Can you 2 just switch to DMs? Your bickering brings nothing new to this conversation. I think we are all just guessing before we get affirmative direct answers from the people in charge. Infighting does not bring that any closer. Who's viewpoint feels more right or wrong.. who cares? We don't _know_ untill we are told.
Let's just chill for a week or two and we get our answers.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Neither you nor I know what will happen.

Which makes your opinion about the direction of the game just as invalid as mine.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

New leadership has shown great promise over the last 6 months,

I vehemently disagree.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

internal culture seems to be shifting in a positive direction

Really? Have you ever worked in a design studio (I have). When layoffs like this happen, the "culture" does not shift positive, in fact its quite the opposite because everyone starts to wonder if their head will be on the chopping block next. Because of this, many will choose to find new work that has more stability, even if it means less pay.
Maryland is extremely expensive to live in. It only takes one or two months for rent/mortgage to blow through ones savings. The employees do not have the luxury of waiting around to see if they wll have a job in the near future, ESPECIALLY with reports that more layoffs are coming in December 2026.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

, and because of that I choose to be hopeful.

And I choose to be realistic. Being hopeful is not going to give you a solid game play if things go awry, being realistic will.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If this had happened under the previous guard I would not be so hopeful. I think the fact that the quality of the content has been in steady decline for years probably means there are opportunities for improvement now that some of those responsible for said decline are out of the picture.

The decline is due to a lack of people working on the project. I am amazed you can't see this. Go play through Orsinium and Summerset, then Solstace and compare them. From the amount of quests, to the zone size, assets created, skill lines etc. You are conflating employee numbers with those people working on ESO. That is clearly not the case. ESO feels like its being made by a skeleton crew.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Not that I am happy about anyone losing their jobs. We now know the studio is adequately staffed, and with strong leadership at the helm. I predict a rocky 2027 while people learn their new roles and hopefully a strong 2028 and beyond, especially with TES VI hype on the horizon.

The population is already indecline. Subclassing killed the game for many many people. The person who headed up subclassing was let go. If subclassing was popular, they would not be letting go of the person who made it.

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

You've had your say many many times. We won't need you to educate us. You don't know any more than the rest of us.

As have you.

I choose to be realistic, you choose to be optimisic, which again for the third time is why you thinik I am being negative when I am not.

The problem with toxic optimism is that its just as dooming as toxic pessimism because neither mindset prepares the person for the reality of the situation.

There is a saying.

You can wish (be hopeful) in one hand, and poo in the other. Tell me which one fills up first.

My bad for engaging after I said I wouldn't lol. Didn't read this. I'll revert to directing you to my comment history. I've said all I have to say on the topic

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Numbers wise they have enough people to run the studio. Some people will need to learn some new roles.

And here we are at the point where it starts to make no sense. Kai, our German community manager, was part of Bethesda already before ESO even startet. He was THE German community manager right from the beginning and he was doing the job in an very awesome way. Why do they fire him, who is doing that job best and has all the valuable experience and connections and knows so much about the game and the most valuable members of the community and so on, just to let someone new to completely learn to fill in that role just to do the same job? Doesn't make sense, does it? It’s more likely that he won’t be replaced at all, and that we in Germany will receive less adequate care in the future. And in that case, your claims about supposedly adequate staffing are simply completely out of line. So why don't you just stop making such claims for now, when there's currently absolutely no evidence to back them up? It's okay to hold onto hope for yourself. But simply making claims without any evidence to back them up and flatly denying problems even though they're currently more than obvious has nothing to do with healthy optimism—it's more like gaslighting.

this game is now doomed unless they come up with a more radical way to attract alot of new blood. Your not gonna get that with class refreshes or even a standard expansion. They are two rounds of layoffs in already, to continue without radical change is pure foolishness. They have nothing to lose now. You either change the perception or it dies and you have less than a year to do it.

take your last shot and overhaul the combat system. Yes it might kill the game, but the game is dead anyway.
overhaul the dungeon system. You dont need new dungeons you have plenty of assets to use, you need a new system that plays differently. The design is in my link.
overhaul the overland with temporary invasion zones which are modified regular zones.
feel free to step on a few toes.

at this point if you still cant see that your pretty much done, no one can help you. A slight uptick in players will not save this game. Even an uptick from a new expansion might not be enough. Your only choice left is to risk it all with system overhaul, which you still have the resources to carry out.

