PTS Feedback Survey for Update 49

ZOS_Kevin · March 2

Hi All! Now that the PTS cycle has been over for a few weeks now, we would like to get some feedback from you on how it went. As a reminder, this was the first PTS cycle under our (hopefully) improved communication plan. This was an effort to address past feedback on communication and get more of your actionable gameplay feedback in later PTS cycles for testing.

You will be directed to the survey here. The goal here is to see what we (ZOS) did well and where we can improve. The survey is estimated to take 3-4 minutes, but that will also vary based on your responses.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Update 49 PTS and/or in conversations around Update 49 PTS. And extra thanks in advance for participating in this survey!

tomofhyrule · March 2

Thank you for this!

I will say that this was unquestionably the best PTS cycle we've had with all of the communication. I'm very excited to see what we get with the next round.

I just hope that U50's PTS (and beyond!) will show that the last cycle was the new normal, not just a one-off.

ZOS_Kevin · March 2

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Thank you for this!

I will say that this was unquestionably the best PTS cycle we've had with all of the communication. I'm very excited to see what we get with the next round.

I just hope that U50's PTS (and beyond!) will show that the last cycle was the new normal, not just a one-off.

That is the goal!

Erickson9610 · March 2

I was surprised by how quickly certain feedback was commented on by the developers, but I felt that ZOS didn't elaborate as much as they could've.

In particular, ZOS responded to both of my threads regarding questionable situations in which you could use Skill Scrolls, such as when you are in Werewolf form or when you are wielding Volendrung, both of which put you on a special skill bar that you cannot slot the abilities from those Skill Scrolls on. However, ZOS never elaborated on why special skill bars should prevent you from using Skill Scrolls, when they would otherwise function normally.

It feels like an arbitrary restriction and the lack of dialogue between ZOS and players regarding it is concerning.

DeathandDebauchery · March 2

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! Now that the PTS cycle has been over for a few weeks now, we would like to get some feedback from you on how it went. As a reminder, this was the first PTS cycle under our (hopefully) improved communication plan. This was an effort to address past feedback on communication and get more of your actionable gameplay feedback in later PTS cycles for testing.

You will be directed to the survey here. The goal here is to see what we (ZOS) did well and where we can improve. The survey is estimated to take 3-4 minutes, but that will also vary based on your responses.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Update 49 PTS and/or in conversations around Update 49 PTS. And extra thanks in advance for participating in this survey!

Thanks for this! Just a thought that you may want to include a short, open ended, optional answer question at the end either now or in the future. For product and communication feedback, giving people even 2-5 sentences to share some additional thoughts can often result in useful anecdotal information.

RedJohn_COF · March 2

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! Now that the PTS cycle has been over for a few weeks now, we would like to get some feedback from you on how it went. As a reminder, this was the first PTS cycle under our (hopefully) improved communication plan. This was an effort to address past feedback on communication and get more of your actionable gameplay feedback in later PTS cycles for testing.

You will be directed to the survey here. The goal here is to see what we (ZOS) did well and where we can improve. The survey is estimated to take 3-4 minutes, but that will also vary based on your responses.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Update 49 PTS and/or in conversations around Update 49 PTS. And extra thanks in advance for participating in this survey!

For obvious reasons my feedback isn't as good, because it seems very likely to me, that I won't be able to even play ESO starting on the 9th.

I didn't get ANY response whats so ever: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/687476/pts-update-49-critical-error-unknown#latest

I do agree though that the overall communication has been pretty good. And I do fully understand that you guys can't read / answer all threads.

spartaxoxo · March 2

I wish that saying you're a console player and couldn't participate in pts itself didn't end the survey.

I had thoughts about communication that went well and communication that felt like the ball was very hard dropped and would have liked a place to communicate that where the devs would see it.

This just makes console players even further shut out of shaping the game than they already are. I may not have been able to test out bugs or give feedback on how fun or difficult something is. But, for example, I'm perfectly capable of having an opinion on stuff like the Tel-Var limit, which doesn't require testing. And I did try to participate in the communication part of things where I could even if it is much more limited than people who play PC.

