800k people don't seem to mind difficult overworld

spartaxoxo

summ0004 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

summ0004 wrote: »

As a compromise I might even suggest that at the very least the end of quest bosses at least get some sort of optional buff to allow for some immersion so you actually have to fight the boss rather than light attacking it to death. That way the overland will just have trash mobs , but you can get a harder boss if you choose it

This is what I meant by challenge banners for quest bosses. For those that maybe don't do hard modes, Challenge banners increase the stats on bosses AND add new mechanics. They can be flipped on and off, at will. Therefore if someone flipped it on and then felt it made things too difficult and unfun, they can just turn it off.

As the big bad story bosses are already solo instanced content, it would have literally zero impact on anyone else.

Finally we agree on something, I would be happy to see this implemented and would interest me in purchasing the chapters and having some fun playing through it.

The thread has been so focused on what I disagree with, that I feel like it gives a stronger impression of my disinterest in a solution to this than is true. I suggested challenge banners pretty early on.

I also suggested debuff food, and more stuff like those roaming bosses. I think that it's likely to be more feasible and more acceptable to the casual experience than vet overland would be. I would honestly really like more to see more compromise solutions. Because I do think there could be more ways to modify the experience to make things more interesting, I just also think that vet overland is not the way to go about it.

I think really hard debuff food (so Overland is more challenging), challenge banners on story bosses, and more stuff like the roaming world bosses could go a long way to breathing some life into things without disrupting more casual players ability to explore Overland at a leisurely pace using whatever build they feel like using.

kargen27

spartaxoxo wrote: »

summ0004 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

summ0004 wrote: »

As a compromise I might even suggest that at the very least the end of quest bosses at least get some sort of optional buff to allow for some immersion so you actually have to fight the boss rather than light attacking it to death. That way the overland will just have trash mobs , but you can get a harder boss if you choose it

This is what I meant by challenge banners for quest bosses. For those that maybe don't do hard modes, Challenge banners increase the stats on bosses AND add new mechanics. They can be flipped on and off, at will. Therefore if someone flipped it on and then felt it made things too difficult and unfun, they can just turn it off.

As the big bad story bosses are already solo instanced content, it would have literally zero impact on anyone else.

Finally we agree on something, I would be happy to see this implemented and would interest me in purchasing the chapters and having some fun playing through it.

The thread has been so focused on what I disagree with, that I feel like it gives a stronger impression of my disinterest in a solution to this than is true. I suggested challenge banners pretty early on.

I also suggested debuff food, and more stuff like those roaming bosses. I think that it's likely to be more feasible and more acceptable to the casual experience than vet overland would be. I would honestly really like more to see more compromise solutions. Because I do think there could be more ways to modify the experience to make things more interesting, I just also think that vet overland is not the way to go about it.

I think really hard debuff food (so Overland is more challenging), challenge banners on story bosses, and more stuff like the roaming world bosses could go a long way to breathing some life into things without disrupting more casual players ability to explore Overland at a leisurely pace using whatever build they feel like using.

I've been suggesting food and drink to debuff for a long time now. Kind of talked myself out of it though. I agree with others that unless mechanics are changed the fights just last longer they don't really get any more interesting. A separate vet instance of overland is a bad idea though and even if it were not it isn't worth the resources and time investment for the return they would get. A toggle in overland doesn't work for a variety of reasons. So even though I would enjoy a more challenging overland I don't see any way for it to happen.
I would like to see a toggle going forward on solo instanced content we can choose. I don't think it is realistic to go back and do that to existing content. To participate we would either need to have a character that hasn't done the quest or create a new character. Resetting the quests to allow us to try the harder mode doesn't seem like it would be an easy thing to do.
I have also thought maybe they could tie some side quests from overland in with dungeons. Give us maybe less up top but more down below. The dungeons tied to overland quests would be solo and have the option of hard or normal. If you die on hard you have the option of switching to normal. Problem is the solo instances would (I'm guessing) take resources from the servers and might impact performance.
I'm lucky that I enjoy many things the game offers. I don't mind overland as it is because it is often a break from other stuff I am doing. The next few days I am going to be trying to get trophies to finish up those achievements.

Iccotak

Blood_again wrote: »

Maya_Nur wrote: »

1. Humans psychologically need a sense of progression, a feeling of growing (that's why RPGs have leveling systems at all) so self-debuff is like God pretending human, while toggle mod is more like a God went for a challenge. By the way, increasing mob's stats won't work. As CP5 said and others said previously, we need smarter enemies which DESIRE to kill us.
2. Playing with others but with a debuff upon a character just doesn't make sense because low-level characters already have an invisible buff so they can rival an 160CP overland. Making newbies strong and veterans weak is just rediculous.

