Class refreshes should be top and only Priority. Pause all other content until 2027 or even 2028

XVestigeXx · July 30

Basically what the title says. The class refreshes def should have been accelerated and all other projects paused till 2027. Classes are your bread and butter. You already have 12 years of content, just focus on the class refreshes and it transforms how players engage with the monumental amount of content already there and once its done you can resume making cool content.

Mounted combat in the new trial does sound really cool and Id love to see that or the new pvp zone, but I rather have class refreshes instead and its one of the main reason people came back. Just look at all the old players who left and have returned for class masteries and dk/WW refresh. Its what the people want. And before someone comes in here and tries to say "well you can't have a UI/enviromental/encounter dev working on a class refresh it doesn't make sense" yes you can. Sure it might take a bit of traing for a few weeks but game development is their profession. Plumbers do electrical of necessity sometimes, Electricians can do plumbing to get a project done. Carpenter's too. There are people who have done it all and built their own house. So it is in no way a stretch to expect to be able to train a UI Enviromental/encounter team how to design an animation for an ability to supplement the core team working on the refresh. Everyone who says differently is just living inside their own box.

Now I say all this truly, but I also understand the devs have just lost a huge chunk of the team and morale might not be very high, so alls I can say is We love this game zos, we want to see it succeed. I am ok with no pve/pvp content if it means the class refreshes are all out by end of 2027. Please redirect all hands toward class refreshes and not all this other stuff that amounts to candy when compared to the meat of class refreshes. This HAS to be 1# priority now, not anything else.

All the best, Hope things can turn around

ESO_player123 · July 30

I do not know about others, but if all other content was paused till 2028, I would simply unsubscribe and leave the game.

Vaqual · July 30

I'd even be fine by letting them outsource it or let players figure it out. Anything is better than the current pace. The game isn't fair currently and it is the single greatest flaw it has. They slashed accessibility hurdles with the new monetization model, but what good does that do if player retention drops to 0 due to non-existent class balance. The band-aid fixes in the form of masteries are simply not a) executed well and b) covering only a fraction of the actual issues.

This is all I need to say:

https://eso-hub.com/en/skills/nightblade/shadow/dark-veil

IZZEFlameLash · July 30

Yeah, it should be since classes are integral to the gameplay. Games, at their core, needs a fun gameplay. Class refresh should really be THE #1 priority. Current relative imbalance of new vs. old shouldn't be left like this. And it should not be solved by nerfs.

MasterSpatula · July 30

Don't care how tough or weak my main class is if there's nothing to do.

tsaescishoeshiner · July 30

There are three threads on the front page of General forums saying that prioritizing X will save the game or else it will die. Where X is either new PvE content, class refreshes, or crossplay.

It sounds like it's early 2027 to me, likely Update 52. But other than asking about what is a priority and when things will be upcoming, we just have to wait and use the classes in their fully-functional but imperfectly-balanced state (IMO).

The devs confirmed on reddit that class refreshes are high on the priority list. I assume it wasn't delayed without good reason, presumably because of the layoffs (which were made public right after we got the first sign that class refresh might not be in the next Update).

ketsparrowhawk · July 30

If they can make good on improving non-reworked classes in the interim as Nick's article said then I don't think it's necessarily as urgent as all that. Even though it is the thing I personally am looking forward to the most. Some balance work is needed asap though

IZZEFlameLash · July 30

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If they can make good on improving non-reworked classes in the interim as Nick's article said then I don't think it's necessarily as urgent as all that. Even though it is the thing I personally am looking forward to the most. Some balance work is needed asap though

The thing I am afraid is that they will just choose to nerf as 'interim solution' and you know how they are with nerfs. If they choose to just nerf and nerf, what even is the point of reworks outside of animation and effects that will remain? And it is literally just borrowing time only to make the newest reworked class THE most OP thing that will be completely nerfed to irrelevance again for the next reworked class to take that mantle.

ketsparrowhawk · July 30

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If they can make good on improving non-reworked classes in the interim as Nick's article said then I don't think it's necessarily as urgent as all that. Even though it is the thing I personally am looking forward to the most. Some balance work is needed asap though

The thing I am afraid is that they will just choose to nerf as 'interim solution' and you know how they are with nerfs. If they choose to just nerf and nerf, what even is the point of reworks outside of animation and effects that will remain? And it is literally just borrowing time only to make the newest reworked class THE most OP thing that will be completely nerfed to irrelevance again for the next reworked class to take that mantle.

I am not in the camp of "nerfs are always bad". Some things should be nerfed some should be buffed. Balance in this game has always been a merry-go-round. I suspect class masteries will be where the bulk of adjustments are made.

