Communication Breakdown

SneaK · May 14

Not the Led Zeppelin song.

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

Do you all feel like your feedback is valued anymore?

This has been a very active PTS but within the last two weeks it seems like players are giving up, is that cause we’ve just realized we’re screaming into the abyss again?

Dracane · May 14

I felt keenly that there was a disconnect at times between what is largely deemed consensus and what ZoS claimed the consesus to be. Not at all times, but in notable situations.

For me this has been the first PTS I have followed and engaged with in years, and it's night and day. The communication and openeness and readiness to make changes can not be compared to what I have known for all of ESO's years. They did really well here.

Maybe it was even before in previous PTS'? But personally I can't see a return to the Old Ways. Though it also broke my heart seeing particularly the Werewolf and Necromancer players have something like genuine breakdowns in some threads. This was difficult to endure and also made me think that many voices have not been heard. Were I in charge, this would have touched me and urged me to reconsider some thing.

ToddIngram · May 14

SneaK wrote: »

Not the Led Zeppelin song.

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

Do you all feel like your feedback is valued anymore?

This has been a very active PTS but within the last two weeks it seems like players are giving up, is that cause we’ve just realized we’re screaming into the abyss again?

When did ZOS ever prioritize what the players want over what they want? Hello? Vengeance? Nobody wanted or asked for vengeance. ZOS did it anyway. IA is a disaster grind fest for no rewards. Nobody asked for ToT. Nobody asked for 2 team BG's. Nobody asked for seasons instead of chapters. ...I could go on all day with examples going back to 2014 when they did sort of listen to the community.

xylena · May 14

If ZOS gave the players what they asked for, the game would have:

no addons

no attack weaving

heavy attack builds top meta in everything everywhere

like 57 different empty Cyro campaigns and empty BGs queues

cast delay on every burst skill or damage shield

no dots at all

heals don't stack for pugs but they do for ball groups

entire accounts now faction locked

no limit on number of pet summons

god mode for me only

BattleAxe · May 14

xylena wrote: »

If ZOS gave the players what they asked for, the game would have:

no addons

no attack weaving

heavy attack builds top meta in everything everywhere

like 57 different empty Cyro campaigns and empty BGs queues

cast delay on every burst skill or damage shield

no dots at all

heals don't stack for pugs but they do for ball groups

entire accounts now faction locked

no limit on number of pet summons

god mode for me only

What most players here fail to realize those of us who are on here posting/commenting in the forums is a fraction of a fraction of players giving feedback. I agree.

SneaK · May 14

BattleAxe wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

If ZOS gave the players what they asked for, the game would have:

no addons

no attack weaving

heavy attack builds top meta in everything everywhere

like 57 different empty Cyro campaigns and empty BGs queues

cast delay on every burst skill or damage shield

no dots at all

heals don't stack for pugs but they do for ball groups

entire accounts now faction locked

no limit on number of pet summons

god mode for me only

What most players here fail to realize those of us who are on here posting/commenting in the forums is a fraction of a fraction of players giving feedback. I agree.

[snip]

If you look at this PTS forum compared to last updates PTS, the feedback loop has dwindled to almost a point of not being a loop but a knot. Just being honest, it’s very unnerving seeing it all shake out as a console player without access to the PTS. We will (all) ultimately just have to deal with whatever happens, but at least when ZOS is running a true feedback loop the changes that do happen seem to not be completely one sided or forced.
[edited for baiting]

LunaFlora · May 14

i only wish for communication regarding Housing feedback and requests.
the rest seems better than in the past.

xylena · May 14

SneaK wrote: »

[snip]

it’s very unnerving seeing it all shake out as a console player without access to the PTS

You dismiss me, you insult the devs, surely this will get you the feedback you desire.
[edited to remove quote]

SneaK · May 14

xylena wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

[snip]

it’s very unnerving seeing it all shake out as a console player without access to the PTS

You dismiss me, you insult the devs, surely this will get you the feedback you desire.

Not insulting ZOS at all, calling out a behavior isn’t an insult, and if they feel like it is then that is an actual problem.

And you can’t say your posts aren’t riddled with sarcasm. Of course, ZOS can’t change the game to match every random forum goers requests.
[edited to remove quote]

nightbringer1993 · May 14

Nevromancer players have been asking for answers for years.

What was the answer we got? Wait for the refresh! We have been asking for a refresh for years and all that we have had was nerfs and gameplay destruction. Winter 2027 is far to late and is an insult to those for paid for this class in 2019 and spent time and effort on their necro characters and are forced to drop their character for a character of another class simply because other classes are far stronger and playable.