BenNordish wrote: »

Who is staying? I heard Zeno talk in a stream in a manner as if he got fired, too. So there are only Kathi and Marcel left. Kathi is a lovely person but barely knows ESO and is already occupied with looking after the Fallout community. How is she supposed to fill in for Kai? And Marcel did so far only the bare minimum of PR work. I don't see how he shall fill in for any of the other three. Sorry, but this still makes no sense to me. And as long as there is no proper official answer how it is supposed to be handled in the future I will stay being skeptical and would be thankful if all would stop downplaying the worries.

Who is downplaying anything? I also never said the lay-offs made sense.

I was correcting your claim that there were "no German community managers left" as well as the claim here in the first post:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/695703/huge-layoffs-at-zenimax-a-lot-of-eso-devs-impacted/p1
which says that the whole "BethesdaDE team" had been fired.

This is not correct, plain and simple, and I think especially in a situation like this it's important to stay factual to get a realistic view of the situation. According to this post:
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/de/discussion/comment/8504230/#Comment_8504230
Zeno and Kathi are still here for sure. We also don't know about the whole rest of the "BethesdaDE team".

I'm aware the situation is bad, and Kai leaving is a huge loss of knowledge. I guess Microsoft expects the remaining employees to expand their role and learn. Of course this feels like a sad decision - to lay off an extremely competent person and replace him with others who don't have as much experience and knowledge yet and will need lots of time to reach that level. For us players, this is surely a loss. For Microsoft, the only thing that probably matters is costs.

Syldras wrote: »

I'm aware the situation is bad, and Kai leaving is a huge loss of knowledge. I guess Microsoft expects the remaining employees to expand their role and learn. Of course this feels like a sad decision - to lay off an extremely competent person and replace him with others who don't have as much experience and knowledge yet and will need lots of time to reach that level. For us players, this is surely a loss. For Microsoft, the only thing that probably matters is costs.

But this begs the question. Who authored the chosen people to get laid off? Surely they did not just pull straws. The people laid off have to have been chosen by closer management inside ZOS.

Why were good writers and community managers let go. Based on the Zenimax culture I have a good idea why, but I cant say it on the forums else "conspiracy theory".

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Secondly, working at Zenimax and working on ESO are not the same. One can work at Zenimax and not work on ESO.

ZOS only has one game now: ESO. What precisely do you think that any ZOS employees would do if not working on ESO? I'm not going to try pretending to be an expert on the studio or parent company structures, but I do know from work with UESP that a lot of marketing and such like is done by Bethesda Softworks or by Zenimax Media.

An employee at a game studio does not equate to an employee at a game studio actually working on the games themself.

I understand fully that an employee at a game studio might have an administrative role such as human resources, accountancy, advertising/PR, etc.

I am staring that to the best of my knowledge, many of these roles are not fulfilled by staff based at the main ZOS studio in Maryland, USA. For example, several of these positions are held by staff at the Zenimax Media office in London, UK.

It's not my place to pull out individual names from the Season One credits and state where each person is based: firstly, because I don't know all the names, only people that I have personally met, and secondly, because that would be a weird and creepy thing to do. My point is that the majority of ZOS employees at the main studio are ESO Devs or ESO Community Manager - therefore, working on ESO.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Secondly, you never answered my other question.

If the amount of people working on ESO right now is the same as the people who made Wrothgar and Summerset, why are players not seeing Summerset/Wrothgar levels of quality, polish, content among others. Asserting that anything we have seen in the past year and a half is the same as what was put out during Summerset or Wrothgar would be completely disingenuous.