XVestigeXx · July 30

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Don't care how tough or weak my main class is if there's nothing to do.

Have you done all the content that there is to do in the game already? it would sting a little I suppose if you had and you were a dk main, but i think the vast majority of players would rather take a year, get a refreshed class, then resume new content. not everyone wants a new zone quest all the time. I like dungeon and trials too, but I enjoy classes far more than any year's worth of content personally

XVestigeXx · July 30

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If they can make good on improving non-reworked classes in the interim as Nick's article said then I don't think it's necessarily as urgent as all that. Even though it is the thing I personally am looking forward to the most. Some balance work is needed asap though

The thing I am afraid is that they will just choose to nerf as 'interim solution' and you know how they are with nerfs. If they choose to just nerf and nerf, what even is the point of reworks outside of animation and effects that will remain? And it is literally just borrowing time only to make the newest reworked class THE most OP thing that will be completely nerfed to irrelevance again for the next reworked class to take that mantle.

Which is why people want their class reworked so that it will be buffed back into relevance again. So many classes have skills no one ever uses. Necro desperately needs a rework, Templar just feels un needed in any content besides their group purge in pvp. Everyone is mad at DK because that class got their rework and now no one else is for probably years. How is that fair to everyone else? Everyone is predominantly asking for reworks I.E. buffs over nerfs. But if this is the cadence, how can you say its unfair to bring each class back down in line so everyone has a more enjoyable time and not just the one class and the meta jumpers who flock to it? I don't that, but if they can't rework each class in a more timely manner I don't see another option besides giving non reworked classes more class mastery points and tuning the masteries better and reworking a few - which honestly could work now that I think of it.

XVestigeXx · July 30

tsaescishoeshiner wrote: »

There are three threads on the front page of General forums saying that prioritizing X will save the game or else it will die. Where X is either new PvE content, class refreshes, or crossplay.

It sounds like it's early 2027 to me, likely Update 52. But other than asking about what is a priority and when things will be upcoming, we just have to wait and use the classes in their fully-functional but imperfectly-balanced state (IMO).

The devs confirmed on reddit that class refreshes are high on the priority list. I assume it wasn't delayed without good reason, presumably because of the layoffs (which were made public right after we got the first sign that class refresh might not be in the next Update).

At current it is predominantly posts about the class refreshes and PVE and crossplay are in the minority. i think the great majority of players want the class refresh. I personally don't like accepting strength spent in vain and would rather see Zos deliver what me and the majority of players want and faster at the expense of other content if need be. This waiting and seeing and accepting anything and everything others decide for you that you are talking about is unacceptable way of thinking for me and many others.

katanagirl1 · July 31

I would prefer that class refresh came first, but I have no insight into how much work that is, it seems like a lot, and how much progress they have made on it at this point. I also have no idea how the staffing cuts affected the tasks, the class refresh team may have been greatly affected compared to other teams. You can’t cross train employees instantly and some skills aren’t interchangeable with others. It’s likely that the things we are getting from them in the short term are the most fleshed out features and are ready to go. For the record, the classes I am looking forward to are at the end of the list (templar and nightblade) so I have to wait a long time anyway.

Luneca · July 31

I hope they do that or at least adjust templar and NB masteries -- both are bad in different ways, but the conclusion is the same. Of course people that don't use either of those classes will come out and say that the masteries are good, even though nearly every other class has masteries with less restrictions that function better.

And with the change they are planning (removal of minor sorcery on Templar), the class will be even more useless in solo and PvP contexts, and even group since damage is the only thing that matters at the end of the day for a majority of content.

I cannot understand the logic behind reworking a class, making it over 2x stronger and easier to use, then at the same time having to essentially nerf classes that are far behind it and then trying to sell that as a buff.

No, a buff is when you positively gain something and lose nothing or at the very least get a net positive. Going back to the masteries, the reason why NB and templar masteries are not really buffs is because you've lost the defensive, damage and sustain options from subclassing that templar was missing, and the defensive options NB simply doesn't have.

And that's in exchange for the masteries. I don't think I need to go into too much detail there, but just look at them. Templar masteries, probably most templars will take that WD/SD one and then have trouble deciding on the next one. The next one will depend on the situation, but in a PvP context none of it matters in reality which you choose.

Some guy tried to act like an expert on templar and told me that the ult one was "sooo good" because you can cast an ult that costs 125 more often? Here's the problem: in an actual combat situation, no one should be mindlessly spamming an ult. That means, even if it constantly filled up, you would never take advantage of it. The cost of an ult being 125 means that within a short time period, you'd fill it up anyway and have it usuable for the most part.

