800k people don't seem to mind difficult overworld

Parasaurolophus

I was looking, really looking for that piece from the Slashlurk stream, but I can't find it. There are quite a few streams for several hours each. And in almost every one he is asked about the vet. overland, sometimes several times. [snip] I actually heard Rich say that the average duration of a game in eso is six weeks. In addition, in 2016, Matt Firor gave an interview, where he said that the largest population of the game occurs at the time of the release of new content. This is mostly due to returning players. Therefore, we see, and they have been talking about this for a long time, that the main audience that eso is aimed at is completely different from the people who are called casuals on the forum. I believe that all the people on this forum are involved players. It doesn't matter if you do houseing, take a long time to complete quests, or you are a high-end player with all the achievements. You are an involved player who plays a lot. And I love these players equally, really. But the main part of playes of the game is those who play a little. These are the players who buy the game, play it for several weeks, maybe spend some more money. And then, perhaps, return to the next dlc and play for a while. It seems absurd, but this is the state of the entire gaming industry today, alas. It's like mobile gaming. It seems that any person looking at mobile games will think - why play this when there is pc gaming and console gaming, why else donate to it. But this is a colossal huge business. It is these players who make the very statistics that they like to talk about here. This is why we have year-long stories, because it is easier to retain the that players this way. That is why we have events every two weeks, which seems just crazy. We all feel great loss of ping and reduced performance during these events. But ZoS continues to do this because it is profitable.

Now I want to draw your attention to a few points and ask a few questions:

1. Why, if the main problem of Craglorn was the high difficult content, then ZoS just did not reduce it, continuing to release a new Adventure Zone. Look at Craglorn - 3 different types of anchors, 5 each. Several small dungeons such as Skyrich or Shada's Tear with their own daily quests. Where is all this in future content? Many players during the one year event wrote that Craglorn was an interesting new experience for them with the amount of content it offers.

2. Why aren't the developers doing long side quest lines anymore like they did on Vvardenfell? Remember those wonderful and deep stories of Sun-in-Shadow and Veya Releth? Why did ZoS abandon them so quickly? Everyone liked them. They are still remembered as examples of great quests and interesting stories. So why isn't ZoS doing it anymore? Why are the locations again filled with dozens of short, unrelated quests that are not remembered later?

3. Why is even the crown store so rarely updated with new items? Why are 99% of new products only in crown ctrates?

4. Why are quests in a story-focused game so linear? Why do we almost never have a choice? Why do we almost never have different options for completing quests? We ask for this a lot because variability is good for our roleplaying.

5. Why doesn't this story-focused game have the dungeon / trial story mod we've all been asking for?

I think the answer is very simple - most of the players just do not have time to complete most of the content. This is why less new content is being made. That is why the overland is not only easy, but also does not have various interesting content, because most of the players will never get to it. The same was most likely shown by the statistics regarding the long quest lines on Vvardenfell. And it's much easier to just return old items to the store for a new wave of players. Just leave the loot boxes to the "whales". Rather than building a large, stable and loyal player base, ZoS has opted to rely on a large number of fickle players.

[edited for baiting]

Hallothiel

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I was looking, really looking for that piece from the Slashlurk stream, but I can't find it. There are quite a few streams for several hours each. And in almost every one he is asked about the vet. overland, sometimes several times. [snip] I actually heard Rich say that the average duration of a game in eso is six weeks. In addition, in 2016, Matt Firor gave an interview, where he said that the largest population of the game occurs at the time of the release of new content. This is mostly due to returning players. Therefore, we see, and they have been talking about this for a long time, that the main audience that eso is aimed at is completely different from the people who are called casuals on the forum. I believe that all the people on this forum are involved players. It doesn't matter if you do houseing, take a long time to complete quests, or you are a high-end player with all the achievements. You are an involved player who plays a lot. And I love these players equally, really. But the main part of playes of the game is those who play a little. These are the players who buy the game, play it for several weeks, maybe spend some more money. And then, perhaps, return to the next dlc and play for a while. It seems absurd, but this is the state of the entire gaming industry today, alas. It's like mobile gaming. It seems that any person looking at mobile games will think - why play this when there is pc gaming and console gaming, why else donate to it. But this is a colossal huge business. It is these players who make the very statistics that they like to talk about here. This is why we have year-long stories, because it is easier to retain the that players this way. That is why we have events every two weeks, which seems just crazy. We all feel great loss of ping and reduced performance during these events. But ZoS continues to do this because it is profitable.

Now I want to draw your attention to a few points and ask a few questions:

1. Why, if the main problem of Craglorn was the high difficult content, then ZoS just did not reduce it, continuing to release a new Adventure Zone. Look at Craglorn - 3 different types of anchors, 5 each. Several small dungeons such as Skyrich or Shada's Tear with their own daily quests. Where is all this in future content? Many players during the one year event wrote that Craglorn was an interesting new experience for them with the amount of content it offers.

2. Why aren't the developers doing long side quest lines anymore like they did on Vvardenfell? Remember those wonderful and deep stories of Sun-in-Shadow and Veya Releth? Why did ZoS abandon them so quickly? Everyone liked them. They are still remembered as examples of great quests and interesting stories. So why isn't ZoS doing it anymore? Why are the locations again filled with dozens of short, unrelated quests that are not remembered later?

3. Why is even the crown store so rarely updated with new items? Why are 99% of new products only in crown ctrates?

4. Why are quests in a story-focused game so linear? Why do we almost never have a choice? Why do we almost never have different options for completing quests? We ask for this a lot because variability is good for our roleplaying.

5. Why doesn't this story-focused game have the dungeon / trial story mod we've all been asking for?

I think the answer is very simple - most of the players just do not have time to complete most of the content. This is why less new content is being made. That is why the overland is not only easy, but also does not have various interesting content, because most of the players will never get to it. The same was most likely shown by the statistics regarding the long quest lines on Vvardenfell. And it's much easier to just return old items to the store for a new wave of players. Just leave the loot boxes to the "whales". Rather than building a large, stable and loyal player base, ZoS has opted to rely on a large number of fickle players.

1) Not quite sure what you are saying.

2) Obviously not everyone liked them - they can see how many actually completed them. Frankly I thought the Sun-in-Shadow one unnecessarily drawn out with a lot of go here, pick up this & go there. Did it once on main & have missed it out on other run throughs on other chars.