Toggle also implies (would be nice at least) an oportunity to replay all the quests once again. I have completed zones' stories years ago, but finish them again with another character is not for me. Not only because I like my main, but also because gameplay is not engaging now.

There is an issue with implementing smarter enemies. You literally want to have a new game inside ESO. I'm afraid it's hard to "sell" this idea to ZoS. So we need a compromise. How to make the current overland changes as minimal as possible to make what you accept as "vet"?

Solution with veteran and newcomer is even harder. Please remember that we are taking steps from the current game in current state. Do you really want a challenge in battle with mobs? Or do you want just to feel stronger than newcomer? It is two different directions to move, two ideas to "sell".

Neither, we want general combat to not be boring.

Cannot do Vet Overland? Ok, then implement more interesting enemies that we encounter in open world
Make different types of Tougher NPCs & Mini-Bosses who use varying mechanics. Then sprinkle them throughout the zones for more encounters, Not too much but just enough to spice up the gameplay.

Examples:
Really take a look at enemies with mechanics we see from Mini-Bosses in the story.
Disappointing in the story but they’d better serve in general overland.
Those guys are designed for solo play that anyone can do so just scatter them throughout the zone.

The problem with “Tougher Enemies” today is that they’re too rare in exploration and only their health and damage is buffed.
So they’re still boring because they don’t do anything different and don’t utilize ESO mechanics. They aren’t interesting and therefore not Fun.

However, Mini-bosses like Nathari would be a great base for a “Master Necromancer” overland encounter.

Video 17:47 mark

https://youtu.be/hIZN1mUHTKU

Imagine exploring the wild and encountering a Master Necromancer who summons a Bone Colossus, does a wide ring area affect, and/or possibly transforms into a Lich or Bone Colossus.

Other types they can do
- Bandit Chiefs
- Master Assassin
- Pyromancer
- Cryomancer
- Briar Hearts (they exist but need adjustments)
- Beast Master
- Minotaur Champion
- Werewolf Behemoth (or others)
-

All of which are faster, attack & use abilities more frequently, have more abilities - some of which cover more ground.

Have one of those with a mob every 1 out 5-8 encounters and that changes things up at a reasonable rate without being overdone.

Also the wide variety of different types which would help keep the random encounters more interesting.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I would like to point out that I am just an average player, and the hardest content I do is vet dungeons(non-DLC) and some normal trials, and even I find the overland stupidly easy to the point of frustation, so it must be even worse for high elite players

It's better for many of us who engage in actually difficult content, not worse. One reason I don't mind Overland being easy very much is It's a nice break from harder, more organized content. I don't gotta care about which set I have or focus on not getting one shot, I can just listen to some interesting dialogue and chill. When I get sick of hard content, vet content is there for me. And vice versa.

I think the majority of the people who complain about Vet Overland are the people who refuse to actually challenge themselves with the actually difficult content in this game in favor of playing tutorial content over and over, then complain about the game being too easy. If you've never done something like try to get a vet dlc dungeon skin, go for flawless conqueror, or killed a vet dlc trial boss ofc this game seems too easy. You're purposefully avoiding hard content.

There are definitely some people out there who only do vet content though. I sympathize with them. We need more arenas and such.

There are a wide variety of different players who have agreed that they find Overland lacking.

I myself regularly do Endgame Dungeons, and I’m working on completing the trials.

The problem isn’t “a lack of endgame content“ – the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

The gameplay in the main story undercuts the narrative to such a degree that it kills immersion and ruins any investment that I might’ve had.
What many have said, including myself, is that the gameplay for contact like the main story needs to be improved and/or have a Veteran toggle - so then it is enjoyable to players besides beginners or those not looking for gameplay to matter.

The gameplay experience affects the quality of the story. Poor and Un-engaging Gameplay makes the story worse

SilverBride

Iccotak wrote: »

...we want general combat to not be boring.

Boring is an opinion, not a fact. It is 100% subjective and there is no way to measure levels of boredom. Overhauling the entire base structure of the game because some players find it boring isn't a good reason to actually do it.

EDIT: I want to include the following that were also given as reasons, but are all subjective opinions, not facts.

Iccotak wrote: »

There are a wide variety of different players who have agreed that they find Overland lacking...

...the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

The gameplay in the main story undercuts the narrative to such a degree that it kills immersion and ruins any investment that I might’ve had...

...the gameplay for contact like the main story needs to be improved and/or have a Veteran toggle - so then it is enjoyable to players besides beginners or those not looking for gameplay to matter.

