we'll get there with or without your help.

[snip]

Meanwhile, on PS/NA playing at different times of the day I find lots of players at the siege camps. Sometimes so many players that enemies drop "instantly" and I get very few Vitrified Souls even though I am doing AOE attacks and should be getting hits on "everything". And I never have to ride back to a wayshrine from the siege camps. I look at who else is playing the game and find there are one or more guild mates who are in Solstice. Free trip back to a Solstice wayshrine by traveling to them! Often times it ends up being either the Rampart Camp wayshrine, or the wayshrine nearest the siege camp that is now up!

I have no proof one way or the other that ZOS is "continuously" adjusting the event progress bars. And I'm not sure that I care. Anyway, have fun playing ESO!
[edited to remove quote]

DenverRalphy wrote: »

Ingenon wrote: »

twisttop138 wrote: »

SeaGtGruff wrote: »

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

Well, if we're now gonna start broadly generalizing about different groups of players based on the fake participation meter, then I'm proud to be playing on PC/NA, where we're intelligent enough to realize that our efforts are meaningless and our time is better spent doing something other than this event

You clearly believe that it's a "fake participation meter," and many others have essentially voiced that same sentiment. And it seems that you all believe your unproven conspiracy theory is a fact, and I suppose you feel that anyone who doesn't buy into that unproven conspiracy theory clearly isn't "inteligent enough to realize that our efforts are meaningless." Abd I feel like that is precisely why PCNA's progress is so far behind the other servers' progress.

If you don't care about the event and the race to unlock Eastern Solstice, then that's fine. But when there are a whole bunch of players on PCNA who feel the same way and cannot be bothered to participate, don't blame the lack of progress in the meter on some conspiracy theory, because the real reason for the slow progress is staring back at you from your bathroom mirror.

Whatever. The rest of us will get Eastern Solstice unlocked sooner or later. Your help would be welcomed, but we'll get there with or without your help.

[snip]

Meanwhile, on PS/NA playing at different times of the day I find lots of players at the siege camps. Sometimes so many players that enemies drop "instantly" and I get very few Vitrified Souls even though I am doing AOE attacks and should be getting hits on "everything". And I never have to ride back to a wayshrine from the siege camps. I look at who else is playing the game and find there are one or more guild mates who are in Solstice. Free trip back to a Solstice wayshrine by traveling to them! Often times it ends up being either the Rampart Camp wayshrine, or the wayshrine nearest the siege camp that is now up!

I have no proof one way or the other that ZOS is "continuously" adjusting the event progress bars. And I'm not sure that I care. Anyway, have fun playing ESO!

Yeah. Anecdotally speaking, I've witnessed PSNA kick it into gear the past couple of weeks myself. Everybody I know in game seems to be motivated to get it done and over with. Of course, some would believe the slow steady gain PSNA has been making on the progress page has nothing to do with that.

Yes, on psna myself. The camps are always busy when I go there. For myself and many in guilds, we're unhappy with the event, rewards and the fake progress bar. But we're gonna keep doing it. If there's even the slightest chance that keeping on will bring down the wall faster then we're gonna take it.
[edited to remove quote]

And again, more blaming of players and pitting the players against each other. “It’s your fault that the bar is moving so slowly! If you really loved the game, you’d grind 24 dailies on 20 characters on three accounts to make sure we get in there!”

ZOS is really helping us build community, I guess. Because what’s a community without a severe “us-versus-them” spirit?

Look, I was grinding for ages and I finally pulled the house. I’m out. I have my motifs, I’ll just pay for the outfit styles, and I’ll just do the three gold boxes (ok, and the crafting ones since they’re mindless) from here out. Screw these anti-consumer grindfests.

Solstice is not exciting enough of a zone, and the story is not enticing enough to make me want to get to the other side any faster. And now, this atrocious event just made it all feel worse for me. I honestly stopped caring. And no amount of “but but but” is going to make me care more - I have yet another BG3 playthrough going that is holding my interest so much more because the writing’s actually good and the characters are compelling (and they don’t try to revive them from the dead every three seconds and try to force people to thirst over them).

If the bar’s not moving fast enough, that isn’t the fault of players not doing enough. I’m not getting paid to do dailies. This is not my job. If it were a more compelling story or a better quality product (you know, instead of a bug ridden mess that’s actively making the experience worse to try to cater to obsolete hardware), then maybe I’d be more interested. But now? Nah.
This is 100% on the devs making expectations too high and quality too low.

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't know how anyone expects players to spend weeks doing the same repeating quests over and over, day after day, on multiple characters and not quickly become bored with it. This is why players are giving up. We feel that it doesn't really matter and the wall will eventually be brought down anyway.

Yeah, and it's also very obvious that the results are being tweaked so that no server can actually "win" the race. There is literally no point in doing these quests, the rewards aren't great and the second part pf Solstice will be unlocked anyways since we paid for it already. I am really confused as to why they did not allow us to have a real competition between servers. I thought it was the plan. In my opinion, it would've been100 times better if the grind goals were cut by 70-80% and the progress bars weren't tampered with.

I don't think anyboy's saying players aren't doing enough or not doing their part. Nor blaming players for anything. If that were the case, the progress bars wouldn't be moving at all.

What's being said is simply that some players are doing more than others. Is it tedious? Sure, absolutely. Nobody's refuting that. Is it enjoyable? Nope.

But because some players are sucking it up and pushing the bar, others prefer to reject that possiblity and would rather insist that the fix is in.

valenwood_vegan wrote: »

tomofhyrule wrote: »

If the bar’s not moving fast enough, that isn’t the fault of players not doing enough. I’m not getting paid to do dailies. This is not my job.

Definitely this so much. I said it in another post with complaints about players "not doing their part". This isn't my job. I have one of those already and my gaming time is meant to be an enjoyable hobby, not a second-job-simulation. If I'm not having fun, if I'm bored, if it feels like nothing is being offered that's worth the effort, I'm not going to grit my teeth and grind it out. I'm not here to spend my time in misery to try and prove my devotion to the game. My free time is valuable and I don't owe it to anybody.

[In fact, I've also been taking the time to play through BG3 again and having a blast. It kept me up way too late with just wanting to finish one more thing, tank to one more NPC, see what's around one more corner - something ESO hasn't done for me lately, but which this event has really driven home for me].

So many people keep mentioning BG3. Is it really that good? I've watched a little gameplay but I've never played D&D before.

I'm very much willing to do my part by doing 3 gold box dailies and make sure I do (only) the 3 new crafting quests. I have no problem with that, especially if there's even a slim chance that it helps get this event over with faster and gets us the content we paid for. If my servers not winning, when I look in the mirror I don't see the reason, I see a fat old mechanic who is right to expect better for 50 dollars. Lol, what a take.

If you're someone who loves this event, that's totally cool. I'm glad people like it. On the first week I had some fantastic times but that wasn't the content, it was the huge groups of guild mates all in PSN chat having fun talking crap. I have a sneaking suspicion, though, that there are some people around here that just like being contrarian instead of actually liking the event.

Zos did a bad job. End of the day they over hyped and way under delivered. This year of content is just lack luster and low quality. It's not wrong to expect better.