If you think that the past year and a half have not been up to Wrothgar and Summerset levels of quality, then I have no idea what I can say to you. I personally believe that the game did start to go downhill for a few years and has recently been undergoing a renaissance. Season Zero - most notably the Night Market - is the most fun I've had in ESO for years.

More to the point, though, my personal beliefs are not relevant here. I was simply reporting what the Devs at the ESO Tavern were telling everyone who commiserated with them about the layoffs and/or expressed concern about the future of the game. My opinions about recent quality of the game compared to older Chapters are just that - my opinions. What is important here is the Dev Team's opinions.

CptTekashi wrote: »

Wolfshade wrote: »

Actually more layoffs are coming from day to day. Today starts german community event and german community manager @ZOS_KaiSchober gets a bad information too.

Wait what..... He's literally at the ESO Tavern ? I just watched the stream ?

Yes, he was literally at the ESO Tavern, the German community event that he's run since 2013. (Before the game even launched.)

He was told on Friday morning before the Tavern opened for the day, because that's how Microsoft does things.

Just like how Microsoft laid off a whole load of ZOS Devs immediately before the release of Season One. "That's it, you've done your work, you're not needed any more." No humanity whatsoever.

It was officially the last ESO Tavern. There are several reasons why, which I don't feel like detailing here. They were giving away all of the banners and plaques because there is no point storing them in the office any more.

baratron wrote: »

CptTekashi wrote: »

Wolfshade wrote: »

Actually more layoffs are coming from day to day. Today starts german community event and german community manager @ZOS_KaiSchober gets a bad information too.

Wait what..... He's literally at the ESO Tavern ? I just watched the stream ?

Yes, he was literally at the ESO Tavern, the German community event that he's run since 2013. (Before the game even launched.)

He was told on Friday morning before the Tavern opened for the day, because that's how Microsoft does things.

Just like how Microsoft laid off a whole load of ZOS Devs immediately before the release of Season One. "That's it, you've done your work, you're not needed any more." No humanity whatsoever.

It was officially the last ESO Tavern. There are several reasons why, which I don't feel like detailing here. They were giving away all of the banners and plaques because there is no point storing them in the office any more.

That's rotten ngl.

I have never been to a tavern, getting to Germany is not something I can do in a whim, but I was in the Amsterdam event and I had a great time connecting in person with people that until that point I had only met in game/discord.

Those connections persist to this day.

Guess to MS the 'human aspect' of a social game is irrelevant. The irony.

And don't get me started with what and how was done to Kai.

I dont want people to take this the wrong way but being "profitable" is clearly not enough. If there was a time to put your heart and soul into something to survive, this is that time. This game needs a big win and nothing i see them doing will get them one. Not easy to get a big win when you have minimal resources, terrible grim reaper level game perception, and you refuse to change. Fight harder. There are no jobs for any of you to move to. The game industry is in shambles. This is it.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

baratron wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

Secondly, working at Zenimax and working on ESO are not the same. One can work at Zenimax and not work on ESO.

ZOS only has one game now: ESO. What precisely do you think that any ZOS employees would do if not working on ESO? I'm not going to try pretending to be an expert on the studio or parent company structures, but I do know from work with UESP that a lot of marketing and such like is done by Bethesda Softworks or by Zenimax Media.

An employee at a game studio does not equate to an employee at a game studio actually working on the games themself.
Secondly, you never answered my other question.

If the amount of people working on ESO right now is the same as the people who made Wrothgar and Summerset, why are players not seeing Summerset/Wrothgar levels of quality, polish, content among others. Asserting that anything we have seen in the past year and a half is the same as what was put out during Summerset or Wrothgar would be completely disingenuous.

baratron wrote: »

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

The fact that ESO specifc information has not been released/discussed is telling in and of itself.

The layoffs were announced on Monday. Today is Saturday. Nick Giacormini, Susan Kath, and Brian Wheeler are not at the ESO Tavern because they are working on an updated Roadmap. Yes, over the weekend. They will discuss the ESO-specific information as soon as it's ready.

