Official Polls should be made as ingame surveys and nothing else

amiiegee · January 24

@ZOS_GinaBruno
@ZOS_KaiSchober

While i think everyone agree´s it´s a good sign you try to get in touch with your community and sense for the community´s mood with poll´s like this
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688010/poll-pvp-hot-stacking-options-for-update-49#latest - i think it´s a big mistake to limit this to the minority of the playerbase, who are using the Forum.

The Forum audience is quiet small.
Youre asking for opinions for such a drastical change, some will hate it some will love it.
But if you want opinions or a good indicator for what the community want´s - there leads no way beyond asking the community.

This time it be a change some of us prefere but next time the 1% of playerbase might ''decices'' about a topic wich would have a huge impact to PVE aswell and people get fed up and angry.

I do appreciate the communication as everyone else does and it´s good youre asking for opinions but please dont ONLY just take forum polls into consideration and do actuall survey´s about important changes (with probably big backlash, like your planned chance) to prevent mistakes and more people quitting the game.

SummersetCitizen · January 24

Gina also shared it on Reddit. It isn’t just shared on the forums.

AlexanderDeLarge · January 24

Old School Runescape has community polls in game and Jagex shapes a portion of their development around it. There's been some decisions I disagree with, but overall it's been a pretty positive thing that more games should mimic.

https://secure.runescape.com/m=news/introducing-poll-system-improvements?oldschool=1

The game still has a creative vision and the developers will stick to their guns as needed, but if they're flexible on something or conflicted between two choices, why not put it up for a vote?

spartaxoxo · January 24

I think this would also be a good way to get console player feedback on PTS things. Console is severely underrepresented on the forums in this, and most, games because it requires a different device to play and browse. So a lot of people don't know or bother with them but they usually still have opinions on the state of the game.

fizzybeef · January 24

SummersetCitizen wrote: »

Gina also shared it on Reddit. It isn’t just shared on the forums.

With all respect, even the reddit community is quiet niche

ChaoticWings3 · January 24

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I think this would also be a good way to get console player feedback on PTS things. Console is severely underrepresented on the forums in this, and most, games because it requires a different device to play and browse. So a lot of people don't know or bother with them but they usually still have opinions on the state of the game.

I agree on this. I play on console, but I know the majority on here play on PC. Some sort of in-game poll or even something that brings up the browser installed on the console to bring up the poll for like 2 screens or something would probably bring in more data for these kinds of things. Honestly, I didn't even know about a poll involving the season announcement until I saw a youtube video discussing the seasons.

robwolf666 · January 24

I would personally find a popup during gameplay saying "please do this survey" annoying and would ignore it.
I'm there to play, not do surveys. Email is fine imo.

Destai · January 24

I’m not against in-game surveys, but that alone would require another development effort and have defects that need to be addressed.

I overall like the idea of forum-based surveys. The main challenge I see is the low population of people on the forums. I am under the impression most people won’t come here for a variety of reasons. They can’t because they don’t have an account, have been banned, or simply don’t want to deal with the community here.

Still, it’s good to direct people to one official place, keeps feedback focused.

JeroenB · January 24

I feel surveys should be in the forums or on the ZOS website, but on whatever platform they are, there should be a news post in the launcher informing players that the survey exists. Then it doesn't ultimately matter so much whether the survey is in the forums or the website or Reddit or wherever else. (As long as it is usable without a Reddit, Facebook, Google, etc. account.)

(I am aware that some players choose to circumvent the launcher, which is fine, but that is a conscious choice to skip a major channel for official developer messaging, so it is already up to those players to keep up with the news some other way.)

Tandor · January 24

robwolf666 wrote: »

I would personally find a popup during gameplay saying "please do this survey" annoying and would ignore it.
I'm there to play, not do surveys. Email is fine imo.

It doesn't have to be ingame, just on the launcher. If you can opt out of it then there's no reason to object to it.

tomofhyrule · January 24

I think a part of this is also the fact that the thing that's being polled is literally just a stopgap solution and not a permanent answer. So it's not something that will affect the game for an extended period.

After all, consider the surveys we did get: the Class one, the Subclassing one - how long were those out and available? How long did it take to get feedback and implement it?

Versus the one they put on the PTS forum was literally "Hey, we saw that the answer we were putting in as not popular so we're walking it back, but we want to know if you want a softer version of that as a stopgap until we get the real solution, or if we should just leave it completely alone until the solution is ready. We need to know by Wednesday."

While yes, that means you don't get many eyes on it, the thing they're asking is literally something that a) is most relevant to the testers who gave the feedback from the initial thing, b) limited since there's no time to do much else, c) limited since it only affects a small subset of the population, d) limited since it's intended as a temporary fix in the first place, and e) an answer is needed within a few days. It's not like this poll is going to shape the direction of the game for the next ten years.

Cooperharley · January 24

Agreed! In game polls would be much more representative of the playerbase at large rather than here.

Vaqual · January 25

Everyone has a mail account linked to their game. That is the easiest, 0 UI changes required solution to reach people outside of the forums. But at the same time, it is pretty straightforward that the Dev interactions happen on the forums. So anyone willing to participate may as well log in here. It isn't like this is an actually democratic process, there is no right to decide anything by vote, outcomes are not enforced and voices are not equal.

Can the distribution of opinions be determined more accurately through wider screening?
Yes.
Is the increased resolution on the data/feedback necessarily more effective for the Dev process?
No.

I have seen single posts that were more valuable than several hundred votes on a poll. And most polls that are posted by users here are for 'Agree'-farming and for baiting people into a topic.