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https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/696147/playstation-5-patch-error-issue
https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/696147/playstation-5-patch-error-issue
Will the Recent ZOS Layoffs Effect the ESO Class Refresh Schedule?
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Gabriel_H✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Imperial_Archmage wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
There is no room or time for lengthy decision making. Unless everything else is dropped and their singular focus becomes the class refresh the game is doomed. It's really that simple. If anything, the disaster of the mass firings should've crystalized the path ahead for them. The fact that this harsh reality hasn't sunk in yet and they think they have "weeks" on their hands before annoucing a decision should be alarming to everyone.
Utter nonsense. Everything that is coming this year is in its final stages of development or near to it. U51 would be in the final polish stages, mostly coding. U52 would be a little behind that, but the design component will be finished and it will be waiting for the coding stage, if not already into it.
The likelihood something on this years roadmap is pushed is low, but the affected area would be what was planned Oct - Dec. And likewise next years schedule will need re-visiting. There has been a major company wide shake-up across multiple divisions that will impact workflow. If Microsoft got it wrong there will be delays, if they got it right there will be little to no delays and it's possible some things may come quicker.
Edit: TyposEdited by Gabriel_H on July 13, 2026 12:45AMPC EU
Never get involved in a land war in Asia - it's one of the classic blunders!1 -
katanagirl1✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭✭Even if the workforce is the same as the Wrothgar time frame, that was many, many years ago in the gaming age. When companies get used to having more workers, productivity tends to go down because of complacency based on my experience.
I’m not making any direct comparisons here, but please just give them some time. If anything, as time increases bureaucracy increases, and more bureaucracy creates inefficiency on its own. If they can reduce the redundant levels of management per the XBox memo linked here in another thread, they can become more efficient again. It’s only been a few days, they need time to regroup and recover. Massive layoffs are traumatizing to workers, I have lived through that. They shut my whole plant down at one point and it had been there for nearly 70 years. You can certainly deal with a schedule slip at this point in time. It’s just a game to you, not your livelihood.
PS5 NA1 -
Pixiepumpkin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
But why do they neven need to revisit the road map? They have the same amount of people that worked on the game for Summerset and Wrothgar, both acclaimed Chapters.
Because they have less people than they did when the released the roadmap. Unless everyone who was laid off was standing around doing nothing there is going to be an impact on when things are completed.
This makes no sense. What is on the road map is paltry compared to the offerings of Orsinium and Summerset which had the same employee count as they do now.
and if you go by arunei's logic, their efficiency should infact INCREASE now due to a lack of managerial overhead, or rather too many cooks in the kitchen.
Once again, maths ain't mathing which means there's more to the story than we are being told."a fool and his money are soon parted"- Defense of the Government of the Church of England c. 15870 -
MorganaBlue✭✭✭Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
But why do they neven need to revisit the road map? They have the same amount of people that worked on the game for Summerset and Wrothgar, both acclaimed Chapters.
Because they have less people than they did when the released the roadmap. Unless everyone who was laid off was standing around doing nothing there is going to be an impact on when things are completed.
This makes no sense. What is on the road map is paltry compared to the offerings of Orsinium and Summerset which had the same employee count as they do now.
and if you go by arunei's logic, their efficiency should infact INCREASE now due to a lack of managerial overhead, or rather too many cooks in the kitchen.
Once again, maths ain't mathing which means there's more to the story than we are being told.
1+1=2 When Summerset and Orsinium were released, ESO's game 's systems were half of what they are and nowhere near as complex.
So while the remaining devs might still easily be able to introduce casual story content and quests, I highly doubt they can stay on track with the class refresh, class balance, combat, pvp, and massive amounts of etcetera that need to be FIXED in this by now massive game, all with a team the same size as it was a full 8 years ago.2 -
Pixiepumpkin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭MorganaBlue wrote: »Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
But why do they neven need to revisit the road map? They have the same amount of people that worked on the game for Summerset and Wrothgar, both acclaimed Chapters.
Because they have less people than they did when the released the roadmap. Unless everyone who was laid off was standing around doing nothing there is going to be an impact on when things are completed.
This makes no sense. What is on the road map is paltry compared to the offerings of Orsinium and Summerset which had the same employee count as they do now.
and if you go by arunei's logic, their efficiency should infact INCREASE now due to a lack of managerial overhead, or rather too many cooks in the kitchen.
Once again, maths ain't mathing which means there's more to the story than we are being told.
1+1=2 When Summerset and Orsinium were released, ESO's game 's systems were half of what they are and nowhere near as complex.
So while the remaining devs might still easily be able to introduce casual story content and quests, I highly doubt they can stay on track with the class refresh, class balance, combat, pvp, and massive amounts of etcetera that need to be FIXED in this by now massive game, all with a team the same size as it was a full 8 years ago.
except that devs 8 years ago created more than "casual story and quests". Orsinium is massive. Summerset is no joke. We have not seen content on par with those two for over 2 years and that its being generous.
Why can't the current team product content on par with what was produced 8 years ago?