ZOS_Kevin · March 2

RedJohn_COF wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! Now that the PTS cycle has been over for a few weeks now, we would like to get some feedback from you on how it went. As a reminder, this was the first PTS cycle under our (hopefully) improved communication plan. This was an effort to address past feedback on communication and get more of your actionable gameplay feedback in later PTS cycles for testing.

You will be directed to the survey here. The goal here is to see what we (ZOS) did well and where we can improve. The survey is estimated to take 3-4 minutes, but that will also vary based on your responses.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Update 49 PTS and/or in conversations around Update 49 PTS. And extra thanks in advance for participating in this survey!

For obvious reasons my feedback isn't as good, because it seems very likely to me, that I won't be able to even play ESO starting on the 9th.

I didn't get ANY response whats so ever: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/687476/pts-update-49-critical-error-unknown#latest

I do agree though that the overall communication has been pretty good. And I do fully understand that you guys can't read / answer all threads.

We'll escalate this on our side, but if you haven't already, please place a ticket in for this issue. If you have, please share the ticket number. We'll include it as a reference point for the team. Also including system specs may help.

WerewolfMoonHunter · March 2

Done ^^ And thank you for all this hard work you do for us guys. I truly love ESO and I want to see it continue and expand TES lore in the future ^^

ESO_Nightingale · March 2

tomofhyrule wrote: »

Thank you for this!

I will say that this was unquestionably the best PTS cycle we've had with all of the communication. I'm very excited to see what we get with the next round.

I just hope that U50's PTS (and beyond!) will show that the last cycle was the new normal, not just a one-off.

Same exact thoughts here.

Emeratis · March 2

I filled out the survey just now and I appreciate it but I wish there was a text box to explain/elaborate more. While this is the best pts cycle we've ever had for communication, I feel there was still a night and day different gap between the responses to what I like to call "cozy gaming" issues versus others. Class refresh and mechanical things got a lot more response than housing, lorebooks, and other requests. While that's okay for now, if it continues to happen it shows a problem in priorities and I think it should be called out early before it becomes a recurring problem.

I don't want to be overly critical and I am aware it could be just getting used to things and the new transition period but I am asking for more response, threads, and insight into the parts of the game that have to do with housing, exploration, collecting, etc because that matters to players too.

code65536 · March 3

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

We'll escalate this on our side, but if you haven't already, please place a ticket in for this issue. If you have, please share the ticket number. We'll include it as a reference point for the team. Also including system specs may help.

Oof. The qcd11xarm64 in the screenshot of the linked thread says it all: it's a Snapdragon system using ARM instead of x86-64, so this is a hardware/emulation issue.

Back on the main topic though, I've been testing every PTS since 2015, and this is the most responsive cycle ever. Thanks. However, I don't like that it's now 4 weeks and I also don't like how long there is between the end PTS and Live. Yea, I get that this is due to console-PC alignment. But as a PC user, it feels like a downgrade, where the policies of platforms that we don't use are affecting us in a very visible way.

Destai · March 3

I’m beyond impressed with the communication this PTS. My only outstanding concern is whether you guys would pull a release if the PTS is very poor. Like if we have another U35 or something similar. But that’s a minor concern now.

ZhuJiuyin · March 3

This PTS was undoubtedly the best since u35. However, there are still a few points I think could be improved.

1. Class Rework: The New-DK was great, but the sudden removal of poison damage caught some players off guard, although the overall reaction wasn't strong. This does raise concerns about whether other classes will suddenly be limited to certain gameplay or elements, especially Warden and Sorc, which already have three themes. Perhaps the official team could have posted a dedicated thread for discussion beforehand, or held a vote (please don't use the forum's voting system; the inability to edit choices is terrible). This might have satisfied more people.

2. PTS Schedule: Due to the future shift to simultaneous updates for PC and console servers, this PTS was shortened, and players were forgotten to be informed beforehand. Again, given the better communication quality of this PTS compared to previous ones, most players were understanding, but such mistakes should still be avoided. Furthermore, since the official team has already mentioned that the new release model will make new patch releases more flexible, why not release them in batches? Wouldn't it be better to release the completed parts first, while continuing testing and delaying the release of other features, such as the problematic Tamriel Tome, by 1-2 weeks, while providing some compensation, such as a free piece of furniture? Moreover, more testing is always better than less.