3) That is down to Marketing, not game devs.

4) It’s an mmo. You can’t have meaningful choices really (like single player games) as that would be too difficult to manage. Obviously.

5) Join a guild & organise a story run.

[edited to remove quote]

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I was looking, really looking for that piece from the Slashlurk stream, but I can't find it...

I actually heard Rich say that the average duration of a game in eso is six weeks.

I was surprised to hear that some players play a few weeks, quit, come back for a few weeks, quit again etc.. I don't see what this has to do with overland, though.

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

In addition, in 2016, Matt Firor gave an interview, where he said that the largest population of the game occurs at the time of the release of new content. This is mostly due to returning players. Therefore, we see, and they have been talking about this for a long time, that the main audience that eso is aimed at is completely different from the people who are called casuals in the forum.

We don't know the main audience ESO is aimed at, whether it's the returning players or otherwise. But I bet that many returning players are also part of the casual playerbase. I don't see what this has to do with overland either, though.

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I believe that all the people on this forum are involved players.

I wish this were the case but several posters have admitted that they no longer actively play, yet continue to post on the forums. So not all are involved, or supporting the game with subs, etc..

EDIT for additional response.

Parasaurolophus

Hallothiel wrote: »

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I was looking, really looking for that piece from the Slashlurk stream, but I can't find it. There are quite a few streams for several hours each. And in almost every one he is asked about the vet. overland, sometimes several times. But it makes no sense for me to lie to you @SilverBride. I actually heard Rich say that the average duration of a game in eso is six weeks. In addition, in 2016, Matt Firor gave an interview, where he said that the largest population of the game occurs at the time of the release of new content. This is mostly due to returning players. Therefore, we see, and they have been talking about this for a long time, that the main audience that eso is aimed at is completely different from the people who are called casuals on the forum. I believe that all the people on this forum are involved players. It doesn't matter if you do houseing, take a long time to complete quests, or you are a high-end player with all the achievements. You are an involved player who plays a lot. And I love these players equally, really. But the main part of playes of the game is those who play a little. These are the players who buy the game, play it for several weeks, maybe spend some more money. And then, perhaps, return to the next dlc and play for a while. It seems absurd, but this is the state of the entire gaming industry today, alas. It's like mobile gaming. It seems that any person looking at mobile games will think - why play this when there is pc gaming and console gaming, why else donate to it. But this is a colossal huge business. It is these players who make the very statistics that they like to talk about here. This is why we have year-long stories, because it is easier to retain the that players this way. That is why we have events every two weeks, which seems just crazy. We all feel great loss of ping and reduced performance during these events. But ZoS continues to do this because it is profitable.

Now I want to draw your attention to a few points and ask a few questions:

1. Why, if the main problem of Craglorn was the high difficult content, then ZoS just did not reduce it, continuing to release a new Adventure Zone. Look at Craglorn - 3 different types of anchors, 5 each. Several small dungeons such as Skyrich or Shada's Tear with their own daily quests. Where is all this in future content? Many players during the one year event wrote that Craglorn was an interesting new experience for them with the amount of content it offers.

2. Why aren't the developers doing long side quest lines anymore like they did on Vvardenfell? Remember those wonderful and deep stories of Sun-in-Shadow and Veya Releth? Why did ZoS abandon them so quickly? Everyone liked them. They are still remembered as examples of great quests and interesting stories. So why isn't ZoS doing it anymore? Why are the locations again filled with dozens of short, unrelated quests that are not remembered later?

3. Why is even the crown store so rarely updated with new items? Why are 99% of new products only in crown ctrates?

4. Why are quests in a story-focused game so linear? Why do we almost never have a choice? Why do we almost never have different options for completing quests? We ask for this a lot because variability is good for our roleplaying.

5. Why doesn't this story-focused game have the dungeon / trial story mod we've all been asking for?

I think the answer is very simple - most of the players just do not have time to complete most of the content. This is why less new content is being made. That is why the overland is not only easy, but also does not have various interesting content, because most of the players will never get to it. The same was most likely shown by the statistics regarding the long quest lines on Vvardenfell. And it's much easier to just return old items to the store for a new wave of players. Just leave the loot boxes to the "whales". Rather than building a large, stable and loyal player base, ZoS has opted to rely on a large number of fickle players.

1) Not quite sure what you are saying.

2) Obviously not everyone liked them - they can see how many actually completed them. Frankly I thought the Sun-in-Shadow one unnecessarily drawn out with a lot of go here, pick up this & go there. Did it once on main & have missed it out on other run throughs on other chars.

3) That is down to Marketing, not game devs.

4) It’s an mmo. You can’t have meaningful choices really (like single player games) as that would be too difficult to manage. Obviously.

5) Join a guild & organise a story run.

1. I mean, besides the difficulty, Craglorn had a lot of activities and replayable content. But why did ZoS abandon not only hard overland content, but, in principle, the concept of Adventure Zone?

2. What could be the reason not to love them? How is this worse than a large number of small stories? We are not talking about replayability, but about what impression remains after the completion.
Also, are you seriously completing all side quests on all alts? I'm more than sure that 99% of players have one main character. And on alts, it makes sense to complete only main quests for the sake of skill points.

3. All that is in the game must be sold. There is no need to divide the studio into developers and marketers.

4. The fact of the matter is that this is mmo. And it's not just an MMO, it's also an RPG MMO. However, questing in eso is not more like an mmo or a classic RPG, questing is like a visual novel in an mmo wrapper. Only instead of the next button, we go from marker to marker to read dialogs. This is the whole experience. And it's boring. It’s like I’m not playing a video game, but reading comics. I read and read... Then BOOM, the last boss of which I will kill in a few seconds and the end.

5. I'm sure the high-end players who are interested in this do this solo. But this is a real problem for casual players. It has already been explained many times in other topics, in some detail, that everyone goes through quests at their own pace and doing questing for group activity is a bad idea.

Franchise408

spartaxoxo wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

The "unified player base" argument again?

On Splitting the playerbase using different difficulty

'We get this question or request a lot too. We built overland content to be inclusive because as an MMO we want to unify as much of the player base as possible in a given zone. Difficulty sliders and settings are a detriment to that." --Rich Lambert

The level of ease in overland is counter-intuitive to inclusive zones, because overland being so tediously easy means there is no need for grouping.