We have been asking for the refresh to be moved to this year due to the fact that this”paid” class is destroyed but we have nothing.

As a result I cancelled my subscription and left the game due to all of this.

db0ssman · May 14

I would just say be careful what you wish for. I made my first comment on the forums yesterday since October of 2018. I mostly stopped playing because of changes that were made by ZoS due to complaints on the forums. Back then, people who did the weekly time trials frequently complained about how NB could both heal and dd so they pushed out tanks, healers, and non-nb dds from the competitive groups.

Zos responded by completely reworking NBs to separate out damage and healing. This completely crippled my playstyle (healing dungeons and adding utility by also dealing damage instead of buffing groups). I didn't want to relearn a completely new playstyle and at the time ZoS's view on healers seemed to be Templar or GTFO. So I left and didn't touch the game for more than two years and didn't play for more than a month at a time until around Jan of last year.

I couldn't tell you how many people leave the game when large shakeups like that happen, but I'd wager it's way more than the time trial sweats on the forums.Someone beat me to the punch up there, but if you get too caught up in the forums it's easy to forget that people on the forums are only a small part of the community as a whole. Of that small part only a small part vocally call for one thing or another. Trying to cater to that small group will push out a lot of people and unlike me, they will probably never come back. Just a little food for thought since the changes they make might not be the ones you want even when based on feedback.

SneaK · May 14

db0ssman wrote: »

I would just say be careful what you wish for. I made my first comment on the forums yesterday since October of 2018. I mostly stopped playing because of changes that were made by ZoS due to complaints on the forums. Back then, people who did the weekly time trials frequently complained about how NB could both heal and dd so they pushed out tanks, healers, and non-nb dds from the competitive groups.

Zos responded by completely reworking NBs to separate out damage and healing. This completely crippled my playstyle (healing dungeons and adding utility by also dealing damage instead of buffing groups). I didn't want to relearn a completely new playstyle and at the time ZoS's view on healers seemed to be Templar or GTFO. So I left and didn't touch the game for more than two years and didn't play for more than a month at a time until around Jan of last year.

I couldn't tell you how many people leave the game when large shakeups like that happen, but I'd wager it's way more than the time trial sweats on the forums.Someone beat me to the punch up there, but if you get too caught up in the forums it's easy to forget that people on the forums are only a small part of the community as a whole. Of that small part only a small part vocally call for one thing or another. Trying to cater to that small group will push out a lot of people and unlike me, they will probably never come back. Just a little food for thought since the changes they make might not be the ones you want even when based on feedback.

What I’ve seen mostly on this PTS session are nerfs, which is the opposite of what I thought to be the direction ZOS was headed. U50 touches every class with masteries, and there was a lot of hope in restoring some balance to pure classes through said masteries. But, what we’ve seen so far on this PTS, is nerf after nerf based on what feedback? Aside from WW, I can’t find anyone screaming nerf Necro and NB, so what feedback would those decisions be made from? It just seems odd, why broadcast hopeful changes then nerf them out of viability when no one asked them to? I mean they even commented in their livestream how awesome it was playing the Necro mastery that let you treat players like a corpse. But I guess that’s gone and no one even got to try it.

LittleBlueWraith · May 16

There are so many ways they can be getting "feedback;" we have no idea how much they're actually getting or from where. For all we know, for every forum post complaining about nightblades being weak, they could have 500 tickets complaining about nightblades being OP. And who knows what kind of nonsense they're getting over on their various socials. I can sympathize with having a dozen fires to put out at once... but at the same time, they're the ones who set them in the first place.

I'll be honest, I'm not 100% sure what's actually coming when Update 50 goes live. Maybe I'm just not familiar with how the PTS works, but there are so many things going on that they had to make a post to direct people to the appropriate feedback and bug report threads. If I understand correctly, not everything in the PTS "U50" is going to be in the live "U50," right? The plan was to stagger these changes and additions, was it not?

It's good that they want to get an early start collecting feedback on changes coming further down the road. I think the problem is they're not being super clear on what is being prioritized and actively worked on, and what is currently in the information gathering phase... unless they're actively working on everything, in which case the problem is they're spread way too thin. You have the PVP team working on Veterancy and there's a Werewolf team working on the refresh and also there's a team doing Class Mastery and oops now there's a problem with Werewolves and the new class passives and the PVP balance is out of whack and what do you MEAN everyone thinks nightblades suck and oh my god what's with this jackass over here obsessing over the Sheogorath questline*.

