ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

React wrote: »

It's a nice letter, but it's good to hear the disconnect between words and actions acknowledged by the (new?) leadership. Here is to hoping that the studio finally puts actions to words this year. Looking forward to the reveal on the 7th.

If the team hasn't seen it (although I'm sure they have), I'd highly recommend reviewing this video from Eigh1 Puppies. He's very concise with his points and brings up many relevant discussions throughout, and I think this is the exact kind of thing that would be valuable for internal review if the studio wants to make the right choices moving forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ErxXpxqxY8

We have seen the video from Eigh1 Puppies. Others on the community team have been chatting with him, so we're in communication!

Just curious - will there be any effort to repair relationships with some of the other streamers who've since left? I'm specifically thinking of Nefas, but there's other too. Obviously there was some encounters with ZOS and him that really soured things. But, he provided A LOT of resources, especially around endgame.

Right now, it feels like we only got Hyperioxes and SkinnyCheeks, both of whom expressed some deep frustrations. I'm worried about the overall trajectory of streamer space, they do provide of knowledge that cascades throughout the community.

Quality Control and Assurance is an essential component for a long term strategy. This for me has eroded since Elsweyr and the recently botched "Once in a lifetime" event, which was embarrassing.

Without the checks and balances provided by the Quality Assurance team we witness programmers running wild. Yes "Write fast and BREAK things" might be a viable test scenario for developing new ideas. Releasing incomplete and unbalanced new systems and then trying to balance them later by altering classes is rather backward as that should have been the first step.

I still raise the Glass of Optimism!

@ZOS_Kevin I have a few questions. How exactly do you expect me to believe anything that is said in the letters when similar nothings were promised year after year, after year, after year, after year, after year, after year by the previous management, yet nothing ever came of it?

How do you expect me to believe that communication will improve when your bosses have proven time and time again that they don't care what the community wants? Even now with new management ZOS continues to not care. A statement that is proven by the fact that balancing subclassing was not made a priority when tons of people, both here on these forums, and elsewhere on the internet have told you over, and over, about their dissatisfaction specifically with how it was implemented. If ZOS actually cared about what we want and were actively listening to the community they would've done something, anything, in the 8 months since it hit the PTS to adjust the wild power discrepancy between skill lines and pure class vs sub-class. Ah wait, ZOS did do some adjustments in U47.. a very small handful... mostly nerfing sets that didn't need nerfing and that no one wanted nerfed. Oh and they also tried nerfing ultimate generation. Features that were universally praised and accepted by the community, if I recall.

Moving on, how exactly do you expect me to believe that ZOS will be able to do a class refresh, which will entail adjusting damage/healing/survivability of multiple skills per class versus each other when they've proven that they don't play the game or understand how skills work? Lest we forget the disaster that was that PVP live stream. And let's also not forget that whenever something that is planned to be implemented over time it is always left in an unfinished state. Case in point: hybridization, Grave Lord's Sacrifice (the team promised they'd keep a close eye on it yet the only adjustment it has had since its released was to make it castable outside of combat. Unless you're seriously telling me that a morph that is almost never used is considered to be in an acceptable state), Infinite Archive (we still don't have the last set of class sets), the Group Finder (it still has a bunch of bugs like not being able to select the roles you want to look for unless you port to a different zone), and most recently, the base game Zone refresh. Yeah remember that one? The thing that you only did for the 3 starting areas and then forgot about? I certainly had forgotten about that too until writing this post.

So please Kevin, give me a good reason to believe that ZOS won't just make some small adjustments to DK and then just drop the refresh thing entirely.

Oh, and about the overland difficulty, how do you expect me to believe that the overland difficulty options will be balanced correctly versus the player's power when subclassing was such a massive disaster specifically because of how wildly imbalanced it is? You know what I expect from the overland difficulty options as someone who has been with the game for about 3 years now and as someone who has seen how management operates ESO? I expect the hard option to be just mindless increases in enemy health and enemy damage without actually adding new mechanics or reducing the amount of copy pasted mob groups, thereby making overland even more tedious ad annoying to navigate than it already is. And the better rewards that were mentioned? Yeah I just expect that enemies will drop a bit more gold and purple gear slightly more often.

All in all I feel like these letters are just PR garbage that will amount to nothing. Just like all of the previous letters that also amounted to nothing. I honestly would've preferred getting no end of year letter at all.

Destai wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

React wrote: »

It's a nice letter, but it's good to hear the disconnect between words and actions acknowledged by the (new?) leadership. Here is to hoping that the studio finally puts actions to words this year. Looking forward to the reveal on the 7th.

If the team hasn't seen it (although I'm sure they have), I'd highly recommend reviewing this video from Eigh1 Puppies. He's very concise with his points and brings up many relevant discussions throughout, and I think this is the exact kind of thing that would be valuable for internal review if the studio wants to make the right choices moving forward.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ErxXpxqxY8

We have seen the video from Eigh1 Puppies. Others on the community team have been chatting with him, so we're in communication!