0 overland quests need grouping. 0 delves need grouping. Public dungeons, including the "group events", can be solo'd. Most world bosses can be solo'd. Dolmens can be solo'd. The only thing that can't be done solo in overland are geysers, dragons, harrowstorms, and a percentage of the DLC world bosses. At this point, even a lot of Craglorn stuff can be done solo. And for most of this stuff, you don't even have to be any sort of "elite" to solo it.

The only thing that actually needs grouping is... the harder level stuff.

So if the goal is actually to -unify- the playerbase, then the content should be made more difficult to actually encourage those players playing together.

But the fact is, the people who are against overland difficulty aren't the ones grouping. They are the ones who want to be on their own and not be bothered by bad guys while they are picking flowers. The argument about player unity mandates content that requires players to unite together. That requires more difficult content.

I haven't grouped up for non-dungeon / non-trial content in, I can't remember how long. I think I naively grouped up with 1 person in 1 delve when I first returned during Elsweyr, and didn't know any better that content was so easy. Now I know, and with no reason to group up with anyone, I haven't grouped up with anyone in ages.

In fact, seeing other people in a delve or public dungeon is a detriment to me, because they are making an already tediously easy piece of content even easier by mowing down all the mobs and bosses before I get to them, making me wait for respawn timers. If content is going to be as mundane as it is, then honestly, I'd rather have emptier zone instances so I don't have people coming through taking my kills.

CP5

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

The "unified player base" argument again?

On Splitting the playerbase using different difficulty

'We get this question or request a lot too. We built overland content to be inclusive because as an MMO we want to unify as much of the player base as possible in a given zone. Difficulty sliders and settings are a detriment to that." --Rich Lambert

The level of ease in overland is counter-intuitive to inclusive zones, because overland being so tediously easy means there is no need for grouping.

0 overland quests need grouping. 0 delves need grouping. Public dungeons, including the "group events", can be solo'd. Most world bosses can be solo'd. Dolmens can be solo'd. The only thing that can't be done solo in overland are geysers, dragons, harrowstorms, and a percentage of the DLC world bosses. At this point, even a lot of Craglorn stuff can be done solo. And for most of this stuff, you don't even have to be any sort of "elite" to solo it.

The only thing that actually needs grouping is... the harder level stuff.

So if the goal is actually to -unify- the playerbase, then the content should be made more difficult to actually encourage those players playing together.

But the fact is, the people who are against overland difficulty aren't the ones grouping. They are the ones who want to be on their own and not be bothered by bad guys while they are picking flowers. The argument about player unity mandates content that requires players to unite together. That requires more difficult content.

I haven't grouped up for non-dungeon / non-trial content in, I can't remember how long. I think I naively grouped up with 1 person in 1 delve when I first returned during Elsweyr, and didn't know any better that content was so easy. Now I know, and with no reason to group up with anyone, I haven't grouped up with anyone in ages.

In fact, seeing other people in a delve or public dungeon is a detriment to me, because they are making an already tediously easy piece of content even easier by mowing down all the mobs and bosses before I get to them, making me wait for respawn timers. If content is going to be as mundane as it is, then honestly, I'd rather have emptier zone instances so I don't have people coming through taking my kills.

Part of the reason why I actually enjoyed the old silver and gold zones was because of this. Fewer players did lead to fewer interruptions when questing, didn't have to wait for quest specific npcs to respawn, but the grouping part was actually fun. Organizing together to take down dolmens, teaming up with another player, and using the old long stun rune cage to beat a duo boss, there was a charm to that you don't really get anymore if you get past the hurdles overland has set up.

SilverBride

Franchise408 wrote: »

0 overland quests need grouping. 0 delves need grouping. Public dungeons, including the "group events", can be solo'd. Most world bosses can be solo'd. Dolmens can be solo'd. The only thing that can't be done solo in overland are geysers, dragons, harrowstorms, and a percentage of the DLC world bosses. At this point, even a lot of Craglorn stuff can be done solo. And for most of this stuff, you don't even have to be any sort of "elite" to solo it.

The only thing that actually needs grouping is... the harder level stuff.

This is not the case for low level characters and players new to ESO, except for quests that are intentionally easy so every player can complete and experience the story.

spartaxoxo

Franchise408 wrote: »

The level of ease in overland is counter-intuitive to inclusive zones, because overland being so tediously easy means there is no need for grouping.

Nope. Because one gets people playing and the other does not. You don't need to be in a group to want to run into and work with other players. People do it all the time.

Most people don't want to be forced into groups for every little thing. Just having people nearby if they need help is good. Many, many people enjoy single player content in MMOs and I can't actually think of an MMO I have played that didn't have at least a little content you could do on your own while other people nearby did their thing too.

AlexanderDeLarge

Hallothiel wrote: »

I don't know who these unicorn players are that have played multiple releases and somehow not reached that point in progression where the majority of the content becomes trivialized but is the only argument against it that it's not worth doing because there's no outcry yet? Because believe me it's inevitable and it's up to ZOS to decide whether or not to be proactive or reactive on the subject and I'm not quite sure how it makes sense to disregard loyal, paying customers to such a degree.

Unicorn players? Lol most players more like!

Who is buying all these chapters year-by-year and not reaching CP300? Even if I only played through a small portion of the base game and two or three chapters I'd be approaching that point in progression. Especially after Champion Point 2.0 lowering the amount of XP needed. So are you suggesting that the majority of the players are tourists that come in and play for a couple hours, quit, only to buy the next chapter a year later? Those types get enough attention from the studio. If you believe that and I don't believe you do, is ZOS really supposed to ignore the inevitable point of progression that the game becomes a chore to play just because they have millions of casuals that haven't reached it yet?

spartaxoxo

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Hallothiel wrote: »

I don't know who these unicorn players are that have played multiple releases and somehow not reached that point in progression where the majority of the content becomes trivialized but is the only argument against it that it's not worth doing because there's no outcry yet? Because believe me it's inevitable and it's up to ZOS to decide whether or not to be proactive or reactive on the subject and I'm not quite sure how it makes sense to disregard loyal, paying customers to such a degree.

Unicorn players? Lol most players more like!