...Poor and Un-engaging Gameplay makes the story worse

colossalvoids

Amottica wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

colossalvoids wrote: »

Next time hopefully discussion won't be derailed this much and people would be able to actually talk to each other and have ideas coming instead of wasting everyone's time.

Presenting a counter arguement to a proposed major change isn't derailing. Many of us believe this change would be harmful, and are speaking up against it.

Even if we assume Rich would make the same comments/arguments all over again after dissecting the topic and answering straight to the points instead of just casually chatting on twitch as he always do it would be an absolute argument set in stone if only zos would never made mistakes and yet we remember the exact opposite. The more years you played the more situations like "we have the data so here's a change proposal" you should remember like cast time on shields, dots re-standardisation, light/heavy attack rebalance proposal and many more smaller ones like "according to some data there was a change that was scrapped later on because in actuality it wasn't justified or game breaking". Forums exists because people who care enough to voice their opinions are shaping the game for others at times. We did it a lot already and more to come.]

Considering that I have not seen a comment in this thread that provides actual information that proves Rich wrong then I do not see any reason why Rich would not make the same comments and argument. The biggest and more significant reason he provided was that the game has never been more popular than it was when he made those comments which literally says the current design is proving to be much better for business. His other notable comment was that no one played the more challenging vet zones they had when the game launched. With that, he said many completed their own alliance but avoided the more challenging zones.

Should read closer then, throwing his twitch replies on one subject as a reply to any semi-similar subject on a forum isn't considered something worth disproving as it's not his direct answer to any poster, it's a citation of his words on a similar subject most of the time, not always it was actually on point in this thread as not everyone speaks about the same stuff but getting same copied replies that might be unnecessary in a lot of cases. Same as you now proceeding to write without actually reading replies or discussion chains first to get an idea what people are even discussing or talking about. It's not just "vet overland", there are instanced quests and main story bosses proposals which have nothing to do with Rich's replies people still showing up other's throats.

Yet again generalisation isn't working here, just derailing the topic away isn't helping anyone.

Franchise408

JJOtterBear wrote: »

ZOS cannot and will never be able to please every player. because that is actually impossible to do. The development of this game has changed direction, and y'all need to just accept that. and if the game is no longer something that pleases you, then yeah, i encourage you to find a game that does.

It's clear that the current state of the game pleases more people. The forums of any game NEVER represent a majority of the playerbase. Most players don't even use the forums. so all this "many players are saying" posts are actually just a minor sliver of the community.

You're all expecting ZOS to cater directly to you, because y'all think you're experts at video games and running a business. A video game studio and dev team are always going to do what pleases the larger group. If you no longer find yourself in that group, then you really have 2 options, accept it and interact with the parts of the game you find enjoyable, or find another game where your opinion is the majority.

Like how long are you all going to be at this? And just keep getting mad over and over and over again? because that's what you're signing yourselves up for at this point.

I'm genuinely sorry that ESO no longer caters to your interests. but at the same time, it doesn't have to. all the game has to do is appeal to the larger population. And currently it does. So ZOS has literally no reason to mess with a formula that is currently working for them.

its sometimes a hard pill to swallow to realize that there are going to be times in life where our opinions just don't matter.

You owe no fealty to this game. Or the devs. Plus, ES6 is coming. And you can always come back if they do eventually add things you want, and the game is still running. There is nothing wrong with finding greener pastures.

So... just stay silent?

And how about if TES6 is infinitely simpler and less complex than its predecessors? A lot of people already feel that Oblivion was simplified from Morrowind, and Skyrim simplified from Oblivion (I don't share that opinion, but many people do). Should we just keep staying quiet?

Lots of people spoke out and got ESO changed once already. Should they have just stayed silent?

Lots of people spoke out about Fallout 76. The game has significantly improved since launch. Should those who complained have just stayed quiet and accepted that game just wasn't for them?

No Man's Sky is another game that had a notoriously bad launch. People complained. The game has drastically improved since launch. Should those who complained just have stayed quiet and accepted it?

It's very easy to sit back and say "just stay quiet, this game isn't for you. And if you don't like it, you can go to another game" when the game is catering towards you. Many people are concerned about the direction of the Elder Scrolls franchise, and as it stands, Elder Scrolls Online is something completely unrecognizable from the rest of the TES series. If the trend is "just make it easy because we want to cater to people who don't want to face a challenge", then that is concerning for future games in the series, in a series that already has concerns about simplification and the removal of complexity.

So we stay quiet. ESO doesn't change. It continues to succeed in it's current state lacking any semblance of challenge or complexity. Zenimax sees that as a profitable business model, and TES6 follows the same trend. Then Fallout 5. And the dominoes continue to fall from there.