I was referring to the stucture of the company over the past year and a half. Becasue again, we are not seeing the same level of content previously paid for by customers. That is just a fact.

Dude is on a mission to convince everyone that the world is ending

Incorrect. Simply pointing out the fallacy in many posts.

If the amount of people working on ESO is the same amount today, as it was during Wrothgar and Summerset (as its been suggested), why are we not seeing Wrothgar and Summerset levels of content for easily going on 2 years now? This quandry is even more interesting because if the team size now is the same as Wrothgar/Summerset era, we can perform an elementary deduction to understand that the amount of people working on ESO for the past year VASTLY EXCEED the amount of people who worked during the Summerset/Wrothgar era.

Why are more devs producing vastly less content, not just in what is coming out but in quality? Sub-classing was a reshuffling of assets already made, number tweaks and UI creation, not much besides that. Solstace has been the most paltry offering to date.

You and your friends can try to defame me (which is against the forum rules), but I am just asking questions that no one has been able to answer.

Have you never heard of the saying "too many cooks spoils the broth"? It's entirely possible ESO was one of those games that had a huge excess of managerial overhead. More people that work and communication needs to pass through means the longer it takes for things to get through that pipeline. Look at how long we sometimes have to wait for responses to things on the forums; it's entirely possible that it takes that long because of having to get the clearance from people higher up (who can't just be asked, it has to go through the ladder to get there, then go through the ladder again).

I am well aware of this saying, but the names release so far are not all management types. We lost good writers, some good folks. Had the layoff list been manager A through Z, I'd be right here with ya, but that is not what has happened.

I still can't shake the ideas that more people produced Solstace and the battle pass (no real content) and less people produced Summerset/Orsinium

The maths ain't mathing.

We don't know over half of the full list of people who were laid off. Of the list that have been confirmed, 33 had the title of Lead, Director, Senior, or Manager. Those are all upper levels of management, and we don't know how many more of the 100+ that were laid off might have also been higher up. Just because the whole list isn't all managers doesn't mean much if a majority of the ones we don't know were upper management. It's entirely possible most of them weren't any level management at all, but from what we were told by Asha, I feel it's more likely that's not the case. We won't know either way unless every single person that was laid off makes a public statement that gets found.

As for your second point, that's literally where "too many cooks" comes in. If the ESO team had a whole lot of management that every part of development needed to go through as opposed to Wrothgar/Summerset, it makes sense that less would be getting done. When there are fewer people work needs to go through for any kind of approval, when there are fewer people all having conflicting ideas or refusing to compromise on something, that means things are streamlined and get done faster.

BenNordish wrote: »

I would like to be hopeful. But what makes me very skeptical is a very big flaw in the new strategy of ESO. Jessica and Jason talked at the ESO Tavern a very lot about player feedback and doing what the players want. How do they plan to achieve to get feedback from the players and do what the players want, while firing all the community managers whose job it is to keep up the communication with the players? That doesn't work!?

I don't mean any offense to her by saying this, but Gina was hardly the only Community team member, though I know Kai (who I never saw since I'm not German) was also laid off and I think he was like the German equivalent of her? At any rate, losing a few people doesn't mean they've lost everyone. They can still look at feedback (there's the whole stickied thread that's still up there asking about peoples' pain points and stuff) and pass things on just fine.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

BenNordish wrote: »

I would like to be hopeful. But what makes me very skeptical is a very big flaw in the new strategy of ESO. Jessica and Jason talked at the ESO Tavern a very lot about player feedback and doing what the players want. How do they plan to achieve to get feedback from the players and do what the players want, while firing all the community managers whose job it is to keep up the communication with the players? That doesn't work!?

They are just as adequately staffed as they've ever been. Other employees will take over those roles and responsibilities.

If so, then how come they have to adjust the roadmap?

The maths ain't mathing.