*It's me, I'm the jackass.

Gabriel_H · May 16

SneaK wrote: »

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

You seem to be conflating communication with capitulation.

ZOS have an intent for their game. When that intent is at odds with what the players want ZOS are explaining why - that's communication.

Players requesting features that would not violate the intent that ZOS has, and ZOS providing those features, isn't communication, it's collaboration to improve the game within the bounds that ZOS set.

The biggest problem ESO has always had is that ZOS never seemed to know what they wanted the game to be: An MMO, single player, hardcore etc. The new management seems to have a vision in mind, they want the game to be ESO.

SneaK · May 16

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

You seem to be conflating communication with capitulation.

ZOS have an intent for their game. When that intent is at odds with what the players want ZOS are explaining why - that's communication.

Players requesting features that would not violate the intent that ZOS has, and ZOS providing those features, isn't communication, it's collaboration to improve the game within the bounds that ZOS set.

The biggest problem ESO has always had is that ZOS never seemed to know what they wanted the game to be: An MMO, single player, hardcore etc. The new management seems to have a vision in mind, they want the game to be ESO.

I haven’t seen many demands or made any myself. What I am seeing is feedback about U50 pts with large buy-in on topics and ZOS is doing the opposite. And the explanations of the masteries are all over the place, it’s pretty obvious to see the masteries aren’t getting the attention they deserve, they’ve said themselves the refreshes are taking precedence. Which, sure, makes sense, but here we go again with half baked systems being rolled out and they won’t get touched for half a year. That’s not the “new leaf” strategy that was sold to us. And frankly speaking, it’s devalued the PTS forum, “we see your feedback on NB/Temp/Necro, but trust us - when they get updated in 2027 it’ll all make sense, in the meantime enjoy DK and *Ward*wolves”.

Wuuffyy · May 16

SneaK wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

You seem to be conflating communication with capitulation.

ZOS have an intent for their game. When that intent is at odds with what the players want ZOS are explaining why - that's communication.

Players requesting features that would not violate the intent that ZOS has, and ZOS providing those features, isn't communication, it's collaboration to improve the game within the bounds that ZOS set.

The biggest problem ESO has always had is that ZOS never seemed to know what they wanted the game to be: An MMO, single player, hardcore etc. The new management seems to have a vision in mind, they want the game to be ESO.

I haven’t seen many demands or made any myself. What I am seeing is feedback about U50 pts with large buy-in on topics and ZOS is doing the opposite. And the explanations of the masteries are all over the place, it’s pretty obvious to see the masteries aren’t getting the attention they deserve, they’ve said themselves the refreshes are taking precedence. Which, sure, makes sense, but here we go again with half baked systems being rolled out and they won’t get touched for half a year. That’s not the “new leaf” strategy that was sold to us. And frankly speaking, it’s devalued the PTS forum, “we see your feedback on NB/Temp/Necro, but trust us - when they get updated in 2027 it’ll all make sense, in the meantime enjoy DK and Sorcwolves”.

Warden wolf (Wardwolf?) will be more problematic with Signet.

Main problem with sorc wolf is the sustain passive which I imagine they’ll change in general (“problematic” as a whole) via a live patch or so (not here to argue if that’s ‘acceptable’ or not).

Sorry just saying, I’ll go back in my corner now.

SneaK · May 16

Wuuffyy wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

You seem to be conflating communication with capitulation.

ZOS have an intent for their game. When that intent is at odds with what the players want ZOS are explaining why - that's communication.

Players requesting features that would not violate the intent that ZOS has, and ZOS providing those features, isn't communication, it's collaboration to improve the game within the bounds that ZOS set.

The biggest problem ESO has always had is that ZOS never seemed to know what they wanted the game to be: An MMO, single player, hardcore etc. The new management seems to have a vision in mind, they want the game to be ESO.

I haven’t seen many demands or made any myself. What I am seeing is feedback about U50 pts with large buy-in on topics and ZOS is doing the opposite. And the explanations of the masteries are all over the place, it’s pretty obvious to see the masteries aren’t getting the attention they deserve, they’ve said themselves the refreshes are taking precedence. Which, sure, makes sense, but here we go again with half baked systems being rolled out and they won’t get touched for half a year. That’s not the “new leaf” strategy that was sold to us. And frankly speaking, it’s devalued the PTS forum, “we see your feedback on NB/Temp/Necro, but trust us - when they get updated in 2027 it’ll all make sense, in the meantime enjoy DK and Sorcwolves”.

Warden wolf (Wardwolf?) will be more problematic with Signet.