You don't have to agree with our concerns. Nobody does. But we have the right to express our displeasure with the creative design of this game. In fact, if we care about the future of this series, or making sure we have games that meet our standards in general, then we need to speak out.

summ0004

so hopefully at least quite a few of us have found some common ground and at least agree some sort of optional difficulty scroll could be useful for boss fights, and I would be happy with this and then just leave overland as it is.

At least this way there will be some better combat in the story quests that is there if people want it.

spartaxoxo

kargen27 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

summ0004 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

summ0004 wrote: »

As a compromise I might even suggest that at the very least the end of quest bosses at least get some sort of optional buff to allow for some immersion so you actually have to fight the boss rather than light attacking it to death. That way the overland will just have trash mobs , but you can get a harder boss if you choose it

This is what I meant by challenge banners for quest bosses. For those that maybe don't do hard modes, Challenge banners increase the stats on bosses AND add new mechanics. They can be flipped on and off, at will. Therefore if someone flipped it on and then felt it made things too difficult and unfun, they can just turn it off.

As the big bad story bosses are already solo instanced content, it would have literally zero impact on anyone else.

Finally we agree on something, I would be happy to see this implemented and would interest me in purchasing the chapters and having some fun playing through it.

The thread has been so focused on what I disagree with, that I feel like it gives a stronger impression of my disinterest in a solution to this than is true. I suggested challenge banners pretty early on.

I also suggested debuff food, and more stuff like those roaming bosses. I think that it's likely to be more feasible and more acceptable to the casual experience than vet overland would be. I would honestly really like more to see more compromise solutions. Because I do think there could be more ways to modify the experience to make things more interesting, I just also think that vet overland is not the way to go about it.

I think really hard debuff food (so Overland is more challenging), challenge banners on story bosses, and more stuff like the roaming world bosses could go a long way to breathing some life into things without disrupting more casual players ability to explore Overland at a leisurely pace using whatever build they feel like using.

I've been suggesting food and drink to debuff for a long time now. Kind of talked myself out of it though. I agree with others that unless mechanics are changed the fights just last longer they don't really get any more interesting.

The thing is that there are a lot of mechanics that already exist that we never even notice because they would be trivialized. Any new mechanics would REQUIRE either a new instance or to be forced on everyone. They can't just have the mobs work one way on one person's screen and a different way on a person standing right next to them.

There are so many mechanics right now that players never even notice or in some cases even see because of the power level. Debuffs would force you to reckon with them and breathe new life into old content.

A good example of mechs not seen is normal scalecaller on a really powerful toon vs a weak one. I can SOLO that last boss (on normal) because I can push the boss so quickly into the ice phases that I never even see any of the flame mechanics. But those flame mechanics actually change the fight significantly on weak toons, it becomes more challenging and more interesting.

So I very much disagree that literally the only solution is a vet Overland. Debuffs obviously isn't as good as your own private instance that caters to you, but they DO change the nature of fights beyond just making them longer.

spartaxoxo

Iccotak wrote: »

The problem isn’t “a lack of endgame content“ – the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

It's not a lot of players that find the story uninteresting and unengaging. The vast majority of players find them engaging as is.

And frankly I strongly disagree it isn't because hard content is lacking. I have seen far, far too many people say directly that. And in additon, I have met MANY people that change their mind once they start actually engaging in difficult content. Then overland becomes a way for them to relax.

You may feel differently. But the vast majority of people I have seen complaining are the ones not doing hard content at any appreciable quantity.

It tends to go

New player: Overland is shiny and new and fun!

Mid-Level player who's done too much base game content but hardly any difficult content: Overland is boring! It needs more challenge. It's all so stupid!

Good players who do hard content on a regular basis: I just want to chill for a bit and quest. I need some skyshards anyway.

Parasaurolophus

Boring is an opinion, not a fact. It is 100% subjective and there is no way to measure levels of boredom. Overhauling the entire base structure of the game because some players find it boring isn't a good reason to actually do it.

You just need to use only one, well, maybe two skills to be effective in overland / questing. You don't need to use any kits, cp, mundus. You don't need a skill for this at all. This is the piece of content that does not use 99.9% of the player's potential. In fact, the overland has no gameplay. You just go from dialogue to dialogue and that's it. You expect a video game, and you get a comic. You want to play TESO like TES, but you get an easy prominade without immersion. Eso exploration turned into POI completion. Looting turned into farming. The progression has been turned into a building. But that's not bad for an MMO. The bad news is that the overland in eso is trying to seem like tes, without actually being it. An MMO should be fun with content and gameplay.
There was an interview here on the forum when Rich Lambert was asked what he would change in the early stages of development. He replied that he would make the game more like TES and not MMO. Now looking at Fallout76 I understand what he meant.