Because being adequately staffed does not in any way imply they won't need to account for having fewer people. A warehouse that has 500 employees might only have each one doing 1 task a day, even though everyone could comfortably do 5. If 200 of those employees are let off, the remaining 300 can easily handle the work being spread to them, but they'll still need to adjust to everyone having more work even if it's not work that's going to overwork anyone.

We don't know what all the devs have in active development and what all they've had planned to get started on. That work can easily be done by the remaining team because they've shown they can pump out quality stuff with a team this size, but they still need time to work out adjusted time-frames to take into account fewer people doing more work. They need to look at all they've got going on and everything they wanted to start on and come up with a realistic expectation of how long stuff will take in the short-term while they adjust to the new team size.

Pixiepumpkin wrote: »

That aside. How come the ESO devs were not able to produce content on par with their previous offerings when they had MORE people?

Too many cooks, the thing I keep pointing out but gets dismissed.

Rungar wrote: »

I dont want people to take this the wrong way but being "profitable" is clearly not enough. If there was a time to put your heart and soul into something to survive, this is that time. This game needs a big win and nothing i see them doing will get them one. Not easy to get a big win when you have minimal resources, terrible grim reaper level game perception, and you refuse to change. Fight harder. There are no jobs for any of you to move to. The game industry is in shambles. This is it.

I have to agree.

As I noted before, the population has dipped from a near high point (Steam Charts) ever since MS purchased the company.

Since their goals of purchasing Zenimax and other gaming companies failed miserably, they are having to restructure and reduce costs, knowing these costs are also reducing revenue and, eventually, profits.

In other words, cutting off their nose to spite their face thing.

I can understand that they need to regroup and figure out how to proceed. It is why I appreciate Jessica taking the time, during a difficult moment, to send that brief communication.

Heck, I was trying to decide if I wanted to come back to ESO. I think I will wait a bit and see how things get dusted off. I wish them the best.

BenNordish wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

BenNordish wrote: »

I would like to be hopeful. But what makes me very skeptical is a very big flaw in the new strategy of ESO. Jessica and Jason talked at the ESO Tavern a very lot about player feedback and doing what the players want. How do they plan to achieve to get feedback from the players and do what the players want, while firing all the community managers whose job it is to keep up the communication with the players? That doesn't work!?

I don't mean any offense to her by saying this, but Gina was hardly the only Community team member, though I know Kai (who I never saw since I'm not German) was also laid off and I think he was like the German equivalent of her? At any rate, losing a few people doesn't mean they've lost everyone. They can still look at feedback (there's the whole stickied thread that's still up there asking about peoples' pain points and stuff) and pass things on just fine.

It wasn't only Gina and Kai. For example the whole community team of the UK was let too and probably in other countries as well. And no Kai was more than just Gina for the German area. And with him we lost very much everyone here in our area, since the other two community managers from Bethesda who looked out for the communities of Fallout and Doom will be gone in around three months as well and the only Bethesda staff member for Germany that will be left will be just a PR spokes person whose job it is to talk to media outlets not with the community. And FYI just looking into a stickied thread won't do it. [snip]

Wow, ad hominen attacks, how mature of you. Is it that hard to not insult someone?

You're acting like the ENTIRE team for community stuff in general have been fired. Yes, numerous people were laid off. But you literally made the claim that "all" the Community Managers were fired. You're acting as though there's no one left to communicate between us and the other devs. That is clearly not true. None of us know if they plan on internally moving people who are left around at all. The Community folks for other games don't really matter if they're not taking care of things over here for ESO.

As for the stickied thread, my guy, the whole reason it exists is for them to get FEEDBACK. What do you mean "looking into a stickied thread won't do it", THEY'RE the ones that MADE that thread. For FEEDBACK. The stuff you seem to think they won't be able to get from us any longer. If them "looking into a thread" wouldn't do it then they would literally never get any feedback.
[edited to remove quote]

baratron wrote: »

It was officially the last ESO Tavern. There are several reasons why, which I don't feel like detailing here. They were giving away all of the banners and plaques because there is no point storing them in the office any more.

Well, that's not a good sign but glad some fans got cool ESO memorabilia at least.