The Elder Scrolls Online

Pyros_sl said:

Surely you're not saying dota/lol players don't find excuses for losing, right?

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Nope. But I don't think it's a fair comparison to put MOBAs vs MMOs in the first place. Both run on completely different principles. One is full time PvP specifically designed for quick-hitting games with a small group or solo players, the other is designed to be a long, drawn-out campaign that lasts as long as it can so that people will keep logging in daily with masses of people renewing subs.

I'm just saying that with MOBAs there's no real acceptable excuse. Even CCGs like Hearthstone have better excuses built it. ("The cards didn't roll my way")

Don't forget ANY feedback goes by the CM team. Sometimes Devs are blind sided because some Community Manager doesn't want to lose his job.

Tuco_sl said:

Will they listen this time? I don't know. I'm going to provide them our honest and constructive feedback. What they do with it is up to them.

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Even if they do listen, how long would it take to re-work their current roadmap to actually get them in game? They don't seem equipped to make quick, significant changes on the fly and them asking for a "summit" just seems like they have no idea what to do. I just get the feeling this game is too far gone to recover, maintain a sub, and a healthy population. Any substantial changes would need to make a splash and tied to some sort of promotion that is going to drive people to the game. Maybe they could do a relaunch in six months, with added changes, and a change to subscription model. Maybe tie it to the console launch and make it the same model as GW2?

Xaxius_sl said:

Even if they do listen, how long would it take to re-work their current roadmap to actually get them in game? They don't seem equipped to make quick, significant changes on the fly and them asking for a "summit" just seems like they have no idea what to do. I just get the feeling this game is too far gone to recover, maintain a sub, and a healthy population. Any substantial changes would need to make a splash and tied to some sort of promotion that is going to drive people to the game. Maybe they could do a relaunch in six months, with added changes, and a change to subscription model. Maybe tie it to the console launch and make it the same model as GW2?

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Half the shit that Tuco is recommending, I guarantee Brian Wheeler had planned/implemented at one point or another in beta. It's really not rocket science. I just hope they can shut up the suit that nixed a lot of it.

Blackwulf_sl said:

Half the shit that Tuco is recommending, I guarantee Brian Wheeler had planned/implemented at one point or another in beta. It's really not rocket science. I just hope they can shut up the suit that nixed a lot of it.

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That suit would be Paul Sage.

Blackwulf_sl said:

Half the shit that Tuco is recommending, I guarantee Brian Wheeler had planned/implemented at one point or another in beta. It's really not rocket science. I just hope they can shut up the suit that nixed a lot of it.

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If Brian Wheeler is going to get all the credit for the good things about Cyrodil, should he not also get the blame for the bad things about Cyrodil? BTW Tuco's list is good and I hope most of it is categorized as "feasible" to implement, hopefully sooner rather than later.

Fuck man I know I'm a minority but I don't see how this game is SO bad. If you don't like the PvP I understand. That form of PvP with hollow rewards will never work. I still think the game is really enjoyable leveling up enjoying the story. No crashing, Runs great, Looks great, fun combat and immerssive feel. I just don't know what else people were expecting. Yeah it has some bugs but not really game breaking and as I said the PvP was never going to work I can't believe some people thought it would.

Creslin_sl said:

You can't always win, most adult male gamers play pvp games of some sort, which means most of them lose at least half the time.

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Sadly a good chunk of them only do so to grief. They're what infest the EQ emu PvP population.

They inject everything in that little niche and go from server to server like locust hacking, exploiting and doing almost anything to win and quitting if they don't (only to come back months later and try the same shit all over again - if they do win the server shrivels down to only them before they quit).

VZTZ2 basically died because the competition became so heated that one side pretty much said "If we can't win, no one will" and hacked so badly the population collapsed.

Why should any MMO developer design their game, whether it be PVP or PVE content, to cater to this crowd? Should they not be focused on satisfying the more mature player?

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It depends on which side outnumbers the other and which will turn a bigger profit if catered to.

Being the cynical sort, my bet is the man-children outnumber the mature players by a wide margin.

Well, even 'mature players' quit games too when they start losing. I don't know anyone who likes to pay montly to be cannonfodder.

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I don't know what the game is like nowadays, but years ago it was more fun to play the defending side on WWIIO than the attacker. I played Allied and like most of the internet, that game was infested with Nazi fanboys who loved to zerg and live out their dream of German victory over and over.

Creslin_sl said:

There is this great myth started by wow that if you throw free shit at people they will love your game and they all want to be the huge hero and somehow all these players are too stupid to see how shallow that experience is.

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Not MMO related, but we're talking about a TES game here, that's their standard model right there.

Rescorla_sl said:

If Brian Wheeler is going to get all the credit for the good things about Cyrodil, should he not also get the blame for the bad things about Cyrodil? BTW Tuco's list is good and I hope most of it is categorized as "feasible" to implement, hopefully sooner rather than later.

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You might be right, it's just that I remember interview with him from a year+ ago where he talked about some of the same things that are pissing people off - realm pride, recognition, etc. I really think he wanted to have a things different than they are now - I'm pretty sure he was on board with titles, nameplates, and difficult to transfer campaigns. I know he likes things like kill spam, because during beta he sent me a PM telling me that he agreed that kill spam was important and how to get it to show up in the chat box. (I replied that it wasn't the same as having it flash on the screen ala DAOC, and he didn't reply to me.) Anyway, I think he "gets" it, and I feel like his hands might have been tied. I might be totally wrong.

DMK_sl said:

Fuck man I know I'm a minority but I don't see how this game is SO bad. If you don't like the PvP I understand. That form of PvP with hollow rewards will never work. I still think the game is really enjoyable leveling up enjoying the story. No crashing, Runs great, Looks great, fun combat and immerssive feel. I just don't know what else people were expecting. Yeah it has some bugs but not really game breaking and as I said the PvP was never going to work I can't believe some people thought it would.