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Boring is an opinion, not a fact. It is 100% subjective and there is no way to measure levels of boredom. Overhauling the entire base structure of the game because some players find it boring isn't a good reason to actually do it.

You just need to use only one, well, maybe two skills to be effective in overland / questing. You don't need to use any kits, cp, mundus. You don't need a skill for this at all. This is the piece of content that does not use 99.9% of the player's potential. In fact, the overland has no gameplay. You just go from dialogue to dialogue and that's it. You expect a video game, and you get a comic. You want to play TESO like TES, but you get an easy prominade without immersion. Eso exploration turned into POI completion. Looting turned into farming. The progression has been turned into a building. But that's not bad for an MMO. The bad news is that the overland in eso is trying to seem like tes, without actually being it. An MMO should be fun with content and gameplay.
There was an interview here on the forum when Rich Lambert was asked what he would change in the early stages of development. He replied that he would make the game more like TES and not MMO. Now looking at Fallout76 I understand what he meant.

I am not denying that overland is easy. I am denying that most players want that changed. Overland is my relax and relieve stress game time and others have said the same.

I don't deny that Rich Lambert said what you quoted. He also mentioned in the Twitch stream that I linked, that ESO was made with difficulty in mind and that he himself likes difficulty, but that wasn't what a huge portion of the playerbase wanted. The 2/3 of the game that made up Silver and Gold were not being played so they changed it.

He went on to say ESO is more successful now than it's ever been. From a business standpoint, and it is a business first, it would be unwise to change a working formula.

Parasaurolophus

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

The problem isn’t “a lack of endgame content“ – the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

It's not a lot of players that find the story uninteresting and unengaging. The vast majority of players find them engaging as is.

And frankly I strongly disagree it isn't because hard content is lacking. I have seen far, far too many people say directly that. And in additon, I have met MANY people that change their mind once they start actually engaging in difficult content. Then overland becomes a way for them to relax.

You may feel differently. But the vast majority of people I have seen complaining are the ones not doing hard content at any appreciable quantity.

It tends to go

New player: Overland is shiny and new and fun!

Mid-Level player who's done too much base game content but hardly any difficult content: Overland is boring! It needs more challenge. It's all so stupid!

Good players who do hard content on a regular basis: I just want to chill for a bit and quest. I need some skyshards anyway.

High-end players complete quests a few evenings before returning to Vivec for crafting dailyes. End. There is no longer any incentive for players to return to the overland.

AlexanderDeLarge

JJOtterBear wrote: »

ZOS cannot and will never be able to please every player. because that is actually impossible to do. The development of this game has changed direction, and y'all need to just accept that. and if the game is no longer something that pleases you, then yeah, i encourage you to find a game that does.

It's clear that the current state of the game pleases more people. The forums of any game NEVER represent a majority of the playerbase. Most players don't even use the forums. so all this "many players are saying" posts are actually just a minor sliver of the community.

You're all expecting ZOS to cater directly to you, because y'all think you're experts at video games and running a business. A video game studio and dev team are always going to do what pleases the larger group. If you no longer find yourself in that group, then you really have 2 options, accept it and interact with the parts of the game you find enjoyable, or find another game where your opinion is the majority.

Like how long are you all going to be at this? And just keep getting mad over and over and over again? because that's what you're signing yourselves up for at this point.

I'm genuinely sorry that ESO no longer caters to your interests. but at the same time, it doesn't have to. all the game has to do is appeal to the larger population. And currently it does. So ZOS has literally no reason to mess with a formula that is currently working for them.

its sometimes a hard pill to swallow to realize that there are going to be times in life where our opinions just don't matter.

You owe no fealty to this game. Or the devs. Plus, ES6 is coming. And you can always come back if they do eventually add things you want, and the game is still running. There is nothing wrong with finding greener pastures.

I'm not expecting the game to appeal to me, I'm expecting the game to be designed to be enjoyable for the overwhelming majority of endgame players. Let's be real, the overworld becomes ridiculously trivial at around CP300 and I see a lot of CP300s running around. I watch their combat encounters and I know for a fact that it isn't just me having these problems.

I'm sick of posts like this downplaying the power creep that is apparent to everyone who plays and doesn't quit within a week. If we're not able to express ourselves without thousands of posts like yours telling us that we're not ZOS team members therefore our opinions don't matter, shut the forums down because there's no point to having them open.

spartaxoxo

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

The problem isn’t “a lack of endgame content“ – the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

It's not a lot of players that find the story uninteresting and unengaging. The vast majority of players find them engaging as is.