As for the healing ult on templar, again it's inferior to Warden trees and subclassing warden gives you access to budding seeds and minor toughness, not to mention higher uptime on major mending -- three extremely powerful things that you'd want to be using as a healer that pure class templar simply cannot compete with v. a subclassed one in the context of healing in PvP despite what some of these "pros" might think.

Keep in mind the cost of the Warden Tree skill is 90 (?), and that ease of filling up the ult gauage actually contraindicts the idea that you should pure class templar to heal more and spam ults, because a better option is going to be the tree which can also be spammed through subclass means. And that tree allows you to -- you know -- use other skills at the same time vs templar's practiced incatation or w/e that skill is called ; it isn't worth slotting IMO.

So on pure class templar you'll get lower heal output, less heals, less major mending uptime, less sustain, less ground HoTs, and that's only in the context of replacing ONE skill line. See the problem with the idea that masteries provided an alternative to subclassing yet?

And no, this isn't to say that warden's skill line needs adjustng -- it's to say that templar does. And it's needed an adjust for a LONG time, probably since the time wardens were introduced and templar got nerfed to accomodate them. What a surprise that down the line it would be a problem.

And anyone that doesn't believe it, tell me, in PvP where are the templars? How many have you seen outside of a comped BG group? Outside of a ball (most aren't even running templars anymore)?

NB masteries? Come on. I cannot tell the difference with them on or off. I'm serious. It's that bad. Not much more needs to be said; like templar above, the masteries simply are not worth giving up subclassing over. On my NB, I'm looking at subclassing and improving the instances of damage possible or putting some DoT into the build.

Haven't really decided yet, becaue NB is hardcountered by the roll button for the most part and that is the issue that I am looking to solve. It's a very difficult one because not a single skill on the class actualy has value in the context of fighting someone that continuously rolls or just wears esoteric / stacks direct damage reduction.

This is a separate issue for ZOS to address and goes back to all the changes they have made that have increased defense to the point that NB is now in a state where it's either useless or extremely powerful in a glass build. Essentially you're pushed into a bomb build or (lesser known healing builds we won't discuss since they are pretty powerful and I can sense the ZOS nerf gun). A brawling one is simply inferior to all other options and falls to the level of templar/arcanist/necro in usability.

Sure you have cloak, but with WWs running around in packs, let's be honest -- you're not cloaking anymore and escaping unless you are a god at the block, roll, and escape styles.

It's difficult to know exactly how to tweak the class because guess what? Unlike DK, NB was actually one of the classes that needed a rework most. I honestly do not understand the logic of ZOS, and why this class hasn't already been given an option between single target and AoE damage for morphs -- it needed to be done a LONG time ago

Now, all of this could be alleviated with class reworks. But ZOS also has the option of buffing scribing skills so they suck less, adjusting masteries that are useless for the two classes above and others that are buggy or useless on the other classes (arcanist, necro), then looking at the combat system as a whole -- something I seriously doubt they are doing. Additionally, ZOS could expand the scribing system if that was needed to accomodate better general purpose skills and rework weapon skills, and prioritize that as well.

If they did that, then we can actually see some semblance of balance in the game. But I won't hold my breath and bank on any of that happening. Because it seems that balance simply does not matter.

We can't even get all damage types on every scribed skill -- even though a majority of those skills are not even used anyway. The game is in a very disappointing state IMO.

Sephyr · July 31

XVestigeXx wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Don't care how tough or weak my main class is if there's nothing to do.

Have you done all the content that there is to do in the game already? it would sting a little I suppose if you had and you were a dk main, but i think the vast majority of players would rather take a year, get a refreshed class, then resume new content. not everyone wants a new zone quest all the time. I like dungeon and trials too, but I enjoy classes far more than any year's worth of content personally

I'm one of those in the boat that's done most content that I'm able to do (trifectas and the like just don't interest me as much as systems in other games do). As such, I've mostly done PvP with my latest return.

Seeing balance in the state it is right now, along with my main class potentially getting reworked three years from now is having me ask the rather unfortunate and legitimate question, "What am I playing for?" New content I get through in a pretty short amount of time. Experimental content, while fun, tends to have diminishing returns in terms of the burnout factor.

Where as other games, I feel like I'm actually progressing something. There's investments in the midst of a content drought. Guild Wars 2 and FFXIV do this pretty nicely with legendary/relics respectively. I can't knock those out in a few hours and I actually have to plan things out in the case of Guild Wars 2. I don't know, I've just utterly lost the motivation and drive for the game.

