So, I logged in and saw the Master tag on the loading screen, opened the character menu and saw it was set to Master. I think that UI element is a little on the big side, doesn't really blend with the rest of the UI but it does stand out. When I ran to a nearby dungeon to test combat I didn't notice any difference when I entered, only to find I was set to normal somehow. Aside from that the system works well enough, and I appreciate the fact that it exists so it can be built upon.

My issue is, once I got the difficulty set, is that fights didn't really change much, basic fights we still just as basic, since many enemies spend so much time preparing to attack or using attacks that do bugger all that their increased damage didn't matter. And when I went to Wrothgar to try out Old Orsinium I did die a few times. It actually put a smile on my face, until I realized that the only thing that ever really did me in was multiple ranged mobs all doing basic attacks. I mentioned this ages ago in the Overland Content Feedback Thread, that simply making enemies hit harder and us hit weaker was not only something we could do ourselves with gear, but it wouldn't address the main pressure point I feel with most encounters outside of dungeons and trials.

Enemies at large are just way to basic, years ago when the whole pass was done where "increased the damage but reduced the health of tank enemies" and what not, there isn't anything differentiating one enemy class from another, all mobs are just as durable, deal just about as much damage, give so much grace with their special attacks that they're normally debuffs for the attacker, hence why the light attack barrage was the biggest threat. My reason for preferring instances over debuffs was because I feel, to be impactful, most enemies need to do more in combat. Yes they need more health to live long enough to act, and they need enough damage to justify paying attention to, but without anything else to make them more, I guess the term is 'stand out', overall enemies remain a giant grey glob, doesn't matter if you're fighting bandits, deadra, or ghosts. I know it can't be easily done with a player sided modifier, but if enemies could use more advanced attacks against specific players, that could do something, though again, that'd bleed over onto players who don't want harder content, but as it is I either noticed nothing different or just got instantly gibbed at the start of the fight because I didn't hard cc all the ranged mobs, harder, yes, and I have to pay attention, but if that's it then I don't really feel like challenging myself on that highest difficulty, just seems tedious.

And in addition, the biggest feedback will be how it feels to be in the middle of a fun fight, only to have a player on a lower difficulty clear the fight without noticing me, and being left waiting for the enemies to respawn, it's an issue that already exists in the game, and once this goes live I'll just have to wait and see how often fate puts that situation on me.

xylena wrote: »

Can I have my own personal Cyrodiil server? /s

Condensing the queue makes sense. Those 8 guys on Blackreach are like 10% of the whole GH server, it needs all the help it can get to reach a critical mass where it's active 24/7.

The problem is they're removing the campaign with fewer restrictions.

It's fine if there's only one non-Vengeance campaign, but they need to do away with Faction Lock if they're getting rid of Blackreach since now if you have multiple toons on different alliances, you either play Vengeance or you're relegated to 1 or 2 characters.

I agree that it seems like the masteries can do well for single target dummy parses... which does not match what subclassing can do in actual combat.

For me, the main thing is that sorc just does not have enough cleave damage compared to fatecarver. Unless the implosiony skill does aoe damage, I think I just have to wait for the refresh before going back to monoclassing.