And frankly I strongly disagree it isn't because hard content is lacking. I have seen far, far too many people say directly that. And in additon, I have met MANY people that change their mind once they start actually engaging in difficult content. Then overland becomes a way for them to relax.

You may feel differently. But the vast majority of people I have seen complaining are the ones not doing hard content at any appreciable quantity.

It tends to go

New player: Overland is shiny and new and fun!

Mid-Level player who's done too much base game content but hardly any difficult content: Overland is boring! It needs more challenge. It's all so stupid!

Good players who do hard content on a regular basis: I just want to chill for a bit and quest. I need some skyshards anyway.

High-end players complete quests a few evenings before returning to Vivec for crafting dailyes. End. There is no longer any incentive for players to return to the overland.

Speak for yourself. Vast majority of players enjoy the story content, straight from the mouths of the devs.

SilverBride

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

I'm not expecting the game to appeal to me, I'm expecting the game to be designed to be enjoyable for the overwhelming majority of endgame players. Let's be real, the overworld becomes ridiculously trivial at around CP300 and I see a lot of CP300s running around. I watch their combat encounters and I know for a fact that it isn't just me having these problems.

I'm sick of posts like this downplaying the power creep that is apparent to everyone who plays and doesn't quit within a week. If we're not able to express ourselves without thousands of posts like yours telling us that we're not ZOS team members therefore our opinions don't matter, shut the forums down because there's no point to having them open.

End game players have historically never been the majority in any MMO. If you have numbers to support this, please present them.

Parasaurolophus

SilverBride wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Boring is an opinion, not a fact. It is 100% subjective and there is no way to measure levels of boredom. Overhauling the entire base structure of the game because some players find it boring isn't a good reason to actually do it.

You just need to use only one, well, maybe two skills to be effective in overland / questing. You don't need to use any kits, cp, mundus. You don't need a skill for this at all. This is the piece of content that does not use 99.9% of the player's potential. In fact, the overland has no gameplay. You just go from dialogue to dialogue and that's it. You expect a video game, and you get a comic. You want to play TESO like TES, but you get an easy prominade without immersion. Eso exploration turned into POI completion. Looting turned into farming. The progression has been turned into a building. But that's not bad for an MMO. The bad news is that the overland in eso is trying to seem like tes, without actually being it. An MMO should be fun with content and gameplay.
There was an interview here on the forum when Rich Lambert was asked what he would change in the early stages of development. He replied that he would make the game more like TES and not MMO. Now looking at Fallout76 I understand what he meant.

I am not denying that overland is easy. I am denying that most players want that changed. Overland is my relax and relieve stress game time and others have said the same.

I don't deny that Rich Lambert said what you quoted. He also mentioned in the Twitch stream that I linked, that ESO was made with difficulty in mind and that he himself likes difficulty, but that wasn't what a huge portion of the playerbase wanted. The 2/3 of the game that made up Silver and Gold were not being played so they changed it.

He went on to say ESO is more successful now than it's ever been. From a business standpoint, and it is a business first, it would be unwise to change a working formula.

His comments about vet. overland look very strange on silver / gold. After all, eso, before Craglorn, never had a difficult overland. Mobs at your level / rank were always killed with the same ease. Strangely Rich doesn't know this.

Again, you forget that we are asking for an option. We ask to pay attention to this. I think a separate instance is the best deal. And I have already explained why this does not divide the players.

There are tons of games in a wonderful, fun overland with tons of content. And I don’t understand why it doesn’t work in eso? Why is everything okay with this in other games, oh for eso it is not profitable?

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

End game players have historically never been the majority in any MMO. If you have numbers to support this, please present them.

You are right about that, although you don't get to this kind of statement without a lot of endgame players also enjoying questing.

What would you say players want today?

Lambert: The vast majority of our player base loves the exploration, loves the lore, loves the story side of things. So we focus a lot of our time and effort on that. Two of our four major updates every year are focused on story and exploration. The other two are focused on quality of life, are focused on group-oriented activities with the dungeons or adding new systems.

This wasn't about vet content, it was a different interview. But he was directly asked what the players like to do in ESO, and the answer is quest and explore.

Parasaurolophus

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

The problem isn’t “a lack of endgame content“ – the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

It's not a lot of players that find the story uninteresting and unengaging. The vast majority of players find them engaging as is.

And frankly I strongly disagree it isn't because hard content is lacking. I have seen far, far too many people say directly that. And in additon, I have met MANY people that change their mind once they start actually engaging in difficult content. Then overland becomes a way for them to relax.

You may feel differently. But the vast majority of people I have seen complaining are the ones not doing hard content at any appreciable quantity.

It tends to go

New player: Overland is shiny and new and fun!