Main problem with sorc wolf is the sustain passive which I imagine they’ll change in general (“problematic” as a whole) via a live patch or so (not here to argue if that’s ‘acceptable’ or not).

Sorry just saying, I’ll go back in my corner now.

Edited to Wardwolves for the sake of saying Wardwolve

Gabriel_H · May 16

SneaK wrote: »

Gabriel_H wrote: »

SneaK wrote: »

Curious what others think, is ZOS slipping back into their old ways of knowing what we want more than us?

You seem to be conflating communication with capitulation.

ZOS have an intent for their game. When that intent is at odds with what the players want ZOS are explaining why - that's communication.

Players requesting features that would not violate the intent that ZOS has, and ZOS providing those features, isn't communication, it's collaboration to improve the game within the bounds that ZOS set.

The biggest problem ESO has always had is that ZOS never seemed to know what they wanted the game to be: An MMO, single player, hardcore etc. The new management seems to have a vision in mind, they want the game to be ESO.

I haven’t seen many demands or made any myself. What I am seeing is feedback about U50 pts with large buy-in on topics and ZOS is doing the opposite. And the explanations of the masteries are all over the place, it’s pretty obvious to see the masteries aren’t getting the attention they deserve, they’ve said themselves the refreshes are taking precedence. Which, sure, makes sense, but here we go again with half baked systems being rolled out and they won’t get touched for half a year. That’s not the “new leaf” strategy that was sold to us. And frankly speaking, it’s devalued the PTS forum, “we see your feedback on NB/Temp/Necro, but trust us - when they get updated in 2027 it’ll all make sense, in the meantime enjoy DK and *Ward*wolves”.

ZOS said from the get go they weren't sure what they were going to do with masteries and there would likely be umpteen changes to them over a long period of time.

i.e. they have already communicated everything you just complained they weren't communicating about.

Turtle_Bot · May 17

xylena wrote: »

If ZOS gave the players what they asked for, the game would have:

no addons

no attack weaving

heavy attack builds top meta in everything everywhere

like 57 different empty Cyro campaigns and empty BGs queues

cast delay on every burst skill or damage shield

no dots at all

heals don't stack for pugs but they do for ball groups

entire accounts now faction locked

no limit on number of pet summons

god mode for me only

you forgot to include:

Sorcerer deleted from the game (and even then, sorcerer will somehow still be too OP and need even more nerfs).

Nightblade comes with everything in the game already completed/unlocked and a "god mode plus" that beats your god mode

FlopsyPrince · May 17

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

If ZOS gave the players what they asked for, the game would have:

no addons

no attack weaving

heavy attack builds top meta in everything everywhere

like 57 different empty Cyro campaigns and empty BGs queues

cast delay on every burst skill or damage shield

no dots at all

heals don't stack for pugs but they do for ball groups

entire accounts now faction locked

no limit on number of pet summons

god mode for me only

you forgot to include:

Sorcerer deleted from the game (and even then, sorcerer will somehow still be too OP and need even more nerfs).

Nightblade comes with everything in the game already completed/unlocked and a "god mode plus" that beats your god mode

This is silly.

Yes, some will say things that are not feasible, but listening to what vocal players want has value. Feedback should be weighed and considered. I still don't see full evidence that happens. I do see that more communication is coming out now than at times in the past, but no specific compelling evidence that feedback to them is even strongly considered, other than claims that "harder overland content" is very needed according to some.

I remain a skeptic on the last part, but time will tell on it. This doesn't mean they don't do anything with player wants/desires, but the connection between the desire and direct comments on it by ZOS is very limited.

Malyore · 12:52AM

I don't know exactly how to describe it, but compared to the beginning of the year it feels like everyone (ZOS and players) has lost their enthusiasm.

Communication has definitely been reeled back from what they opened the year with. It's not as bad as "old" ZOS. Yet the outright intentional neglect from mods about certain topics is very real and visible too.

I wonder if they would benefit from an additional intermediary. Someone who is below Kevin and not as as attached/identified with ZOS, yet could act as an officially recognized voice on the forums and communicate with players, mods, and devs.

Someone who would say things like:

"Thanks for pointing this out, I'll pass this information along to the appropriate teams."

"The team says they are aware of this visual bug, however they currently need to prioritize certain gameplay issues first before they can work on visual bugs. I've got it set on my calendar to check back in on the team's status of this at the end of the month– if there is any change by then I will post an update as a reply in this thread."