Who is buying all these chapters year-by-year and not reaching CP300? Even if I only played through a small portion of the base game and two or three chapters I'd be approaching that point in progression. Especially after Champion Point 2.0 lowering the amount of XP needed. So are you suggesting that the majority of the players are tourists that come in and play for a couple hours, quit, only to buy the next chapter a year later? Those types get enough attention from the studio. If you believe that and I don't believe you do, is ZOS really supposed to ignore the inevitable point of progression that the game becomes a chore to play just because they have millions of casuals that haven't reached it yet?

They aren't ignoring it. They just haven't changed things in the way you want them to do it. They have increased the difficulty of Public Dungeons and World Events. They have roaming bosses come up next chapter. Story bosses have been giving immunity phases so the fight isn't immediately over. They have made trials harder. They have made the normal mode of dungeons harder to better prepare people for the vet modes.

While I do think there needs to be more, they have already done things. They aren't ignoring people just because they aren't handling things the exact way you guys want them to do it.

Franchise408

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

The level of ease in overland is counter-intuitive to inclusive zones, because overland being so tediously easy means there is no need for grouping.

Nope. Because one gets people playing and the other does not. You don't need to be in a group to want to run into and work with other players. People do it all the time.

Most people don't want to be forced into groups for every little thing. Just having people nearby if they need help is good. Many, many people enjoy single player content in MMOs and I can't actually think of an MMO I have played that didn't have at least a little content you could do on your own while other people nearby did their thing too.

I have never once needed help for anything that wasn't group required content, i.e. dungeons, trials, dragons, harrowstorms, etc.

I have never once wanted help for anything that wasn't group required content.

The content is tedious enough as it is. Why would I want to make it even more tedious by grouping with people and having mobs die before I can even make an attack on it

spartaxoxo

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

The level of ease in overland is counter-intuitive to inclusive zones, because overland being so tediously easy means there is no need for grouping.

Nope. Because one gets people playing and the other does not. You don't need to be in a group to want to run into and work with other players. People do it all the time.

Most people don't want to be forced into groups for every little thing. Just having people nearby if they need help is good. Many, many people enjoy single player content in MMOs and I can't actually think of an MMO I have played that didn't have at least a little content you could do on your own while other people nearby did their thing too.

I have never once needed help for anything that wasn't group required content, i.e. dungeons, trials, dragons, harrowstorms, etc.

I have never once wanted help for anything that wasn't group required content.

The content is tedious enough as it is. Why would I want to make it even more tedious by grouping with people and having mobs die before I can even make an attack on it

Your anecdote doesn't outweigh the developers player driven data across the playerbase. Glad you were skilled enough to never need help with a world boss even at level 10, but that's not most people's experience whatsoever. Most people are using Overland the way it was designed and that's why devs aren't changing it. It's as simple as that.

SianTamzin

I personally miss how the older mechanics use to work. The last story zones of each alliance having harder enemies for example and how you could only access other alliances zones if you did Cadwell or made a character in that alliance. I do understand why they got rid of these, especially the OP midcrabs

Amottica

What is funny about the premise of this thread, New World is not difficult. Sure, if you are level 20 and attack a lvl 40 NPC it just might kill you because you are not prepared. I have noticed so many high-level players staying in the low-level areas so they are not really up for the challenge. Even then, combat is much more simplistic than ESO and the NPCs are even more predictable so it is not the challenge people are trying to make it out to be.

spartaxoxo

Amottica wrote: »

What is funny about the premise of this thread, New World is not difficult. Sure, if you are level 20 and attack a lvl 40 NPC it just might kill you because you are not prepared. I have noticed so many high-level players staying in the low-level areas so they are not really up for the challenge. Even then, combat is much more simplistic than ESO and the NPCs are even more predictable so it is not the challenge people are trying to make it out to be.

New games are often initially challenging to people then they get in the groove and it becomes stupid easy. And some of them will pass on guides and stuff they didn't have access to so players arriving later tend to always have an easier time regardless of devs nerfing it or not. I'll believe that NW overland is soo hard if people are still saying it a year from now.

Franchise408

Amottica wrote: »

What is funny about the premise of this thread, New World is not difficult. Sure, if you are level 20 and attack a lvl 40 NPC it just might kill you because you are not prepared. I have noticed so many high-level players staying in the low-level areas so they are not really up for the challenge. Even then, combat is much more simplistic than ESO and the NPCs are even more predictable so it is not the challenge people are trying to make it out to be.

Maybe it's because compared to ESO, the threat that it's actually possible to die is such a vast improvement.

I am in New World. It seems okay. It doesn't seem to do anything special. On the whole, I'd probably rank ESO above it to this point - albeit I'm not very deep into New World.

But overland content is far more engaging than ESO. If I am not smart and pull too many mobs, I could actually die.

That's not possible in ESO.

Franchise408

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

The level of ease in overland is counter-intuitive to inclusive zones, because overland being so tediously easy means there is no need for grouping.

Nope. Because one gets people playing and the other does not. You don't need to be in a group to want to run into and work with other players. People do it all the time.

Most people don't want to be forced into groups for every little thing. Just having people nearby if they need help is good. Many, many people enjoy single player content in MMOs and I can't actually think of an MMO I have played that didn't have at least a little content you could do on your own while other people nearby did their thing too.

I have never once needed help for anything that wasn't group required content, i.e. dungeons, trials, dragons, harrowstorms, etc.

I have never once wanted help for anything that wasn't group required content.

The content is tedious enough as it is. Why would I want to make it even more tedious by grouping with people and having mobs die before I can even make an attack on it

Your anecdote doesn't outweigh the developers player driven data across the playerbase. Glad you were skilled enough to never need help with a world boss even at level 10, but that's not most people's experience whatsoever. Most people are using Overland the way it was designed and that's why devs aren't changing it. It's as simple as that.

But that's the problem - you comment that "Glad you were skilled enough", but you don't have to be skilled in literally any way in overland.

I mean, if I have the right sets on, I could aggro mobs, set the controller down, walk away, and let my sets kill overland mobs at no threat of dying without ever even so much as light attacking.

ESO overland requires exactly 0 skill. It's not that I was skilled enough to never need help with overland, it's the overland is faux content that is just there for show but doesn't actually add anything resembling any semblance of gameplay.

Elsonso

Jeremy wrote: »

One Tamriel scaled the monsters in all zones to level 50 and CP 160. Before One Tamriel, the monsters in most zones were set to a much lower level. They were all scaled upward. So anyone who doesn't think they scaled the monsters on this game must be relatively new, and must not have played this game prior to One Tamriel.