I understand that the layoffs are the culprit. I'm not blaming the team at all. This was a perfect storm of Microsoft's doing. But I also have to acknowledge the writing on the wall that maybe this game is no longer a game for me.

IZZEFlameLash · July 31

XVestigeXx wrote: »

IZZEFlameLash wrote: »

ketsparrowhawk wrote: »

If they can make good on improving non-reworked classes in the interim as Nick's article said then I don't think it's necessarily as urgent as all that. Even though it is the thing I personally am looking forward to the most. Some balance work is needed asap though

The thing I am afraid is that they will just choose to nerf as 'interim solution' and you know how they are with nerfs. If they choose to just nerf and nerf, what even is the point of reworks outside of animation and effects that will remain? And it is literally just borrowing time only to make the newest reworked class THE most OP thing that will be completely nerfed to irrelevance again for the next reworked class to take that mantle.

Which is why people want their class reworked so that it will be buffed back into relevance again. So many classes have skills no one ever uses. Necro desperately needs a rework, Templar just feels un needed in any content besides their group purge in pvp. Everyone is mad at DK because that class got their rework and now no one else is for probably years. How is that fair to everyone else? Everyone is predominantly asking for reworks I.E. buffs over nerfs. But if this is the cadence, how can you say its unfair to bring each class back down in line so everyone has a more enjoyable time and not just the one class and the meta jumpers who flock to it? I don't that, but if they can't rework each class in a more timely manner I don't see another option besides giving non reworked classes more class mastery points and tuning the masteries better and reworking a few - which honestly could work now that I think of it.

The thing is, nerfs won't fix anything at this time. Because every class will have to wait for years at this rate and they will be hounded to irrelevance by the time next class refresh rolls in if we go this route. And, given the track record of ZOS, they are likely to 'forget' to remove the nerfs for years too. And by that time, every other class probably ate fat nerfs where all classes have some wonky new visuals only and then when they remove nerfs, cuz priorities, we are back to square one of 'why did x class get buff when y class needed it the most'.

The only way forward at this point is to prioritize finishing rework by the end of 2026, not 2030s.

Radiate77 · July 31

These reworks need to be rolling out in pairs…

They could market them as the Season of Light & Shadow for Templar and Nightblade, the Season of Life & Death for Warden and Necromancer… ect

IZZEFlameLash · July 31

Radiate77 wrote: »

These reworks need to be rolling out in pairs…

They could market them as the Season of Light & Shadow for Templar and Nightblade, the Season of Life & Death for Warden and Necromancer… ect

Would've been ideal, for sure. Dunno what went through their heads when they decided to piece meal like they did.

Tannus15 · July 31

this is thread is entirely made by people who don't understand the concept of different roles in a team, resource allocations and delivery pipelines.

what exactly do you think the writers or content guys are going to be doing while they "stop everything" to do the class rework?
How many people do you think can effectively work on a class rework without getting in each others way? Let's get 1 dev per skill and see how cohesive then end product is. Oh, and this dev has never worked on class skills, and those 2 don't know how to do animations.
Cool, this is going to work great.

This is the kind of logic that thinks if it takes 1 woman 9 months to grow a baby, if we allocate 9 women we can get a baby in 1 month. smh.

Next, do you really want them rushing it out? They could have 100% dumped a nasty version of the Warden rework into U51. I promise you, they could have had a Temu warden into this PTS. Is that what you want? To be stuck with Temu Nightblade rework for the next 5 years?

Let me get this straight, you want a high quality rework, right now, but also all done at once, and to be fully balanaced in both PvE and PvP.

Tannus15 · July 31

And before someone comes in here and tries to say "well you can't have a UI/enviromental/encounter dev working on a class refresh it doesn't make sense" yes you can. Sure it might take a bit of traing for a few weeks but game development is their profession. Plumbers do electrical of necessity sometimes, Electricians can do plumbing to get a project done. Carpenter's too.

Umm, no, that's not how it works. Who is "training" the UI guy in something completely different? Oh, right, the class refresh guys need to do that. So that means even more lead time before you can even start.

Putting a dev on a new project in a tech stack they understand you expect between 3 to 6 months before they are putting in quality work. It's not like building a house at all.
It's like saying a dentist can do heart surgery with a 1 week workshop. You literally have no idea what you are talking about.

Vaqual · July 31

Tannus15 wrote: »

this is thread is entirely made by people who don't understand the concept of different roles in a team, resource allocations and delivery pipelines.

what exactly do you think the writers or content guys are going to be doing while they "stop everything" to do the class rework?
How many people do you think can effectively work on a class rework without getting in each others way? Let's get 1 dev per skill and see how cohesive then end product is. Oh, and this dev has never worked on class skills, and those 2 don't know how to do animations.
Cool, this is going to work great.