I already know the answer, I am just waiting for you guys to figure it out."a fool and his money are soon parted"- Defense of the Government of the Church of England c. 15871 -
heaven13✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭✭Pixiepumpkin wrote: »
Reposting this here from the stickied thread for visibility:Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
But why do they neven need to revisit the road map? They have the same amount of people that worked on the game for Summerset and Wrothgar, both acclaimed Chapters.
The stuff that is on the roadmap seems legit, like they were not bad decisions based on manager bloat. Class reworks are required at this point.
So why do they need to revisit the roadmap. Based on what you say, there should be zero reason the game does not continue on full steam ahead (which has not been the case for 2 years now).
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.
But this makes no sense.
You argue that there are too many cooks in the kitchen and that is why the game has deteriorated over the past two years. You argue that less people (now at the levels of Summerset/Orsinium) will easily be able to make MORE content than has been produced.
If thats true (which its not, there are other factors we can not discuss here) then there would be no reason to change the roadmap.
The roadmap does not need to change, people just need to be moved around internally to fulfill the roadmap. All of that can take place behind the scenes.
I'd argue, that the reason for the roadmap change is becasue the lower body count now is going to mean slower roll out of content and reprioritization of that slower rolled out content.
The game released in 2014. Orsinium released in 2015 and Morrowind released 2017. We have no idea how much had already been started on/was in progress when the game released. We know, from multiple dev interviews/comments during the chapter era that content was typically a cycle or two ahead before we ever saw a glimpse of it.
So what does this mean? If the company grew to having more people, they could have larger teams working on things (faster), a larger variety of things being worked on at once (quantity), or teams that are more siloed and able to work independently and require less coordination with other teams because they have enough people on the team that fill the different needs.
Now we've been told that they've dropped down to Wrothgar/Summerset levels of staffing. If the above paragraph is true, it means a shift and re-coordination of efforts to spread the work back among the people they do have. And, more importantly, we know the number of devs align with what they had in the early days but who exactly do they have left? How is that allocation of dev experience spread? They lost a lot of talented people (who were not middle mgmt) so just because they have the numbers doesn't mean they necessarily have the right numbers.
An updated roadmap to account for all this is expected. I get it; you're all doom and gloom for the game and see no reason to be here. So don't. Those of us who understand that restructuring like this can take time and are willing to wait and see how it goes will wait.PC/NAMountain God | Leave No Bone Unbroken | Apex Predator | Pure Lunacy | Depths Defier | No Rest for the Wicked | In Defiance of DeathMeet my characters :
Defanged the Devourer | Nature's Wrath | Relentless Raider | True Genius | Bane of Thorns | Subterranean Smasher | Ardent Bibliophile
vAA HM | vHRC HM | vSO HM | vDSA | vMoL HM | vHoF HM | vAS+2 | vCR+2 | vBRP | vSS HM | vKA | vRGIT DOESN'T MATTER BECAUSE THEY'RE ALL THE SAME NOW, THANKS ZOS6 -
Warhawke_80✭✭✭✭✭
✭Pixiepumpkin wrote: »
Reposting this here from the stickied thread for visibility:Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
But why do they neven need to revisit the road map? They have the same amount of people that worked on the game for Summerset and Wrothgar, both acclaimed Chapters.
The stuff that is on the roadmap seems legit, like they were not bad decisions based on manager bloat. Class reworks are required at this point.
So why do they need to revisit the roadmap. Based on what you say, there should be zero reason the game does not continue on full steam ahead (which has not been the case for 2 years now).
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.
But this makes no sense.
You argue that there are too many cooks in the kitchen and that is why the game has deteriorated over the past two years. You argue that less people (now at the levels of Summerset/Orsinium) will easily be able to make MORE content than has been produced.
If thats true (which its not, there are other factors we can not discuss here) then there would be no reason to change the roadmap.
The roadmap does not need to change, people just need to be moved around internally to fulfill the roadmap. All of that can take place behind the scenes.
I'd argue, that the reason for the roadmap change is becasue the lower body count now is going to mean slower roll out of content and reprioritization of that slower rolled out content.
The game released in 2014. Orsinium released in 2015 and Morrowind released 2017. We have no idea how much had already been started on/was in progress when the game released. We know, from multiple dev interviews/comments during the chapter era that content was typically a cycle or two ahead before we ever saw a glimpse of it.
So what does this mean? If the company grew to having more people, they could have larger teams working on things (faster), a larger variety of things being worked on at once (quantity), or teams that are more siloed and able to work independently and require less coordination with other teams because they have enough people on the team that fill the different needs.
Now we've been told that they've dropped down to Wrothgar/Summerset levels of staffing. If the above paragraph is true, it means a shift and re-coordination of efforts to spread the work back among the people they do have. And, more importantly, we know the number of devs align with what they had in the early days but who exactly do they have left? How is that allocation of dev experience spread? They lost a lot of talented people (who were not middle mgmt) so just because they have the numbers doesn't mean they necessarily have the right numbers.
An updated roadmap to account for all this is expected. I get it; you're all doom and gloom for the game and see no reason to be here. So don't. Those of us who understand that restructuring like this can take time and are willing to wait and see how it goes will wait.