3. Do the developers understand how damage is calculated?: During the PTS, Molten Whip was advertised as granting a 15% damage buff to monsters, but it only actually increased damage by 15%. This ultimately led to a decrease in overall New-DK damage, and the developers needed to investigate to find the cause. However, experienced players could immediately see the reason for the problem, because the "damage increase" was diluted further due to the damage calculation formula, yet the developers seemed unaware of this. This raises concerns that if these misunderstandings are already deeply ingrained in the main table controlling the overall game balance, how many other incorrect assumptions have distorted the table's output in the past? There seems to be no official response to this yet.

Personofsecrets · March 3

This is my feedback regarding design team communication during this PTS cycle.

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/688789/this-is-what-they-didn-039-t-listen-means#latest

Personofsecrets · March 3

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

This PTS was undoubtedly the best since u35. However, there are still a few points I think could be improved.

1. Class Rework: This does raise concerns about whether other classes will suddenly be limited to certain gameplay or elements, especially Warden and Sorc, which already have three themes.

Don't worry. DK is the only class that constantly get's picked on and without anyone standing up for the class.

Renato90085 · March 3

I'm so glad that a free heroism pots Parse Test Server(PTS) has become a real Public Test Server(PTS).

ZhuJiuyin · March 3

ZhuJiuyin wrote: »

3. Do the developers understand how damage is calculated?: During the PTS, Molten Whip was advertised as granting a 15% damage buff to monsters, but it only actually increased damage by 15%. This ultimately led to a decrease in overall New-DK damage, and the developers needed to investigate to find the cause. However, experienced players could immediately see the reason for the problem, because the "damage increase" was diluted further due to the damage calculation formula, yet the developers seemed unaware of this. This raises concerns that if these misunderstandings are already deeply ingrained in the main table controlling the overall game balance, how many other incorrect assumptions have distorted the table's output in the past? There seems to be no official response to this yet.

Additional information: Developers also seem to have similar misunderstandings regarding maximum resource/weapon and spell damage. For example, this applies to Fighters Guild's Slayer/Magles Guild's Magicka Controller, or older versions of Bound Armaments, Aegis's 8% maximum resource / Grim Focus's 400 Weapon and Spell Damage ,or Set Bonuses 129 Weapon and Spell Damage/1096 maximum resource.

Any experienced DPS player would prioritize Weapon and Spell Damage over maximum resources. This was raised by many when Blood Magic was changed, pointing out that in the current version where resource recovery isn't a concern, maximum resources are weak; even 10% maximum resources have less impact on DPS than 300 or 5% Weapon and Spell Damage.

twisttop138 · March 3

The way the PTS was handled this round is a gold standard. I won't say it couldn't be better but it certainly was the best it's ever been in my memory. Now, @ZOS_Kevin I just need you to call over to fallout 76 and maybe setup a class for them.

aetherix8 · March 3

Thank you for this survey—another piece of evidence that you are seriously working on improving communication, and this is really needed to restore trust.

There isn’t much room in the survey to develop ideas, so I will post some remarks here.
First of all, I liked that different formats were used to communicate with players (weekly summaries, polls, updates in threads, etc). I also appreciated the speed with which some of the concerns were acknowledged and addressed. Overall, it was exciting to participate in this PTS cycle precisely because of this lively exchange between the devs and the base. The awareness that players' suggestions have an actual impact on the game's shape is a very strong incentive to participate in the testing. (If only PTS were more user-friendly; please give us a cool PTS Hall fully equipped with stations, assistants, munduses, etc.).

It would be awesome to see your effort in improving communication, transparency and flexibility more often beyond the PTS cycle. This kind of communication is inspiring, but it also highlights that there are some topics where these values are sometimes severely lacking, e.g., missing voiceovers. It would be better to read the vaguest of statements from time to time than nothing at all, IMHO.

RedJohn_COF · March 3

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

RedJohn_COF wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! Now that the PTS cycle has been over for a few weeks now, we would like to get some feedback from you on how it went. As a reminder, this was the first PTS cycle under our (hopefully) improved communication plan. This was an effort to address past feedback on communication and get more of your actionable gameplay feedback in later PTS cycles for testing.