Ok, I get it. When I see you use "scaled" I think of automation that is part of the game, but you are just describing the one-time editing of the mobs to make them all CP 160 when they migrated the zone.

Jeremy wrote: »

As to your second point: they already have multiple instances of every zone. So it would not require a substantial increase in the sever hardware. They used to have Veteran Zones, and that was years ago, and one would assume their server infrastructure has increased since then. So it's illogical to think they don't have the resources to do something they have already done before. The problem was they accompanied them with veteran ranks which turned into a tedious grind. It also didn't help that you had to clear a lot of quests before you could access them.

So, what people in the forum tend to refer to as an "instance" does not appear to actually be an "instance" like they think it is. I think of an ESO zone instance as capping at about 2-3 thousand players. Meanwhile, within those zone instances, we know that the players are separated into what I am now going to refer to as "layers". I think there are 1-2 hundred players in each layer. It is those "layers" that people frequently call "instances" around here. The layers are simply an organization within the zone instance.

Instances are probably much more aligned with physical hardware, so creating and destroying them requires something akin to "booting up" an instance in a server partition. Meanwhile, layers are just logical groupings of players, and new ones can be created and destroyed without having to boot up a whole instance. (this is my guess, at least)

So, yeah, veteran zones will double the number of zones, and double the number of instances. The same number of players that could once be handled by one instance using layers will require two instances. This will have an impact on server capacity and hardware planning.

Amottica

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

I was looking, really looking for that piece from the Slashlurk stream, but I can't find it. There are quite a few streams for several hours each. And in almost every one he is asked about the vet. overland, sometimes several times. [snip] I actually heard Rich say that the average duration of a game in eso is six weeks. In addition, in 2016, Matt Firor gave an interview, where he said that the largest population of the game occurs at the time of the release of new content. This is mostly due to returning players. Therefore, we see, and they have been talking about this for a long time, that the main audience that eso is aimed at is completely different from the people who are called casuals on the forum. I believe that all the people on this forum are involved players. It doesn't matter if you do houseing, take a long time to complete quests, or you are a high-end player with all the achievements. You are an involved player who plays a lot. And I love these players equally, really. But the main part of playes of the game is those who play a little. These are the players who buy the game, play it for several weeks, maybe spend some more money. And then, perhaps, return to the next dlc and play for a while. It seems absurd, but this is the state of the entire gaming industry today, alas. It's like mobile gaming. It seems that any person looking at mobile games will think - why play this when there is pc gaming and console gaming, why else donate to it. But this is a colossal huge business. It is these players who make the very statistics that they like to talk about here. This is why we have year-long stories, because it is easier to retain the that players this way. That is why we have events every two weeks, which seems just crazy. We all feel great loss of ping and reduced performance during these events. But ZoS continues to do this because it is profitable.

Now I want to draw your attention to a few points and ask a few questions:

1. Why, if the main problem of Craglorn was the high difficult content, then ZoS just did not reduce it, continuing to release a new Adventure Zone. Look at Craglorn - 3 different types of anchors, 5 each. Several small dungeons such as Skyrich or Shada's Tear with their own daily quests. Where is all this in future content? Many players during the one year event wrote that Craglorn was an interesting new experience for them with the amount of content it offers.

2. Why aren't the developers doing long side quest lines anymore like they did on Vvardenfell? Remember those wonderful and deep stories of Sun-in-Shadow and Veya Releth? Why did ZoS abandon them so quickly? Everyone liked them. They are still remembered as examples of great quests and interesting stories. So why isn't ZoS doing it anymore? Why are the locations again filled with dozens of short, unrelated quests that are not remembered later?

3. Why is even the crown store so rarely updated with new items? Why are 99% of new products only in crown ctrates?

4. Why are quests in a story-focused game so linear? Why do we almost never have a choice? Why do we almost never have different options for completing quests? We ask for this a lot because variability is good for our roleplaying.

5. Why doesn't this story-focused game have the dungeon / trial story mod we've all been asking for?

I think the answer is very simple - most of the players just do not have time to complete most of the content. This is why less new content is being made. That is why the overland is not only easy, but also does not have various interesting content, because most of the players will never get to it. The same was most likely shown by the statistics regarding the long quest lines on Vvardenfell. And it's much easier to just return old items to the store for a new wave of players. Just leave the loot boxes to the "whales". Rather than building a large, stable and loyal player base, ZoS has opted to rely on a large number of fickle players.

[edited for baiting]

1, When Rich spoke of players not doing the vet zones he was speaking of Silver and Gold. And they did make it easier which is what we have now. Craglorn was a different issue as it was a zone designed for forced grouping. Beyond that, Each DLC zone added has had its own thing, well, many of them.
2. IDK
3. @Hallothiel is correct that the devs do not run the crown store, it is the business side.
4. I agree with @Hallothiel again. An MMORPG is already complex enough and adding another layer would add to the complexity of story designs and more.
5. Not sure what dungeon mod you are speaking of but pretty sure "all" of us have not been asking for it.

Outside of why Zenimax does not make zone quest combat more challenging or even an optional difficulty, we can really only guess as to why Zenimax does what they do most of the time. In this case (the thread's topic) Zenimax has spoken on the subject.

Elsonso

Franchise408 wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

What is funny about the premise of this thread, New World is not difficult. Sure, if you are level 20 and attack a lvl 40 NPC it just might kill you because you are not prepared. I have noticed so many high-level players staying in the low-level areas so they are not really up for the challenge. Even then, combat is much more simplistic than ESO and the NPCs are even more predictable so it is not the challenge people are trying to make it out to be.

Maybe it's because compared to ESO, the threat that it's actually possible to die is such a vast improvement.

I am in New World. It seems okay. It doesn't seem to do anything special. On the whole, I'd probably rank ESO above it to this point - albeit I'm not very deep into New World.

But overland content is far more engaging than ESO. If I am not smart and pull too many mobs, I could actually die.

That's not possible in ESO.

New World overland is a little harder than ESO, but I find this mainly to be due to the fact that things respawn almost instantly. In ESO, you can work your way through an area and loot everything without too much worry about a respawn. In New World, the monster you just killed is respawning behind you and will attack if you dawdle. If you can keep moving, the most challenging part of NW is not the monsters at or below your level.