This is the kind of logic that thinks if it takes 1 woman 9 months to grow a baby, if we allocate 9 women we can get a baby in 1 month. smh.

Next, do you really want them rushing it out? They could have 100% dumped a nasty version of the Warden rework into U51. I promise you, they could have had a Temu warden into this PTS. Is that what you want? To be stuck with Temu Nightblade rework for the next 5 years?

Let me get this straight, you want a high quality rework, right now, but also all done at once, and to be fully balanaced in both PvE and PvP.

I think people do understand. A fair chunk of the current problems goes back further than the recent layoffs and even further than the class refreshes. Actually there are plenty of issues that predate subclassing.
These comments aren't coming with bad intentions. But if the quality of the game isn't meeting expectations, money isn't meeting ZOS' bank account. Combat is an integral aspect. The issues that need to be solved can be adressed without fully reworking animations, etc. If they can't deliver numerical adjustments and minor reworks for less than 10 classes in the span of several years that deserves to be critizied. And the company should consider how they allocate theirs resources, if issues like these persist for so long.

People played along, patience is wearing thinner and thinner, and at some point no roadmap, teaser, or promise will be enough to compensate for a weak combat experience.
And if they need resources to do this, they need this vocal criticism to make management understand that the product is at stake if they skimp on investments at the wrong time.

Beyond that, many key points in regards to balancing have been discussed ad nauseam on these forums and elsewhere, so they wouldn't even have to start at 0.

Thoriorz · July 31

ESO_player123 wrote: »

I do not know about others, but if all other content was paused till 2028, I would simply unsubscribe and leave the game.

WW or DK?

Tannus15 · July 31

Vaqual wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

this is thread is entirely made by people who don't understand the concept of different roles in a team, resource allocations and delivery pipelines.

what exactly do you think the writers or content guys are going to be doing while they "stop everything" to do the class rework?
How many people do you think can effectively work on a class rework without getting in each others way? Let's get 1 dev per skill and see how cohesive then end product is. Oh, and this dev has never worked on class skills, and those 2 don't know how to do animations.
Cool, this is going to work great.

This is the kind of logic that thinks if it takes 1 woman 9 months to grow a baby, if we allocate 9 women we can get a baby in 1 month. smh.

Next, do you really want them rushing it out? They could have 100% dumped a nasty version of the Warden rework into U51. I promise you, they could have had a Temu warden into this PTS. Is that what you want? To be stuck with Temu Nightblade rework for the next 5 years?

Let me get this straight, you want a high quality rework, right now, but also all done at once, and to be fully balanaced in both PvE and PvP.

I think people do understand. A fair chunk of the current problems goes back further than the recent layoffs and even further than the class refreshes. Actually there are plenty of issues that predate subclassing.
These comments aren't coming with bad intentions. But if the quality of the game isn't meeting expectations, money isn't meeting ZOS' bank account. Combat is an integral aspect. The issues that need to be solved can be adressed without fully reworking animations, etc. If they can't deliver numerical adjustments and minor reworks for less than 10 classes in the span of several years that deserves to be critizied. And the company should consider how they allocate theirs resources, if issues like these persist for so long.

People played along, patience is wearing thinner and thinner, and at some point no roadmap, teaser, or promise will be enough to compensate for a weak combat experience.
And if they need resources to do this, they need this vocal criticism to make management understand that the product is at stake if they skimp on investments at the wrong time.

Beyond that, many key points in regards to balancing have been discussed ad nauseam on these forums and elsewhere, so they wouldn't even have to start at 0.

Don't mistake me, I also think the class reworks should be the highest priority, but I don't want them to try and reskill their team to try and brute force it ASAP.

That's not how we get a quality result that we're happy with at the end.

The way we get there is to do it one class at a time, allowing that we won't know if they got it right until it hits live and then it still requires tweaks. If they rush it, we all lose.

I fully expect there to be issues with the warden refresh when it hits PTS and hopefully we get some changes from PTS before live, but then I still expect it to need at least one additional balance pass once we go live.

spartaxoxo · July 31

A game lives and dies on new content moreso than balance. Balance is important but if you don't actually have anything to play the character on then how well it is balanced is moot. They need to do both

Arunei · July 31

Vaqual wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

this is thread is entirely made by people who don't understand the concept of different roles in a team, resource allocations and delivery pipelines.

what exactly do you think the writers or content guys are going to be doing while they "stop everything" to do the class rework?
How many people do you think can effectively work on a class rework without getting in each others way? Let's get 1 dev per skill and see how cohesive then end product is. Oh, and this dev has never worked on class skills, and those 2 don't know how to do animations.
Cool, this is going to work great.