You will be directed to the survey here. The goal here is to see what we (ZOS) did well and where we can improve. The survey is estimated to take 3-4 minutes, but that will also vary based on your responses.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Update 49 PTS and/or in conversations around Update 49 PTS. And extra thanks in advance for participating in this survey!

For obvious reasons my feedback isn't as good, because it seems very likely to me, that I won't be able to even play ESO starting on the 9th.

I didn't get ANY response whats so ever: https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/687476/pts-update-49-critical-error-unknown#latest

I do agree though that the overall communication has been pretty good. And I do fully understand that you guys can't read / answer all threads.

We'll escalate this on our side, but if you haven't already, please place a ticket in for this issue. If you have, please share the ticket number. We'll include it as a reference point for the team. Also including system specs may help.

Thank you.

I didn't put in a ticket, because I kinda thought for PTS the forums is the way to go. I have now basically just said the same thing in the ticket as I have in the thread and added the picture from the dxdiag: #: 260303-001637

Main main issue is that the game isn't even starting anymore, so I can't even change graphics settings or anything.

code65536 · 12:44AM

RedJohn_COF wrote: »

Main main issue is that the game isn't even starting anymore, so I can't even change graphics settings or anything.

@RedJohn_COF You could always make a backup of and then delete UserSettings.txt. Removing that file will reset graphics settings to default, if you suspect that the crashing is due to a non-default graphics setting that you have.

However, since your system is using a Qualcomm Snapdragon CPU (and GPU), my guess is that this is a general hardware compatibility issue that slipped under the radar because of how few people use ARM systems for gaming.

shadoza · 1:08AM

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All! Now that the PTS cycle has been over for a few weeks now, we would like to get some feedback from you on how it went. As a reminder, this was the first PTS cycle under our (hopefully) improved communication plan. This was an effort to address past feedback on communication and get more of your actionable gameplay feedback in later PTS cycles for testing.

You will be directed to the survey here. The goal here is to see what we (ZOS) did well and where we can improve. The survey is estimated to take 3-4 minutes, but that will also vary based on your responses.

Thanks to everyone who participated in Update 49 PTS and/or in conversations around Update 49 PTS. And extra thanks in advance for participating in this survey!

I think communication could be better. Reddit and Twitch are toxic so I use neither. Reading about the PTS issues from the web was confusing as details were omitted. Trying to understand what is being change from reading the fora was futile as it seemed the statements were directly related to an individual's post.

I feel that not all players are not being regarded with the same level of seriousness. Whether it is personal favorites, GMs of large guilds, min/max-er bloggers, steamers . . . they seem to get more attention then a simple player. Group players are treated with more care than solo players in my opinion. For this, I feel that some players might be wasting their time testing and reporting.

Not sure why you think age is an important question. Perhaps you cannot appreciate those players who were there when online gaming was invented, and crashed, reinvented, crashed again, then revived. Perhaps you don't care to hear from the up and coming gamers because they are too young to have a large disposable income. Maybe you are targeting a specific demographic and disregard anyone not fitting into that market. If the later is the the truth, tell us now so those you are not targeting can stop supporting a game that doesn't consider them important. If none are true, remove the age question and stop kicking people that don't want to answer.

I would have and did recommend that other players check out the PTS. Then a gaming friend did on my word. They really enjoyed the experience until the Night Market issue fell down. That player became frustrated with the difficulty and the concept that it was for group players and not going to accommodate solo players. They ended not only leaving the PTS, they stopped subbing, and stopped playing the game. I will not recommend the PTS or the game to anyone at this point.

Sadras · 2:26PM

I filled out the survey, but it was missing a free space to elaborate.
Overall I'm ambiguous about it.
While there has been more communication overall, it seemed highly selective by topic. While certain combat and class topics got high engagement (which is a good thing), various concerns on the battle pass system went entirely ignored, for instance, leaving me to surmise that feedback in that direction was not actually wanted at all or nobody is able to clarify the issues at hand. Meanwhile, feedback on the Night Market's difficulty just got the same token response each time, which I suppose is fair if the feedback is simply rejected, and at least it's an answer unlike what the battle pass/monetisation questions got. But if minds are already made up in the dev team, the request to keep bringing in feedback on the issue rings hollow.

code65536 · 3:16PM

Sadras wrote: »

Meanwhile, feedback on the Night Market's difficulty just got the same token response each time, which I suppose is fair if the feedback is simply rejected

They did respond, in the live stream: they're going to nerf the trash packs.