Just curious - will there be any effort to repair relationships with some of the other streamers who've since left? I'm specifically thinking of Nefas, but there's other too. Obviously there was some encounters with ZOS and him that really soured things. But, he provided A LOT of resources, especially around endgame.

Right now, it feels like we only got Hyperioxes and SkinnyCheeks, both of whom expressed some deep frustrations. I'm worried about the overall trajectory of streamer space, they do provide of knowledge that cascades throughout the community.

One thing is expressing deep frustrations and criticism, which is fair game and helpful. Another is making a video dancing with a cigar to celebrate people getting fired like Nefas did after Blackbird was cancelled.

The QA part should defenitely be in the director roadmap. As myself being developer, it looks like a junior (or AI) work, and it's definitely not professional.
And anything about foreign players ? (translations, voices, community)

I'm glad a lot of the community seem to be more optimistic recently than they have been for a long time. I hope the people who have been deeply unsatisfied for a while now will have their confidence in the game restored.

That being said, I'm personally more anxious about the upcoming changes than anything. As someone who loves the game as is, including a lot of the recent additions, I'm concerned about "reworks" of the current content. I'm dreading the change to overland difficulty. I'm confused about what the supposed benefits are by switching from chapters to seasons. This year, it seemed like we got less content, which is only acceptable if the price is also reduced. And while I appreciate an admission of mistakes when they happen, these letters (particularly the first one) left me feeling down. There didn't seem to be any real enthusiasm for what's to come and absolutely no appreciation for the good things that happened this year. I know the WW event was overhyped and had its issues, but I enjoyed the first half of the Solstice story (haven't done the second part yet), and I don't think the year was a complete bust, which is how the letter made it sound.

I get the feeling I'm of the minority opinion on these forums, and I really am happy for those who like what they're seeing, but I don't share the extreme dissatisfaction some people seem to have for the current state of the game. It's not that I have zero complaints, but I love the game and systems the way they are overall, and I'd hate to have them ruined. I'll try to maintain a sliver of hope until we hear more details on January 7th.

My main concern regarding the value of any promises is that the ESO's dev team is evidently over-extended.
And lately that only has accelerated. I mean:

Scribing now looks like an orphaned feature

Subclassing was introduced prematurely, saddling the dev team with massive technical debt. (I can't believe that was a dev's decision. They must have been overruled / put under severe pressure to release something).

Vengeance development progresses at a snail's pace.

The announced class refresh likewise.

And that's not even talking about the dearth of new story content players are experiencing.

ZOS will have to build something they can sell while trying to catch up on the backlog.

It's not just they made some wrong choices the past year. They're just way too slow with whatever they're doing. Like trying to pretend business as usual while running a skeleton crew.

I’d be happy if they gave us zero “new” zones in 2026 and just worked on balance and bringing the 80% of the game that’s currently pointless up to par.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

My main concern regarding the value of any promises is that the ESO's dev team is evidently over-extended.
And lately that only has accelerated. I mean:

Scribing now looks like an orphaned feature

Subclassing was introduced prematurely, saddling the dev team with massive technical debt. (I can't believe that was a dev's decision. They must have been overruled / put under severe pressure to release something).

Vengeance development progresses at a snail's pace.

The announced class refresh likewise.

And that's not even talking about the dearth of new story content players are experiencing.

ZOS will have to build something they can sell while trying to catch up on the backlog.

It's not just they made some wrong choices the past year. They're just way too slow with whatever they're doing. Like trying to pretend business as usual while running a skeleton crew.

This is a big question for me.

Obviously, we all wish we lived in a perfect world where ESO was 100% free and every new addition was 100% free and we never had to spend a single dime on the game and we just kept getting more and more stuff for nothing.
We do not live in that fantasy world.

So what - beyond Crown Crates - is ESO going to charge for? A lot of the big things they're talking about (the Class refresh, Crossplay, Difficulty options, PvP stuff) are ones that can't be monetized, so what will be monetized? How will ESO be able to support future growth... or even future sustaining of progress? I can't imagine ESO+ subs are going to be sufficient, unless they raise the price (and that won't go over well at all), especially now that there are a fair number of people who have dropped ESO+ specifically because of how this year went.

What has been monetized? New zones. New Classes. We've even seen Companions. New Dungeons/trials. And even the latter two have always been free with ESO+, so what would be our impetus to buy something? They'd need to keep giving some Chapter-esque zones that are exclusive to whatever they want to call the "season pass," or something like a new Class once in a while.
Or... this means they're planning to sell Passes via a series of Writhing Wall-esque FOMO events, which we saw how well that went...