This is the kind of logic that thinks if it takes 1 woman 9 months to grow a baby, if we allocate 9 women we can get a baby in 1 month. smh.

Next, do you really want them rushing it out? They could have 100% dumped a nasty version of the Warden rework into U51. I promise you, they could have had a Temu warden into this PTS. Is that what you want? To be stuck with Temu Nightblade rework for the next 5 years?

Let me get this straight, you want a high quality rework, right now, but also all done at once, and to be fully balanaced in both PvE and PvP.

I think people do understand. A fair chunk of the current problems goes back further than the recent layoffs and even further than the class refreshes. Actually there are plenty of issues that predate subclassing.
These comments aren't coming with bad intentions. But if the quality of the game isn't meeting expectations, money isn't meeting ZOS' bank account. Combat is an integral aspect. The issues that need to be solved can be adressed without fully reworking animations, etc. If they can't deliver numerical adjustments and minor reworks for less than 10 classes in the span of several years that deserves to be critizied. And the company should consider how they allocate theirs resources, if issues like these persist for so long.

People played along, patience is wearing thinner and thinner, and at some point no roadmap, teaser, or promise will be enough to compensate for a weak combat experience.
And if they need resources to do this, they need this vocal criticism to make management understand that the product is at stake if they skimp on investments at the wrong time.

Beyond that, many key points in regards to balancing have been discussed ad nauseam on these forums and elsewhere, so they wouldn't even have to start at 0.

Vocal criticism isn't going to make people from different teams suddenly learn how to do aspects of game development they've never worked on before. It's not going to make things go any faster than they currently can. The simple fact is people demanding that the devs "focus on Class reworks" need to accept the fact that things are already as focused as they can be.

As was already said, are the writers supposed to just not work on other content and somehow know how to code and balance and animate? Are people who's experience is UI elements or environmental design or developing Cosmetics supposed to just somehow pick up how to code? And no, you can't just pick these things up in a "few weeks of training", as someone seemed to have suggested. Also who would be training these people even if it WAS possible for them to actually learn how to properly and adequately code in just "a few weeks"?

Not only that, but as I said in the letter thread, things have to be done in steps. The animators and SFX teams can't start working on their part of any rework until the general idea of how each Skill will look or sound is settled on and. The QA team can't start testing things until animations and SFX are done. Are these and other teams just supposed to sit around doing absolutely nothing because focus should only be on ONE thing? Why would they even be coming to work if there's no work for them to do?

The teams that handle things like new GPs, new storylines, new Events, new content like the Nowhere Vault, they are not the same team working on the Class reworks, at least not entirely. They may have some overlap, but not to the extent where it's going to take away work from the refreshes. Saying that the content being worked on by teams with little to no involvement with the reworks should be halted entirely because by some logic those people will magically shift focus to the reworks is silly at best.

BretonMage · July 31

Class refreshes should be top priority, but they can't and shouldn't pause all other content. Aside from the fact that not all roles are required at all times for the class refresh (already mentioned several times), there's also little logic in giving up something that takes minimal time to develop. If you can make 50% of the playerbase happy with something that will only delay the class refresh by an additional say 5%, I think it would be silly not to do that. Obviously I'm not saying they should commit to dozens of those minor projects, but having zero content for years would not be healthy for the game.

Pinktraining · July 31

During the last Dragon Knight update, the official team stated that the Warden refresh had already begun.

Therefore, it's clear that this Warden delay isn't primarily related to layoffs. This refresh is either facing difficult technical issues, or there are indeed staff members lacking the skills to deliver on time.

If it's the former, then the official team should clearly inform players of the difficulties encountered (such as insufficient memory, incompatibility with players using older devices, etc.), or which design concepts cannot be agreed upon internally (such as the unclear concept of the four seasons in classes), and if necessary, even launch a vote or survey.

[snip]
[edited for bashing]

Vaqual · July 31

Arunei wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

this is thread is entirely made by people who don't understand the concept of different roles in a team, resource allocations and delivery pipelines.

what exactly do you think the writers or content guys are going to be doing while they "stop everything" to do the class rework?
How many people do you think can effectively work on a class rework without getting in each others way? Let's get 1 dev per skill and see how cohesive then end product is. Oh, and this dev has never worked on class skills, and those 2 don't know how to do animations.
Cool, this is going to work great.

This is the kind of logic that thinks if it takes 1 woman 9 months to grow a baby, if we allocate 9 women we can get a baby in 1 month. smh.