People new to New World will die to multiple mobs because they are still new to the game and they don't have crowd control. Same thing happens in ESO for any new player that has not learned crowd management. Once players become expert in NW combat, I expect that multiple mobs will be less of an issue.

Amottica wrote: »

1, When Rich spoke of players not doing the vet zones he was speaking of Silver and Gold. And they did make it easier which is what we have now. Craglorn was a different issue as it was a zone designed for forced grouping. Beyond that, Each DLC zone added has had its own thing, well, many of them.

3. Hallothiel is correct that the devs do not run the crown store, it is the business side.

It is sort of interesting that there are people who hone in on Rich mentioning Silver and Gold and think that is all there is to it and he is not answering the question. Over the years, we have heard them mention how few people do hard content, and we can even see this in the platform achievement rates. This is why I don't take Rich literally and think he is only talking about Silver and Gold and that his information is out of date. That is just what prompted the change to One Tamriel, and he can safely say this without giving away any secrets.

One thing that surprised me recently was a statement that, yes, the development team is much more involved with the Crown Store than I previously thought. I, too, thought that most of the direction came from Bethesda marketing and that what the studio minders did was make sure that assets were available when they needed to be. That may not be the case.

kargen27

Jeremy wrote: »

Hallothiel wrote: »

I don't know who these unicorn players are that have played multiple releases and somehow not reached that point in progression where the majority of the content becomes trivialized but is the only argument against it that it's not worth doing because there's no outcry yet? Because believe me it's inevitable and it's up to ZOS to decide whether or not to be proactive or reactive on the subject and I'm not quite sure how it makes sense to disregard loyal, paying customers to such a degree.

Unicorn players? Lol most players more like!

Can you not see that a majority of players LIKE overland as it is? They don’t want to have ridiculously epic battles as they move about, doing surveys & maps & farming, or just trolloping around Tamriel?

I appreciate that you personally would like harder content, but you have admitted to not actually playing the game much anymore. So not so much of a loyal paying customer.

Again, this is not about people here on the forums being nasty & thwarting you dreams, its people reporting what the developers themselves have said, plus looking at the practicalities. You may think it is easy to implement a toggle or vet instance - but it isn’t. So no matter how much you wish for it, unless it becomes financially viable, it won’t happen.

🦄

A toggle would be difficult to implement since this is an MMO. But a veteran instance would not be. They already do it with dungeons. I used to program games, and I can tell you from some experience it would not be hard to do. A small alteration to the code to scale the monsters to a different level is all it would take. All the hard work has already been done. The zones have already been developed. The enemies have already been designed. The mechanisms for scaling those enemies have already been put in place. They have no problems putting out a veteran version of each new dungeon they release. They could do that just as easily with their landscape zones.

That isn't what people want. Just giving more health and letting them hit harder isn't what most people wanting a vet instance are asking for. They are wanting new mechanics. A boring fight is boring whether it lasts four seconds or fifty three seconds. And exactly where do you set that difficulty? 15k damage is more than plenty to wipe most overland quick. Players pushing 80k+ is a reality in the game now. So where between say 10k and 80k do you put the sweet spot? No matter where you put it there will be some that say to hard and some that say to easy and in the end most will be one and done with the zone.

trackdemon5512

Genshin Impact is adding harder content. Already articles are coming out about how doing such is a turn off.

“ I’m not against the idea of difficult puzzles, but they should have a time and a place. I was okay with the rotating platforms in Liyue because they took place in isolated puzzle chambers. But when I’m exploring an open world, I don’t want to take more than 10 minutes solving a single puzzle. If I can’t figure it out within that amount of time, then I’m just going to move on and look for more resources to harvest.

This means that my map is now littered with unfinished puzzles and gated content. There are entire palace domains (Genshin’s dungeons) and quests that I haven’t finished because I don’t feel like going on YouTube. I’ll go look up solutions for a consecutive hour when I’m playing a tower defense game like Arknights. But Genshin? Nahhh. I’m too distracted by content that isn’t gated by the size of my brain.“

https://kotaku.com/genshin-impact-s-new-inazuma-update-brings-the-difficul-1847873282

This kind of thing isn’t a unique sentiment. The majority of players in games get frustrated when there is content that’s there but they can’t do but shows up in their face all the time.

How does this fit into ESO? Casual players have long been frustrated that in order to do content they were told to do other content that they couldn’t do. For years just needing the Maelstrom Staff was a turn off. Great if you can get it but those who couldn’t were shunned and told to do content that frustrated them.

Casual players don’t want this harder difficulty. Many want to zone out and engage in escapism. But reminding them constantly that they aren’t making the most out of their purchase tends to drive them away. Why should someone pay $15 a month for an ESO+ membership if they can only do less than half of the content? It’s throwing away your cash.

That’s why dungeon DLCs, despite having dyes, skins, titles, etc for vet players, focus on selling the story and sets as the allure. Things that all players can easily get. ZOS isn’t going to add a vet overland/slider with rewards that just serves to further divide the community.

kargen27

"I was surprised to hear that some players play a few weeks, quit, come back for a few weeks, quit again etc.. I don't see what this has to do with overland, though."

Alternate accounts could explain some of this. I have a 2nd account I am doing the story on in the order I did with my first character. I go for a while without jumping over there then will go back for a bit and do a zone.

A friend has 10 accounts. At first it was so he could have his own guild and he started storing particular sets on particular characters. He would name the character based on what set they were holding. Those accounts might go unused for a good long time but if someone in guild was looking for a set piece there was a good chance he had it and would go get it. Eventually he started playing those accounts though. This is the only game he plays. He plays on PC and Play Station both US and EU server and enjoys starting new characters. I think he has eight master fishers now but it could be more. I know he is working on more. Again some accounts might be left alone for weeks at a time. When an event with tickets comes up he tries to get the tickets on every account.
He plays all the time and spends quite a bit of that time in overland content so yeah how much someone plays really doesn't have any bearing on whether or not people are in overland or doing something else.

trackdemon5512

kargen27 wrote: »

"I was surprised to hear that some players play a few weeks, quit, come back for a few weeks, quit again etc.. I don't see what this has to do with overland, though."

Alternate accounts could explain some of this. I have a 2nd account I am doing the story on in the order I did with my first character. I go for a while without jumping over there then will go back for a bit and do a zone.