They also stated that they are cautious about changing difficulty because the PTS population isn't the live population. The number and types of players on PTS isn't necessarily reflective of live, and ultimately, the endless back and forth arguing between players in the thread doesn't help paint a clear picture of what the difficulty balance is really going to be (edit: that bit about players arguing is my own personal commentary): the only thing that can provide a clear picture is seeing what happens on live.

Okay, maybe they could've written that down for people who didn't catch the stream, but I believe that they did reasonably address the difficulty question to the extent that it is possible with the limited data that PTS can provide. It's why I largely ignored the constant back-and-forth bickering about difficulty in that thread: let's just see how it all shakes out on live, because, again, the types and numbers of people who do PTS is not that reflective of the live experience.

Sordidfairytale · 5:14PM

Thank you for the survey. Please set it up so the link for the survey opens a new window because your survey service doesn't have a back to this space button.

Additional feedback. Would there be any problem with removing all the coffers of gear and instead giving the template characters a full stickerbook, so they can just use a transmute station to recreate the gear they want to test.

twisttop138 · 6:13PM

code65536 wrote: »

Sadras wrote: »

Meanwhile, feedback on the Night Market's difficulty just got the same token response each time, which I suppose is fair if the feedback is simply rejected

They did respond, in the live stream: they're going to nerf the trash packs.

They also stated that they are cautious about changing difficulty because the PTS population isn't the live population. The number and types of players on PTS isn't necessarily reflective of live, and ultimately, the endless back and forth arguing between players in the thread doesn't help paint a clear picture of what the difficulty balance is really going to be (edit: that bit about players arguing is my own personal commentary): the only thing that can provide a clear picture is seeing what happens on live.

Okay, maybe they could've written that down for people who didn't catch the stream, but I believe that they did reasonably address the difficulty question to the extent that it is possible with the limited data that PTS can provide. It's why I largely ignored the constant back-and-forth bickering about difficulty in that thread: let's just see how it all shakes out on live, because, again, the types and numbers of people who do PTS is not that reflective of the live experience.

This is really the only way to do it. That thread became a circus. Not to mention, only a handful of players from PC got to try it. It's responsible to hold off on changes till everyone gets to attack the content.

Malyore · 9:17PM

I'm not sure if I missed options for discussion in the survey due to selecting the option that I didn't participate in the PTS-- due to being a console player. I participated as much as I could on the forums and watched Dev content and community content. There wasn't much feedback in the survey to reflect this. All it asked me was if I'm interested in doing the pts in the future. Answering that doesn't really reflect anything on ZOS new pts format.

React · 11:15PM

Filled the survey, but just wanted to confirm here that the communication and feedback processes on this PTS cycle have felt better than any other PTS cycle I've participated in during my 6+ years on PC now.

It was great to see the daily developer posts, the weekly recaps talking about what feedback is being considered for the next cycle, etc. It makes me more willing to participate in the PTS and provide feedback knowing that for the first time ever it might not be falling on deaf ears.

valenwood_vegan · 11:24PM

First of all, I want to state clearly that it felt like there was a real effort at better communication and a new willingness to respond to issues raised by the players during PTS and adjust.

However, the communication felt rather selective - it was *great* for a few key topics. It was "better than before" I suppose for a few other topics. And some others were met with the usual silence, or even broken promises of further engagement.

I also have concerns that the PTS process is just too short and sees too little engagement to properly test something like night market, for example. It simply doesn't accurately represent the level of activity, and the average skill level and interests of the playerbase, that exists on the live server. I do not have a solution for this issue, but just wanted to raise it.

Overall, this PTS was better than ever before (in my memory; I have not been here from the very beginning), with room for improvement. I hope zos can follow through and keep this up for the next PTS, and look at whether they can expand the communication and dev interaction to topics that perhaps weren't pre-selected or anticipated in advance to draw a lot of player attention.