"Kevin is currently assigned on separate projects and may not be able to chime in on this topic anytime soon. I will see what I can do from my end though. I'll reach out to some folks and try to report back to this thread within two weeks on whether or not I have anything substantial."

"Just wanted to let you know that your followup asking for an update has been seen and is not being ignored. The teams are still assessing the situation and it may be some time before an update can be provided. Rest assured though that it is currently under the teams attention."

"The devs report that such a feature is not currently within their scope at this time, however they have added this to their list of feedback and may reassess it in the future"

"Thank you all for the engaging discussions. I will be bringing a summary of this thread to the combat team. I currently have this as a list of player concerns, wishes, opposing ideas, and suggestions: [___]. Just to note, the team may not be able to address every point of feedback, but staff and myself will still be watching this thread as it continues to develop."

"Hi all. This thread seems to be outdated, as it was originally posted in 20XX and discusses the following information: "___" As of ESO update #, this information is no longer accurate. As such, this thread is going to be closed in the aim to keep discussions relevant to the current state of the game. I recognize there are still other relevant points to discuss for this topic though, so a new thread has been created (here) for the subject."

"I'll check on this. I don't yet have any information to provide or a timeline on when I'll be able to update you, but I wanted to let you know it's been heard and I'm looking into it."

Or something like that...

I'd even go so far as to have a Meet the Mod pinned thread which contains a small introduction from each mod, a little about themselves if they'd like, and briefly discuss what their primary role is (whether things like pass things along to the devs, handle support tickets, monitor code of conduct, move threads to other topics, close threads, etc) and even maybe include what their common office days are, as to share that there may be some stretch of days that tags for that specific mod are not seen.
As it is, there are so many @ZOS tags and it's difficult to know who to tag unless you've just been closely watching the forums for some time.

Turtle_Bot · 2:26AM

FlopsyPrince wrote: »

Turtle_Bot wrote: »

xylena wrote: »

If ZOS gave the players what they asked for, the game would have:

no addons

no attack weaving

heavy attack builds top meta in everything everywhere

like 57 different empty Cyro campaigns and empty BGs queues

cast delay on every burst skill or damage shield

no dots at all

heals don't stack for pugs but they do for ball groups

entire accounts now faction locked

no limit on number of pet summons

god mode for me only

you forgot to include:

Sorcerer deleted from the game (and even then, sorcerer will somehow still be too OP and need even more nerfs).

Nightblade comes with everything in the game already completed/unlocked and a "god mode plus" that beats your god mode

This is silly.

Yes, some will say things that are not feasible, but listening to what vocal players want has value. Feedback should be weighed and considered. I still don't see full evidence that happens. I do see that more communication is coming out now than at times in the past, but no specific compelling evidence that feedback to them is even strongly considered, other than claims that "harder overland content" is very needed according to some.

I remain a skeptic on the last part, but time will tell on it. This doesn't mean they don't do anything with player wants/desires, but the connection between the desire and direct comments on it by ZOS is very limited.

Glad you understand how silly that "feedback" was (as it was intended to be since it was directly quoting similar silly feedback that we have seen countless times on the forums), but those 2 comments are also things I have seen in the past on the forums, mostly from very vocal NB mains (not exclusive to NB mains, but they are typically the ones with those specific views) and pre-U36/37, such sentiment was far closer to the norm on these forums (especially combat/balance/PvP sections) than anyone will ever admit.

I will say again (and have mentioned this many times on other threads), ZOS has been much better about listening to player feedback and weeding out the fluff/nonsense and while not perfect and still needs improving, they have been much better about communicating on a lot of things and have been heading in the right direction at least.

Malyore wrote: »

I don't know exactly how to describe it, but compared to the beginning of the year it feels like everyone (ZOS and players) has lost their enthusiasm.

Communication has definitely been reeled back from what they opened the year with. It's not as bad as "old" ZOS. Yet the outright intentional neglect from mods about certain topics is very real and visible too.

It will take time, the previous communication levels (non-existent) and disconnect between team/product/vision and customers, was so bad and was like that for so long that it will probably take years to get things on track across every subject. The new team is definitely trying though, as seen by the many QoL changes this patch and last, resulting from ZOS setting up a team to directly address QoL/concerns/etc. so give them time, keep raising issues and giving constructive feedback and have some patience with them. It takes significantly longer to undo damage than it does to cause it.

ZhuJiuyin · 8:54AM

Anyone who has experienced U35 or U46 knows that the current communication model is more efficient and better than before.

The developers did not comply with some players' requests to enable a super god mode for NB or delete all data related to Sorc does not mean there is currently a communication breakdown.