This is really where I just don’t see them faring well with this game. Yes, they need to address the longstanding issues. I want them to. They have an uphill battle because of technical debt and the overall perception of how similar efforts turned out previously. But none of that makes money.

So if they’re not monetizing content, it’s going to be assets like skill styles, mounts, etc.. It seems there’s already a lot of fatigue around their monetization strategy in that regard, so I worry it’s just going to continue pushing people away. The reward structure is one of the biggest problems with the game. Making it worse won’t help.

If they don’t have the staff to release satisfactory content and polish the game concurrently, and MS won’t backfill any of the cut positions or provide investment funds, then it’s likely the game doesn’t have a long life span anymore.

I hope they can figure this out.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

So what - beyond Crown Crates - is ESO going to charge for? A lot of the big things they're talking about (the Class refresh, Crossplay, Difficulty options, PvP stuff) are ones that can't be monetized, so what will be monetized? How will ESO be able to support future growth... or even future sustaining of progress? I can't imagine ESO+ subs are going to be sufficient, unless they raise the price (and that won't go over well at all), especially now that there are a fair number of people who have dropped ESO+ specifically because of how this year went.

The crown store has more than crown crates in it. Also, they've released a few items that aren't available in the crown store. The house in Auridon, the anniversary bundle, and a mount. They could keep doing that - sell items (that usually bundle crowns with them) for attractive prices.

It's moot, because I expect they'll be selling a 2026 season (maybe more than one - spring/summer/fall/winter). I guess we'll find out on January 7th.

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Muizer wrote: »

My main concern regarding the value of any promises is that the ESO's dev team is evidently over-extended.
And lately that only has accelerated. I mean:

Scribing now looks like an orphaned feature

Subclassing was introduced prematurely, saddling the dev team with massive technical debt. (I can't believe that was a dev's decision. They must have been overruled / put under severe pressure to release something).

Vengeance development progresses at a snail's pace.

The announced class refresh likewise.

And that's not even talking about the dearth of new story content players are experiencing.

ZOS will have to build something they can sell while trying to catch up on the backlog.

It's not just they made some wrong choices the past year. They're just way too slow with whatever they're doing. Like trying to pretend business as usual while running a skeleton crew.

This is a big question for me.

Obviously, we all wish we lived in a perfect world where ESO was 100% free and every new addition was 100% free and we never had to spend a single dime on the game and we just kept getting more and more stuff for nothing.
We do not live in that fantasy world.

So what - beyond Crown Crates - is ESO going to charge for? A lot of the big things they're talking about (the Class refresh, Crossplay, Difficulty options, PvP stuff) are ones that can't be monetized, so what will be monetized? How will ESO be able to support future growth... or even future sustaining of progress? I can't imagine ESO+ subs are going to be sufficient, unless they raise the price (and that won't go over well at all), especially now that there are a fair number of people who have dropped ESO+ specifically because of how this year went.

What has been monetized? New zones. New Classes. We've even seen Companions. New Dungeons/trials. And even the latter two have always been free with ESO+, so what would be our impetus to buy something? They'd need to keep giving some Chapter-esque zones that are exclusive to whatever they want to call the "season pass," or something like a new Class once in a while.
Or... this means they're planning to sell Passes via a series of Writhing Wall-esque FOMO events, which we saw how well that went...

It’s not crazy to think that ESO is content rich enough that repairing and balancing current systems could bring in more players which means more revenue. In theory, they shouldn’t “have to” come up with new fancy shiny updates every 6 months. Sure, that’s what they’ll do cause they’re lost, but crown crates and FOMO Mythics isn’t what put ESO on the map.

They really need to change up their marketing, focus on increasing player count and the money would follow.

*edit* we’re in the age of streamer advertising, streamers literally sell games for companies. They had some really big names play the game but never gave them the time of day, now the only thing you hear about ZOS is negative. There’s like on average 500 people watching ESO on twitch. That’s crazy. Or, go read reviews on the Xbox store, ohhhh man. Just saying, they need to invest in new marketing cause the image on the internet isn’t attracting new players.

What frustrated me the most this year was with subclassing how the forums were full to bursting with players saying what would happen and it did, if players had been listened to a lot of pain points would not have happened.

So I’m really glad to hear that transparency will be the new way moving forward and I’m super excited for the pure class buffing to happen- please sort out spec bow… heavy nerf required

PvP is my bag with eso and has such potential if done right and made exciting. Some sort of progressive campaign not just a point scoring exercise would be nice. So look forward to hearing the ideas.

olsborg wrote: »

The best thing to happen would be removal of subclassing. Revert it completely.

Extremely unlikely they’d do this. More than likely they’ll just find some way to buff pure class players maybe with a debuff per class line you take outside of your class or they’ll buff you the more original class skill lines you keep.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

IMO, how you guys treat PTS feedback is going to be one of the most impactful ways to demonstrate "actions speak louder than words". If there's changes that people straight up don't like on PTS, pumping the brakes on that feature's launch is going to gain the whole company some credibility.