Mid-Level player who's done too much base game content but hardly any difficult content: Overland is boring! It needs more challenge. It's all so stupid!

Good players who do hard content on a regular basis: I just want to chill for a bit and quest. I need some skyshards anyway.

High-end players complete quests a few evenings before returning to Vivec for crafting dailyes. End. There is no longer any incentive for players to return to the overland.

Speak for yourself. Vast majority of players enjoy the story content, straight from the mouths of the devs.

I'm not saying that most players don't like stories. I'm talking about the fact that the content in the overland is enough for two or three days of play. I completed the entire Blackwood in 4 days, reading all the dialogues, notes and new books. Then I also read books that I did not receive in eldentic memory. That's all. Four days and the content that I have been waiting for half a year is no longer relevant.

AVaelham

Overland has gameplay alright, not everything is all about sweaty fights with a banekin or mashing some keys together. I get exactly what I'd expect from questing, an engaging story and tons of worldbuilding and lore. One of the biggest accomplishments of this game is that despite being a MMO it didn't stray too much from the TES franchise that would be completely unrecognizable.

I wonder if even "Vet" Overland would be enough for some.

AlexanderDeLarge

SilverBride wrote: »

End game players have historically never been the majority in any MMO. If you have numbers to support this, please present them.

I didn't say they were, I said that the majority of endgame players exceed CP300 which I'm pretty sure can be substantiated in any zone by simply looking around.

Facefister wrote: »

Except you dish out higher and better rewards from a "vet" Overland, but I don't see that happening either since people will complain about that.

Why would anyone complain about better rewards in vet overland? You get better rewards in vet dungeons and trials so why would this be any different? I'm not arguing people won't complain, people complain about anything but that's a ridiculous reason to not implement something.

SilverBride wrote: »

I don't deny that Rich Lambert said what you quoted. He also mentioned in the Twitch stream that I linked, that ESO was made with difficulty in mind and that he himself likes difficulty, but that wasn't what a huge portion of the playerbase wanted. The 2/3 of the game that made up Silver and Gold were not being played so they changed it.

I've said it a million times before but I can't reiterate it enough, Silver and Gold aren't representative of the state of the game today. Silver and Gold were in use before the Champion Point system's power creep and the base game's content is boring. Craglorn, a group mandatory zone, was introduced when basic things like grouping and quest phasing were broken.

This is a ridiculously out of date anecdote that does nothing to invalidate the extremely recurrent request of a veteran overland seven years later.

Iccotak

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

The problem isn’t “a lack of endgame content“ – the problem is that the current Gameplay in the story, especially the main story, and exploration is largely unenjoyable.

It's not a lot of players that find the story uninteresting and unengaging. The vast majority of players find them engaging as is.

And frankly I strongly disagree it isn't because hard content is lacking. I have seen far, far too many people say directly that. And in additon, I have met MANY people that change their mind once they start actually engaging in difficult content. Then overland becomes a way for them to relax.

You may feel differently. But the vast majority of people I have seen complaining are the ones not doing hard content at any appreciable quantity.

It tends to go

New player: Overland is shiny and new and fun!

Mid-Level player who's done too much base game content but hardly any difficult content: Overland is boring! It needs more challenge. It's all so stupid!

Good players who do hard content on a regular basis: I just want to chill for a bit and quest. I need some skyshards anyway.

I find that to be a wildly inaccurate generalization - not only from my experience on these forums, but also in Reddit, Discord, YouTube, etc.

I hardly see anyone care at all about the main story. There’s always this mentality of “let’s just get this over with”

The last one that I saw anyone care about was Summerset. Which was due to the quality of the writing.

And I’ve hardly seen anyone complain about a lack of content for Endgame. Sure, I myself have said in the past that there are hardly any Vet activities designed specifically for Solo.
But there are so many Vet activities available in game.

And almost all of the “good players“ that I have met are completely uninterested in the story because they find the gameplay so bland and boring.
They may enjoy some of the side quests here and there - but for the most part, they don’t enjoy the story anywhere.

Due to the gameplay.

spartaxoxo

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I think a separate instance is the best deal. And I have already explained why this does not divide the players.

And you are wrong. A separate instance would divide players, by it's very nature.

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

His comments about vet. overland look very strange on silver / gold. After all, eso, before Craglorn, never had a difficult overland. Mobs at your level / rank were always killed with the same ease. Strangely Rich doesn't know this.

I played beta and at launch and I was completely frustrated with how often I died and how long it took to kill mobs in Silver and Gold. I completed these once but never did it again because the difficulty sucked all the fun out of it. Silver and Gold were veteran level zones.

AlexanderDeLarge

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I think a separate instance is the best deal. And I have already explained why this does not divide the players.