This is the conclusion that makes the most sense to me. If the studio has simply returned to staffing levels similar to what they had during the Wrothgar and Summerset eras, then I wouldn't necessarily describe that as a skeleton crew. In fact, many players would argue that some of ESO's best content was created during that period, so those staffing levels clearly didn't prevent the team from delivering high-quality expansions and updates.
That doesn't mean the layoffs aren't serious—they absolutely are, and it's unfortunate for everyone affected. However, based on what we know today, they don't appear to be as catastrophic as I initially feared.
Personally, I still have 184 days remaining on my current subscription. That's more than enough time for ZOS and Microsoft to clarify their plans and show the community what direction they're taking the game.
At this point, none of us really knows how this will ultimately play out. It could turn out to be a very positive restructuring, or it could end up being a significant setback. There simply isn't enough information yet to say with confidence.
What has changed for me is that I'm no longer assuming the game is headed for an imminent shutdown like I was a few days ago. I'm still cautious, but I'm willing to wait, watch, and see what happens before making any final decisions.““Elric knew. The sword told him, without words of any sort. Stormbringer needed to fight, for that was its reason for existence...”― Michael Moorcock, Elric of Melniboné1 -
Pixiepumpkin✭✭✭✭✭
✭✭✭
Thank you. This is exactly what I have been trying people to understand.Pixiepumpkin wrote: »
Reposting this here from the stickied thread for visibility:Pixiepumpkin wrote: »Yeah, weeks is not a good sign at all. That would indicate to me that impact is going to be huge and not easily compensated for.
Weeks means they aren't rushing decisions. They have a lot to go through in terms of what is and isn't completed, what was in the workflow, what outsourcing they now have access too.
But why do they neven need to revisit the road map? They have the same amount of people that worked on the game for Summerset and Wrothgar, both acclaimed Chapters.
The stuff that is on the roadmap seems legit, like they were not bad decisions based on manager bloat. Class reworks are required at this point.
So why do they need to revisit the roadmap. Based on what you say, there should be zero reason the game does not continue on full steam ahead (which has not been the case for 2 years now).
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.
But this makes no sense.
You argue that there are too many cooks in the kitchen and that is why the game has deteriorated over the past two years. You argue that less people (now at the levels of Summerset/Orsinium) will easily be able to make MORE content than has been produced.
If thats true (which its not, there are other factors we can not discuss here) then there would be no reason to change the roadmap.
The roadmap does not need to change, people just need to be moved around internally to fulfill the roadmap. All of that can take place behind the scenes.
I'd argue, that the reason for the roadmap change is becasue the lower body count now is going to mean slower roll out of content and reprioritization of that slower rolled out content.
The game released in 2014. Orsinium released in 2015 and Morrowind released 2017. We have no idea how much had already been started on/was in progress when the game released. We know, from multiple dev interviews/comments during the chapter era that content was typically a cycle or two ahead before we ever saw a glimpse of it.
So what does this mean? If the company grew to having more people, they could have larger teams working on things (faster), a larger variety of things being worked on at once (quantity), or teams that are more siloed and able to work independently and require less coordination with other teams because they have enough people on the team that fill the different needs.
Now we've been told that they've dropped down to Wrothgar/Summerset levels of staffing. If the above paragraph is true, it means a shift and re-coordination of efforts to spread the work back among the people they do have. And, more importantly, we know the number of devs align with what they had in the early days but who exactly do they have left? How is that allocation of dev experience spread? They lost a lot of talented people (who were not middle mgmt) so just because they have the numbers doesn't mean they necessarily have the right numbers.
That just because the team is the same size as Orsinium/Summerset, does not mean that the team will be able to do the same amount of work, which is exactly why the roadmap has to be changed, which means the content coming out is going to be a slow roll, worse than what we have seen already for the past two years.
Meaning, the game is not in the healthy state that many are claiming it to be in.An updated roadmap to account for all this is expected. I get it; you're all doom and gloom for the game and see no reason to be here. So don't. Those of us who understand that restructuring like this can take time and are willing to wait and see how it goes will wait.
Incorrect, you read me wrong. All I have stated are the facts. If you have read through my posts you should have seen where I state
"Realists are viewed as pessimists by optimists".
I am a realist, most of the fans here are optimists, they naturally see my words as pessimistic when in reality I am just trying to get them to understand the nature of the situation.
Its also why I said "You can wish in one hand and poo in the other and see which one fills up first". Because hope/hopium is not going to do anything except get people excited for something they should not be excited about.
I'd rather be informed of the reality of a situation, than be led by wishes and dreams that take me nowhere.Pixiepumpkin wrote: »I already know the answer, I am just waiting for you guys to figure it out.Edited by Pixiepumpkin on July 13, 2026 6:20PM"a fool and his money are soon parted"- Defense of the Government of the Church of England c. 15871 -
Triipzzz✭✭✭Just focus on the classes and forget about all the other stuff. We would love nothing more than to have selection other than DK or WW. Even the weapons lines are pointless as they can be used in their current form by all classes. The TH barely yielded any benefit anyway, the only ability people use is onslaught so what did you really achieve. On the other hand DK and WW are king so that proves the class refresh's are the most import to get right.1