A friend has 10 accounts. At first it was so he could have his own guild and he started storing particular sets on particular characters. He would name the character based on what set they were holding. Those accounts might go unused for a good long time but if someone in guild was looking for a set piece there was a good chance he had it and would go get it. Eventually he started playing those accounts though. This is the only game he plays. He plays on PC and Play Station both US and EU server and enjoys starting new characters. I think he has eight master fishers now but it could be more. I know he is working on more. Again some accounts might be left alone for weeks at a time. When an event with tickets comes up he tries to get the tickets on every account.
He plays all the time and spends quite a bit of that time in overland content so yeah how much someone plays really doesn't have any bearing on whether or not people are in overland or doing something else.

Most games are either hardcore for a few days or casual for a few weeks affair. Unlike the games which are usually static you know that life is dynamic. A going out with friends event can easily turn into several nights planned thereafter. Or work has you doing extra hours or travel plans come up.

Once a distraction sets in you’re off the path of casually playing and you’ll return in a moment of boredom, get sucked in by how easy things are to get into, and stay on for a bit.

That’s why content in most games are designed to be picked up and dropped. Animal Crossing is a prime example of playing directly to this. You aren’t meant to build a town in one day. You do it in pieces over days and weeks. And when you come back after a leave it’s very easy to get back into (with a bit of a shame mechanic to make you feel guilty, namely all those weeds around town).

JJOtterBear

Give them a separate server with their own pvp/vet instances, all they have to do is clone the game to a new server and just up the difficulty on everything. That way, they can get what they need without it affecting everyone else who likes the game as is. and if it needs to be financially viable, make it sub only. there, everyone wins.

- people get their vet content
- ZOS gets money
- everyone who likes the game as is, gets to continue enjoying it that way unaffected
- Gankers/pvpers would have to make due with their own community instead of negatively interacting with pve'ers
- it would have its own balancing as to not negatively impact everything else
- the only downside would be as a new server, you would have to start a new toon unless they allowed one time server transfers.

not that it matters since game companies won't take player ideas due to legal issues anyway. so really this debate is mostly a pointless exercise.

trackdemon5512

JJOtterBear wrote: »

Give them a separate server with their own pvp/vet instances, all they have to do is clone the game to a new server and just up the difficulty on everything. That way, they can get what they need without it affecting everyone else who likes the game as is. and if it needs to be financially viable, make it sub only. there, everyone wins.

- people get their vet content
- ZOS gets money
- everyone who likes the game as is, gets to continue enjoying it that way unaffected
- Gankers/pvpers would have to make due with their own community instead of negatively interacting with pve'ers
- it would have its own balancing as to not negatively impact everything else
- the only downside would be as a new server, you would have to start a new toon unless they allowed one time server transfers.

not that it matters since game companies won't take player ideas due to legal issues anyway. so really this debate is mostly a pointless exercise.

Except this is explicitly against how the entire game is built. I mean everything is designed for functioning on the unique megaserver format. You’re suggesting going back to a style of play ZOS would never do.

If players for the SEA region can’t get their own megaserver, what makes you think that ZOS would allocated major resources to a population even smaller than that?

Seminolegirl1992

spartaxoxo wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

Nope, you guys aren't worth it. Is that what you're saying? It would "Impact the new player experience," how, dare say, would an option do that? vSS didn't ruin new players experience of Northern Elsweyr, how would an opt-in difficulty, whichever form has been mentioned, intrude on that?

Bringing "worth" into it or not is a bit strange. It's not about the worthiness of the players but the size of the population who want this. There has to be enough people that want it to justify the cost, and Zeni doesn't see that based off the current amount of people using the difficult content that's already in the game.

And it disrupts new player experience because the unified playerbase allows new players to come in and meet people organically when they get help with various things and form friendships and guilds, and learn from all different kinds of experienced players. That unified experience is part of their success and different instances are a detriment to that.

I think inherently their data is flawed. If they're basing numbers off how many people do vet trials or other end game content, and not how many people want engaging story enemies, they're getting flawed data. For one, trials aren't something people spend a lot of time doing throughout the week. That's not feasible; people have schedules and lives, and most of the time trials are a 1-3 times a week type activity. So of course they're seeing low numbers on that. Two, a *lot* of vet players have quit. Ever since Morrowind, I saw friends and guildies dropping like flies. They would pop in on occasion to check out the new content, but the recurring theme I heard from them was how frustrating vet content became for them, and how utterly lacking overland/story bosses were. Heck, the people I run my weekly trials with log in for that every week, but many of them play much less than they used to because of disappointing overland. It saddens me- I love playing with these folks but to see them lose their passion in a game sucks. My rppve partner only logs in a few times a month to play story content with me, and while we love the story itself, and the environment for the most part becomes more and more beautiful with each expansion (with an exception of some lazily designed textures in Elsweyr- check out many of its furnishings, for instance), the bad guys are severely disappointing.

So there are a number of reasons why Zeni doesn't see the numbers. Difficult content that is offered is not something that is played frequently because that's just not how trials work. They're something people do only a few times a week, so of course it's low. Add to that the number of people who have lost interest because of the lack of engaging content and their frustrations with constant changes, and they've lost an arguably significant portion of its long time player base. They are definitely getting tons of new players, we're not denying that. But they have lost a lot of their long time players and continue to lose them. I have 13k hours in this game and don't plan on going anywhere, but it saddens me they don't at least seem terribly interested in investing in their long time vet players.

I've also seen Craglorn brought up frequently as data that Zeni refers to. It is one vet zone, arguably boring and ugly as all heck, with annoying enemies dispersed throughout a difficult-to-traverse landscape. If the only data they're pulling from is lack of Craglorn play and trial play, they're not getting accurate data as to how many players would actually be interested in engaging story enemies (those things hardly equate; it's like they're seeing a dislike of carrots and therefor assuming that players hate all vegetables- bad example but go with me on this one), or an optional toggle for vet storylines or something. A survey would perhaps be a much more accurate representation of how many players would be interested in this.

Seminolegirl1992

spartaxoxo wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Vhozek wrote: »

Here is my conclusion after this long thread.
I'm not welcome in this game and it is not for me.
I give up giving it a try. All you have done is discouraged me from wanting to make this a better experience for me and other people who think like me.
Nobody should be begging for this many years to enjoy a product they spent money on and continuing to do so is an incredible lack of self respect on my part.