Next, do you really want them rushing it out? They could have 100% dumped a nasty version of the Warden rework into U51. I promise you, they could have had a Temu warden into this PTS. Is that what you want? To be stuck with Temu Nightblade rework for the next 5 years?

Let me get this straight, you want a high quality rework, right now, but also all done at once, and to be fully balanaced in both PvE and PvP.

I think people do understand. A fair chunk of the current problems goes back further than the recent layoffs and even further than the class refreshes. Actually there are plenty of issues that predate subclassing.
These comments aren't coming with bad intentions. But if the quality of the game isn't meeting expectations, money isn't meeting ZOS' bank account. Combat is an integral aspect. The issues that need to be solved can be adressed without fully reworking animations, etc. If they can't deliver numerical adjustments and minor reworks for less than 10 classes in the span of several years that deserves to be critizied. And the company should consider how they allocate theirs resources, if issues like these persist for so long.

People played along, patience is wearing thinner and thinner, and at some point no roadmap, teaser, or promise will be enough to compensate for a weak combat experience.
And if they need resources to do this, they need this vocal criticism to make management understand that the product is at stake if they skimp on investments at the wrong time.

Beyond that, many key points in regards to balancing have been discussed ad nauseam on these forums and elsewhere, so they wouldn't even have to start at 0.

Vocal criticism isn't going to make people from different teams suddenly learn how to do aspects of game development they've never worked on before. It's not going to make things go any faster than they currently can. The simple fact is people demanding that the devs "focus on Class reworks" need to accept the fact that things are already as focused as they can be.

As was already said, are the writers supposed to just not work on other content and somehow know how to code and balance and animate? Are people who's experience is UI elements or environmental design or developing Cosmetics supposed to just somehow pick up how to code? And no, you can't just pick these things up in a "few weeks of training", as someone seemed to have suggested. Also who would be training these people even if it WAS possible for them to actually learn how to properly and adequately code in just "a few weeks"?

Not only that, but as I said in the letter thread, things have to be done in steps. The animators and SFX teams can't start working on their part of any rework until the general idea of how each Skill will look or sound is settled on and. The QA team can't start testing things until animations and SFX are done. Are these and other teams just supposed to sit around doing absolutely nothing because focus should only be on ONE thing? Why would they even be coming to work if there's no work for them to do?

The teams that handle things like new GPs, new storylines, new Events, new content like the Nowhere Vault, they are not the same team working on the Class reworks, at least not entirely. They may have some overlap, but not to the extent where it's going to take away work from the refreshes. Saying that the content being worked on by teams with little to no involvement with the reworks should be halted entirely because by some logic those people will magically shift focus to the reworks is silly at best.

If in any other industry manpower or budget become limiting, customers aren't really interested in hearing all the reasons why something doesn't work, why something isn't coming on time, why something isn't meeting qualitative standards. If the teams organization doesn't meet the needs of the project for a prolonged time span, then leadership is doing something wrong.
The original timeframe for the reworks was already too long. Calling on the studio to double down on crucial goals is completely reasonable. They know their capacities, they know what their devs can and can't do. So far it seems they haven't even managed to get the priorities straight.

I get that you have good intentions with your post, but that isn't going to change anything for a lot of people.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me throughout 16 consecutive combat patches of which like 3 were kinda ok, shame on me.

Arunei · July 31

Vaqual wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

Vaqual wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

this is thread is entirely made by people who don't understand the concept of different roles in a team, resource allocations and delivery pipelines.

what exactly do you think the writers or content guys are going to be doing while they "stop everything" to do the class rework?
How many people do you think can effectively work on a class rework without getting in each others way? Let's get 1 dev per skill and see how cohesive then end product is. Oh, and this dev has never worked on class skills, and those 2 don't know how to do animations.
Cool, this is going to work great.

This is the kind of logic that thinks if it takes 1 woman 9 months to grow a baby, if we allocate 9 women we can get a baby in 1 month. smh.

Next, do you really want them rushing it out? They could have 100% dumped a nasty version of the Warden rework into U51. I promise you, they could have had a Temu warden into this PTS. Is that what you want? To be stuck with Temu Nightblade rework for the next 5 years?

Let me get this straight, you want a high quality rework, right now, but also all done at once, and to be fully balanaced in both PvE and PvP.