And you are wrong. A separate instance would divide players.

And half of this thread is telling the people who want a veteran overland to lock themselves up in instanced content where they're completely isolated from the majority of the game.

spartaxoxo

Iccotak wrote: »

I hardly see anyone care at all about the main story. There’s always this mentality of “let’s just get this over with”

Almost all of the complaints I have seen about Blackwood and Greymoor's story was that they were boring storylines. People even discussed at great length the gender ratio of the quest npcs in Greymoor. Like plenty of players that I know were endgame discussing whether or not it was too female-centric.

Those are not people just getting it over with. Those are people invested in the story.

But you don't need to take my word for it, Rich Lambert also sees that the vast majority of players are engaged with the story using player metrics.

You go to places where people complain and hang out with like-minded people, you may get a false impression that the majority doesn't like something. I do the same thing. But we don't have to wonder which is objectively true.

The majority of what people do in this game is the story. It's the vast majority that like it. And only a tiny but vocal minority that don't. You're in that group, as confirmed by the devs themselves who have the data for the entire playerbase and not just the ones being vocal.

SilverBride

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Except you dish out higher and better rewards from a "vet" Overland, but I don't see that happening either since people will complain about that.

That is a misquote. I didn't say that. @Facefister said that in post #692.

spartaxoxo

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I think a separate instance is the best deal. And I have already explained why this does not divide the players.

And you are wrong. A separate instance would divide players.

And half of this thread is telling the people who want a veteran overland to lock themselves up in instanced content where they're completely isolated from the majority of the game.

Apples and Oranges. A person doing trials is not doing Overland. An endgame player engaged in Overland questing will see an SOS from a new player to help them with a dragon, a person in a trial will not. If the endgame player was instead in Vet Overland doing that exact same quest, they won't see the new player needs help. And when too many new and casual players quit because things become too hard, the game dies.

The game is more successful than it's ever been because it has a good progression for new to endgame players. The new players interacting with endgame players in Overland before progressing to instanced content is a core reason this game is successful and has good player retention.

This is confirmed by the devs. There will never be anything that interferes with that. Try suggesting something actually realistic from a business perspective instead of beating the dead horse of a separate instance.

Parasaurolophus

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I think a separate instance is the best deal. And I have already explained why this does not divide the players.

And you are wrong. A separate instance would divide players, by it's very nature.

Sorry, but I don't seem to understand you.

AlexanderDeLarge

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Iccotak wrote: »

I hardly see anyone care at all about the main story. There’s always this mentality of “let’s just get this over with”

Almost all of the complaints I have seen about Blackwood and Greymoor's story was that they were boring storylines. People even discussed at great length the gender ratio of the quest npcs in Greymoor. Like plenty of players that I know were endgame discussing whether or not it was too female-centric.

Those are not people just getting it over with. Those are people invested in the story.

But you don't need to take my word for it, Rich Lambert also sees that the vast majority of players are engaged with the story using story metrics.

You go to places where people complain and hang out with like-minded people, you may get a false impression that the majority doesn't like something. I do the same thing. But we don't have to wonder which is objectively true.

The majority of what people do in this game is the story. It's the vast majority that like it. And only a tiny but vocal minority that don't. You're in that group.

See this is what I don't understand, you're basically taking the stance that ZOS knows all and knows best and you're telling us to come up with studies and data that we don't have access to and you know that so we can't even engage in discourse or discussion on the subject.

By all means ZOS, I urge you to release these metrics I keep hearing about so I can make an argument. Until then, all I have are anecdotes and everyone has the ability to look around and observe combat encounters. The majority of combat encounters in the overland exceeding a 300CP threshold which as mentioned, are the majority of Champion Point players, end before enemy mechanics can even kick into action.

SilverBride wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Except you dish out higher and better rewards from a "vet" Overland, but I don't see that happening either since people will complain about that.

That is a misquote. I didn't say that. @Facefister said that in post #692.

My apologies I have edited the post. These quotes are difficult to follow.

spartaxoxo

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I think a separate instance is the best deal. And I have already explained why this does not divide the players.

And you are wrong. A separate instance would divide players, by it's very nature.

Sorry, but I don't seem to understand you.

Let's say you have 10 players, and they are all playing in One World.

1 world has 10 players.

Now let's say that a new world is opened in additon to the one world. Now there are two worlds. 4 of those players leave to join this new world, and 6 choose to stay on the old one.

1 world has 6 players, the second world has 4 players.

You've divided those players.

The only way a new instance wouldn't divide the players is if nobody used it. That's just inherent to having multiple instances seeing actual use. Some part of the whole will be in each one.

It's inherent to the concept.