Conversely, if people are poking holes in combat changes, pointing out nasty bugs with content and events, and not one actual developer says anything, then it's going to sink the new leaderships's credibility and another year's content.

We are discussing a better feedback loop for PTS and a better framing for PTS. That way, we are getting the information needed, but we are also communicating what a proper timeline to see suggested fixes are for you, the player.

For example, changing a damage number is something that is realistic for a quick fix during a PTS cycle. Changing an animation for something is something that would take months, because we need to coordinate with various teams to work on the change. Sounds, VFX, SFX, art direction. So trying to give a better example of timeframe for changes is something we are looking at to provide better context around. That is in addition to working toward more back and forth communication.

There are quite a few things we need to change process wise to make this all happen, some of which you will learn about on Jan. 7, but we hope to have more details on PTS as a process and some of our changes within the first few months of 2026.

Thanks for the perspective, sounds like you guys are cooking up some improvements, can't wait to see.

For me, the biggest change - and I think that PTS is the focal point of this sentiment - is seeing you guys full-on pull something from release because it's not being well received. Especially if it's at point where you guys and the devs can't keep up on all the feedback. That's where you guys seem to get into these spirals that take patches to fix.

I understand there'd be a ripple effect to the pipelines for future content. But given where the game is, I'd rather see that conscientious approach than adherence to a pipeline delivering nothing but controversy.

We've had some big moments like U35 and U46 where some or all of the patch should've been postponed. I'm just hoping that that's ultimately the practice you guys will adopt. The rest of it sounds great, and is truly promising; I just worry it's for naught if that practice isn't adopted.

CAB_Life wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Destai wrote: »

IMO, how you guys treat PTS feedback is going to be one of the most impactful ways to demonstrate "actions speak louder than words". If there's changes that people straight up don't like on PTS, pumping the brakes on that feature's launch is going to gain the whole company some credibility.

Conversely, if people are poking holes in combat changes, pointing out nasty bugs with content and events, and not one actual developer says anything, then it's going to sink the new leaderships's credibility and another year's content.

We are discussing a better feedback loop for PTS and a better framing for PTS. That way, we are getting the information needed, but we are also communicating what a proper timeline to see suggested fixes are for you, the player.

For example, changing a damage number is something that is realistic for a quick fix during a PTS cycle. Changing an animation for something is something that would take months, because we need to coordinate with various teams to work on the change. Sounds, VFX, SFX, art direction. So trying to give a better example of timeframe for changes is something we are looking at to provide better context around. That is in addition to working toward more back and forth communication.

There are quite a few things we need to change process wise to make this all happen, some of which you will learn about on Jan. 7, but we hope to have more details on PTS as a process and some of our changes within the first few months of 2026.

So I think the obvious issue here is that it’s taken around 6 months (as per the last live discussion) for DK to be “refreshed” and even assuming the team refines that process and at best halves it, that’s one class per quarter, brining us to mid-2027 to have the classes all sorted by this new paradigm. However, development is a moving target, as you surely know, so by the time we’re on class #4, class #1 will already be falling or unbalanced in areas relative to whatever the new design methodology is.

Furthermore, half of the classes/ lines will be set up with the tank/ healer/ dps segmentation of the latter classes, whereas the first four will not. You’ve created an impossible mess and to be frank, ZOS haven’t demonstrated historically that they have the capacity to finish a system let alone polish it (scribing, subclassing, vampirism, the list goes on and on). The only way to balance classes effectively is to release all classes in one fell swoop (how Blizzard does it with seasonal or expansion patches)—but the team has already decided against this—then balance them against each other in that current meta with subsequent patches.

I don’t know what the numbers are internally, but they seem dismal from the sidelines, and you’re asking for far too much patience from an already exhausted player base. I shudder to think how many people will still be here after a year and 9 months of further tinkering. I’m trying to be positive, but there are clear and worrying signs of catastrophic failure.

Worrying indeed. On top of this Herculean task they've pushed themselves up against the wall with, there is content. We've done away with chapters. Chapters were a guarantee of a certain amount of content per year and that had certain value for money spent. My fear is that this class refresh and the other things from the end of year letter are going to be used as a way to explain the very small amount of content we get in 2026. People may be sick of the same old formula but at least we knew every year we would get a large zone full of quests, a new system, a trial, 6 WB, 6 delves, 2 PDs and maybe even a new companion. How much of that guaranteed content do you think seasons will bring us? Saying Zos needs to fix the game and right the ship is all well and good and of course needs to happen. But this is an mmorpg. The content can't slow to a crawl while it happens. Zos doesn't have that kind of juice anymore.