I think people do understand. A fair chunk of the current problems goes back further than the recent layoffs and even further than the class refreshes. Actually there are plenty of issues that predate subclassing.
These comments aren't coming with bad intentions. But if the quality of the game isn't meeting expectations, money isn't meeting ZOS' bank account. Combat is an integral aspect. The issues that need to be solved can be adressed without fully reworking animations, etc. If they can't deliver numerical adjustments and minor reworks for less than 10 classes in the span of several years that deserves to be critizied. And the company should consider how they allocate theirs resources, if issues like these persist for so long.

People played along, patience is wearing thinner and thinner, and at some point no roadmap, teaser, or promise will be enough to compensate for a weak combat experience.
And if they need resources to do this, they need this vocal criticism to make management understand that the product is at stake if they skimp on investments at the wrong time.

Beyond that, many key points in regards to balancing have been discussed ad nauseam on these forums and elsewhere, so they wouldn't even have to start at 0.

Vocal criticism isn't going to make people from different teams suddenly learn how to do aspects of game development they've never worked on before. It's not going to make things go any faster than they currently can. The simple fact is people demanding that the devs "focus on Class reworks" need to accept the fact that things are already as focused as they can be.

As was already said, are the writers supposed to just not work on other content and somehow know how to code and balance and animate? Are people who's experience is UI elements or environmental design or developing Cosmetics supposed to just somehow pick up how to code? And no, you can't just pick these things up in a "few weeks of training", as someone seemed to have suggested. Also who would be training these people even if it WAS possible for them to actually learn how to properly and adequately code in just "a few weeks"?

Not only that, but as I said in the letter thread, things have to be done in steps. The animators and SFX teams can't start working on their part of any rework until the general idea of how each Skill will look or sound is settled on and. The QA team can't start testing things until animations and SFX are done. Are these and other teams just supposed to sit around doing absolutely nothing because focus should only be on ONE thing? Why would they even be coming to work if there's no work for them to do?

The teams that handle things like new GPs, new storylines, new Events, new content like the Nowhere Vault, they are not the same team working on the Class reworks, at least not entirely. They may have some overlap, but not to the extent where it's going to take away work from the refreshes. Saying that the content being worked on by teams with little to no involvement with the reworks should be halted entirely because by some logic those people will magically shift focus to the reworks is silly at best.

If in any other industry manpower or budget become limiting, customers aren't really interested in hearing all the reasons why something doesn't work, why something isn't coming on time, why something isn't meeting qualitative standards. If the teams organization doesn't meet the needs of the project for a prolonged time span, then leadership is doing something wrong.
The original timeframe for the reworks was already too long. Calling on the studio to double down on crucial goals is completely reasonable. They know their capacities, they know what their devs can and can't do. So far it seems they haven't even managed to get the priorities straight.

I get that you have good intentions with your post, but that isn't going to change anything for a lot of people.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me throughout 16 consecutive combat patches of which like 3 were kinda ok, shame on me.

My whole point is that they can't "double down". That would imply there are resources or manpower they can extract from other departments. It's not reasonable for people to tell the devs to stop all other content (literally the title of the thread) in favor of one thing that CANNOT realistically be worked on by an entire game studio. That's just not how game development works. It also isn't reasonable to claim "it's what the people want" when a number of people have already mentioned being fine with waiting for the reworks or not even caring about them at all. It's what a portion of the people want, yes. It's not what "the people" want, as that implies it's something a larger majority wants.

But we all should know by now the forums and even sites like Reddit are a small percentage of the actual playerbase. Even if a lot of people in these spaces want Class reworks before anything else, that doesn't mean most of the overall population does, or that they care about them to begin with.

I get people are upset and disappointed. I get that people feel jaded, slighted, or just plain fed up. I'm not trying to say anyone doesn't have the right to or that people are wrong for feeling that way. What I am saying is regardless of one's feelings, one should be able to understand that it is not realistic to want ZOS to stop ALL work on ALL other content and focus on a single project.

Seraphayel · July 31

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Don't care how tough or weak my main class is if there's nothing to do.

The game has an immense amount of content, there's always saying something to do. In a pool of 50 dungeons, thirty zones and over a dozen trials there's always enough to do.

BardokRedSnow · July 31

XVestigeXx wrote: »

MasterSpatula wrote: »

Don't care how tough or weak my main class is if there's nothing to do.

Have you done all the content that there is to do in the game already? it would sting a little I suppose if you had and you were a dk main, but i think the vast majority of players would rather take a year, get a refreshed class, then resume new content. not everyone wants a new zone quest all the time. I like dungeon and trials too, but I enjoy classes far more than any year's worth of content personally

This is like having a new gun with no targets to shoot

I would rather they put out new content and push out classes as they can, they have the masteries for balance

But not if the new content is this sheogorath quirk chungus marvel humor nonsense. Night market was cool, this though is pretty weak.