You're far from the first and far from the last but I do appreciate you voicing it because there's likely a good portion of the veteran population that feels exactly the way you do. Probably more than anyone suspects, myself included. There's a reason this subject pops up everywhere TESO is discussed. I have several IRL and guild friends who used to login daily and now don't even follow what ZOS is up to expansion-wise besides a couple "spears or spellcrafting yet?" jokes. It's a damn shame it's gotten to this point.

Far too much emphasis has been placed on the 'casual player experience' but I really want to ask everyone in this thread... It's been seven years with 15+ chapters and zone DLCs. Even if the casual player only played half of the chapter releases (let's say Morrowind, Greymoor, & Elsweyr) in any meaningful capacity, surely they'd have a character around CP200-300 assuming they're not hopping on alts the second they hit level 50?

If that's the case, why is this being downplayed as much as it is if pretty much everyone that has shown TESO loyalty over the years is approaching or past that point in progression where the game's struggles with power creep and lack of difficulty become extremely apparent? If you disagree, play devil's advocate for a moment. I mean it. Go in the overland and watch a CP300's combat encounter. The enemies aren't lasting long enough to perform whatever scripted actions they have. That's representative of the majority of the content in the game and the majority of the content being sold every year at retail.

It's time for ZOS to throw the veteran players who have been lining their pockets a bone. I really don't feel like we're asking for much here, it can be done with existing phasing tech and a flat modifier Warframe Steel Path-style.

What “veteran”/challenge seeking players currently get:

- vet instances of dungeons, arenas, trials
- Hard mode challenges of bosses in all dungeons
- Hard mode challenges of several sub-bosses in newer dungeons, the most recent having challenges for all main sub-bosses
- Optional side bosses (Black Drake Villa has an optional final boss with limited tries and harder difficulty based on how you challenged yourself on previous bosses)
- Hard Mode Challenges for two trials that are very difficult and highly customizable (VCR and VAS)
- A Highly Customized Solo Arena with optional bosses, optional buffs, optional paths, and a difficult final boss
- Hard Mode Sub-Bosses on all trials after Elsweyr (VSS, VKA, VRG)
- Optional additional Sub-Bosses in Rockgrove
- Skins, titles, dyes, mounts, body markings, personalities, style pages, emotes, Perfected Gear with improved stats, and furnishings for those that complete said content

I mean that’s a lot. Not only that but the number of challenges and rewards have steadily increased with each update for those players. The developers clearly have moved in a direction advantageous to veteran players demands and thus throwing them a bone.

But the veteran players who want to rerun old story content are clearly a fairly small subset of the vet player crowd. So much so that throwing them a vet overland or slider is too much for too little.

I mean I'm not in favor of Vet Overland either but most of that is just the same content being listed different ways.

Like it's Vet Dungeons, Arenas, and Trials and their hardmodes. The "customization" is just different achievements for the same instance.

^ yeah, what sparta said. Despite agreeing on some ideas and disagreeing on most, that list is definitely just a bunch of the same thing worded differently. Vet players, weirdly enough (s) don't just enjoy doing dungeons and trials over and over and over and over and over and over again. We enjoy the story too. We would just enjoy it a lot more if a dragon story boss didn't monologue about how bad he is and die if I threw a pancake at it :P

Seminolegirl1992

Cireous wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Cireous wrote: »

1. I have to wonder, for everyone defending the current state of Overland, over and over, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year in the forums, how much time are they actually spending playing it?

I do agree with the comments Rich has made on the subject. He makes the best case as to why the current state should not change and is based on the real data on player behavior as well as the incredible success they have seen with the game when they changed to the current overland model.

I play through all the main quests. I enjoy at least a week of unleashed criminal behavior per release. I gravitate towards the Overland group activities that contain a likelihood of failure without effort and numbers: Harrowstorms and Dragons. I always find pleasure in obtaining new furnishing recipes and wardrobe items through gameplay. I play all of the dungeons for skill points and gearsets. I have 2 fully leveled companions. I obsess over housing stuff and spend quite a lot time there, too, even though I may never create anything worthy of showing off.

The data on me undoubtly screams satisfied customer, buys nearly everything on the Crown store, plays through most of the content, but is that data accurate? How satisfied am I really? Does my last post seem like someone who is satisfied with their gaming experience?

I have a feeling the data on others might similarly tell a story that isn't as accurate as you would think.

^ this is a very good point. Data on me would show the same. High engagement in story content, crafting, housing. But am I pleased with story content? Heck no. It could be way better. But I still love the story, if that makes sense. I am always excited to see new content when it is released. I sub every month. My gameplay would inaccurately reflect my opinion.

Seminolegirl1992

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

trackdemon5512 wrote: »

But the veteran players who want to rerun old story content are clearly a fairly small subset of the vet player crowd. So much so that throwing them a vet overland or slider is too much for too little.

You're misrepresenting the argument. We don't want to simply 'rerun old story content'. This is for all past, current and future content that we're not going to bother experiencing because it's trivialized beyond enjoyment due to the power creep that has been discussed ad-nauseam. Who wants to go through an entire campaign of riding a horse between destinations and one-shotting enemies for thirty or so hours?

Speaking for myself, I certainly don't and can't bother bringing myself to play through them unless I'm on a completely new character and due to the aforementioned power creep I have fifty levels of fun before it becomes miserable again.
1.) I'm running out of character slots to do this on.
2.) It's objectively the majority of the content in the game.
3.) It's the majority of what we're paying for every year.

I don't see how the existence of veteran dungeons, trials and arenas invalidates the fact that we're being told that the majority of the content wasn't designed for us even though that's what we're buying twice a year. A single chapter can get you up to the level 40 range so if you account for the base game, a chapter and a DLC or two, a small fraction of the available content will get you to that gets you to the point in progression (CP300) when the majority of the game's content becomes trivialized.

I don't know who these unicorn players are that have played multiple releases and somehow not reached that point in progression where the majority of the content becomes trivialized but is the only argument against it that it's not worth doing because there's no outcry yet? Because believe me it's inevitable and it's up to ZOS to decide whether or not to be proactive or reactive on the subject and I'm not quite sure how it makes sense to disregard loyal, paying customers to such a degree.

This. It's not about old story content. It's content going forward. We want it to be engaging. So yeah they're seeing low numbers on people doing the same quests and over again. Because, well yeah lol