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Nah, I kind of agree with you. Overall I still really like the game. I just know that, long-term, if my guild is going to be playing this game, it will be because of the PVP, and I still think it can be salvaged. I'll be happy as long as they keep trying to balance abilities, make campaigns more of a permanent choice, add recognition like guild flags/tabards, nameplates, titles, kill spam, etc., increase the incentive for player progression with things like higher tier PVP skill lines and better item sets from Cyrodiil, and of course if they implement the Imperial City ala DF well. All of these things are easily patchable. I'm not asking them to remake the game, just continue to iterate and improve it.

I know some of the bigger, really hardcore guilds (I thought I was hardcore, lol) are nearing burnout and won't wait around for fixes/improvements. That sucks, and I hope they come back and try shit as it gets fixed, but I know there's a good chance they'll be busy with the next big thing. I just hope ZOS can hold on to enough subs to keep the game open. If not, my little guild can always jump ship the next big thing, also (rather not, though, because we like this setting a lot)

Blackwulf_sl said:

I know some of the bigger, really hardcore guilds (I thought I was hardcore, lol) are nearing burnout and won't wait around for fixes/improvements.

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As a point of order PRX kept a 24/7 presence in GW2 for six months. TESO only came out last month. Hardcore people aren't leaving the game after a month because they are burned out, they are leaving the game because of the game.

Hardcore people always leave games after a month or two. The problem is they've chased off a good chunk of the casuals, also.

I play this game because I love the Elder Scrolls series, I enjoy the fun grouping with people in PvE dungeons and I love the competition of PvP.

However, combination of class bugs (I play a nightblade), grotesque class imbalances, niche armor/spec combinations that are essentially unbeatable and the horrible imbalances in campaigns really just make me want to stop pvping. Mind you I'm a V10 Nightblade on Auriels Bow and I play Ebonheart Pact. I'm top 20 for EP and maybe 120 or so for the entire campaign. (I leveled really slow and didn't really go into Cyrodil much before I hit V10) I play with most of the top ranked people in my campaign and they are all really good PVPers for the most part. Alot of them are much more hardcore that I am but they all can agree with the fact that there are such huge issues with this game that's just driving people away daily.

The AB campaign is just an ass pounding from AD all day long every day. There are -VERY- brief moments when DC or EP will have people guest in from other campaigns to get one of their streamer buddies EMP. Other than that, if you're on DC or EP you are sitting at your Gate trying to figure out the best way to get points (I travel to DC's Alta Ruma gate and farm them with oil pots) while getting slutpuppied by a mass of AD. It's sad because there is still a good bit of talent remaining on EP side that simply want to go into Cyrodil and have good fights but that's literally impossible at this point.

We sit in teamspeak and just laugh maniacally at the dumb fucking bugs that plague this game(way too many to list). We laugh at how long they have been going on and how long they go without even being addressed (lolcaltrops). We cry that certain classes are in every way shape and form unkillable for most people(I would pit a DK against literally any class 1v1 and they only get exponentially better vs more than one enemy). We cry that we finally take a keep only to have a legion of AD show up out of nowhere to take it over in minutes and drive us back to being farmed at the gate. We get pissed that we want to pvp but the -ONLY- option is to fight against 6-1 odds. We want to duel to kill time but we can't for no legitimate fucking reason(Fucking Everquest had dueling and that was one of the most unfriendly, unbalanced PVP games created).

Alot of the hardcore people I play with had such high hopes for ESO and Zeni is just letting everyone the fuck down. It frustrates the ever living shit out of so many of us because the potential for a great MMO is here... but these people are just letting their complete fucking ignorance of how games work ruin it.

Tuco- I could write down a gigantic list of problems that haunts this game and hope that it gets changed. But, I just ask one simple thing. If you are in fact going to go and talk to these people... out of everything... I just want you to tell them to play their own creation. They need to fucking level a character to V10. They need to go into pvp and play for like 5 hours a day(?) on the weekend, on the underdog side of an imbalanced server. I want you to tell them to experience their own fucking game because I am thoroughly convinced that there isn't a single person in that entire team that has played a character through and through. Either that or they all play DK's with batswarm and simply made this game to feel cool while lolercausting people in Cyrodil.

Flight_sl said:

As a point of order PRX kept a 24/7 presence in GW2 for six months. TESO only came out last month. Hardcore people aren't leaving the game after a month because they are burned out, they are leaving the game because of the game.

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Pretty spot on,

No guts, no glory, no game.

Tuco_sl said:

I actually am pretty curious as to whether these people play their own game.

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You know, we complain that most modern MMOs are the result of far too many focus groups, committees, and marketing surveys making decisions instead of an actual passionate lead or Vision? with a history of loving the genre. However, this goes one step further in the wrong direction. I'm not sure who in the world designed their PVE and grouping, and if they had any clue what so ever about how MMOs operate. I haven't really talked to anyone who liked 1-50 much or their combat system. I think they indeed had a vision and it was create a cool new megaserver technology and milk as much Elder Scrolls and Dark Age design as possible to try and make money, but I think you're right and none of the execs actually play their game.

I'm curious to see what their churn will be next month, if they release those figures.

They want to launch Craglorn ASAP, thats why. I imagine there was a plan for post-launch development that was something along the lines of "Other MMOs had no endgame and failed, we can't let out VR10s have nothing to do" so pushing VR12 content is the top priority despite game crippling bugs and the bot invasion, I guess someone high up on the development totem pole is shouting "Stay the course! Fuck it, the bots are buying box copies so leave them for now! Whats important now is 4 man trials which will require another 6 months of patches and exploit fixes after launch! We'll just patch everything in 2015, go go go~!"