Overland Content Feedback Thread

CP5

Some people have happily cited ESO to be akin to a visual novel however, and when I've tried to suggest more player interaction like interrupting enemies, knowing when to block or change targets, or the like, they're often met with responses that I'm demanding too much of players, so the suggestion for setting enemies to have inconsequential health pools isn't without merit.

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

Some people have happily cited ESO to be akin to a visual novel however, and when I've tried to suggest more player interaction like interrupting enemies, knowing when to block or change targets, or the like, they're often met with responses that I'm demanding too much of players, so the suggestion for setting enemies to have inconsequential health pools isn't without merit.

It is without merit, it becomes an entirely different genre of game. You wouldn't even get to use skills, a single light attack out of stealth with no modifiers kills a critter. Even in great gear, it takes more than that to kill a mob. It's also a bit disingenuous imo, because if the argument is that "The game is bad and unplayable when it's this easy," then saying it should be worse for people who already ARE experiencing an engaging game with a moderate amount of challenge, is a suggestion to take away something that in your opinion makes the game enjoyable. To me that suggestion is one of the worst suggestions to be made, because it is not about making the game more enjoyable for other users. It's about making the game worse for them, with absolutely nothing that can be pointed to as a benefit.

CP5

All I'm saying is that suggestion would be welcomed given some of the perspectives presented over the many months this discussion has gone on. Many players don't even use skills, and as I and others have been painted the villain for suggesting giving players more reasons to use more of their skills they gain over time to engage with the game, it reasons that some would enjoy the opposite. I agree it is a bad idea, but so to has the suggestion of giving some players options, so at this point I'm just waiting to see if ZOS decides to do anything as more players come here to give their opinion.

spartaxoxo

CP5 wrote: »

All I'm saying is that suggestion would be welcomed given some of the perspectives presented over the many months this discussion has gone on. Many players don't even use skills, and as I and others have been painted the villain for suggesting giving players more reasons to use more of their skills they gain over time to engage with the game, it reasons that some would enjoy the opposite. I agree it is a bad idea, but so to has the suggestion of giving some players options, so at this point I'm just waiting to see if ZOS decides to do anything as more players come here to give their opinion.

Which perspectives? Everyone who has spoken [eta: in favor of keeping things the way they are] about the current overland has stated that they like current difficulty level. I haven't seen one post in 110 pages that said the overland is too hard.

Lysette

CP5 wrote: »

All I'm saying is that suggestion would be welcomed given some of the perspectives presented over the many months this discussion has gone on. Many players don't even use skills, and as I and others have been painted the villain for suggesting giving players more reasons to use more of their skills they gain over time to engage with the game, it reasons that some would enjoy the opposite. I agree it is a bad idea, but so to has the suggestion of giving some players options, so at this point I'm just waiting to see if ZOS decides to do anything as more players come here to give their opinion.

ZOS_Kevin has basically answered this already - there is currently no intention to do anything in these regards. This thread is just a container for opinions and feedback about the matter, which will be used just in case of ZOS wanting to address the issue - which is currently not on their minds and therefore a dev statement about it is pretty unlikely at this time.

Lysette

I recently got some of my characters Mirri (she is about level 5 now) and I'm carefully observing how Mirri is doing with her standard armor, bow and standard healing skill. When she is fighting normal mob, her health is stable with a single mob opponent, but even if she is fighting something like a river troll (which is considered to be a "dangerous" mob by the game), her health is going down about 1/3 to 1/2. And this is quite interesting, because I see a lot of players, who's health is as well going down about 1/3 when fighting river trolls and the like. There are a bunch of players out there, who have low health regeneration and are not performing much better than novice Mirri with her 3 base skills.

Sometimes it appears to me that Mirri is modelled after the performance of a casual new player - she is doing fine, but isn't outstanding - well, she should of course not be better than the average new player, otherwise it would be humiliating for that player. But to be a companion for that player, she has to be much like him/her - so I guess we can assume that Mirri is like a standard new player. There is this huge gap in performance what makes it so difficult to scale it to everyone's enjoyment. And overland is design by intention to be a playing field for any new player as well - so we can assume Mirri to be a benchmark for what a new player is like in combat. She is not one shooting anyone, but she does reasonably well. Much like me actually, I can as well not one-shoot anything but game (as in deer). The average casual gamer cannot one-shoot anything really.

LashanW

spartaxoxo wrote: »

To me that suggestion is one of the worst suggestions to be made, because it is not about making the game more enjoyable for other users. It's about making the game worse for them, with absolutely nothing that can be pointed to as a benefit.

Jeez it was not a suggestion that I seriously think should be implemented. What I wanted to point out is the outcome of making the game too easy like that. The game would be unimaginably boring even for brand new players. But that level of boredom can already be reached very quickly nowadays. Reaching CP160+ is super quick with the changes to CP system (amount of XP needed compared to CP1.0) and the initial enlightenment bonus. My sorc on PC-NA immediately received like 4 million enlightenment xp bonus upon reaching level 50. She is CP80 now (though I don't plan on spending CP points) and she still have like half of that xp bonus.

Nowadays I don't think you can stay a new player for long if you play the game normally.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because this isn't a walking sim. There is a nominal difficulty level that new player may find a little challenging, but not anything that would actually prevent them from questing.

Exactly. That nominal difficulty level which is set in stone, is waay too low in 2022 for all players. It might've been fine 5 years ago. But not now. Game has changed too much.

Lol I realize now my English is probably not good enough to get my point across. My point is that being able to change that nominal difficulty level is how overland can actually be made for everyone. It's not by stubbornly keeping it very low for all players forever, like how ZoS is doing it now.

spartaxoxo

LashanW wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

To me that suggestion is one of the worst suggestions to be made, because it is not about making the game more enjoyable for other users. It's about making the game worse for them, with absolutely nothing that can be pointed to as a benefit.

Jeez it was not a suggestion that I seriously think should be implemented. What I wanted to point out is the outcome of making the game too easy like that. The game would be unimaginably boring even for brand new players. But that level of boredom can already be reached very quickly nowadays. Reaching CP160+ is super quick with the changes to CP system (amount of XP needed compared to CP1.0) and the initial enlightenment bonus. My sorc on PC-NA immediately received like 4 million enlightenment xp bonus upon reaching level 50. She is CP80 now (though I don't plan on spending CP points) and she still have like half of that xp bonus.

Nowadays I don't think you can stay a new player for long if you play the game normally.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Because this isn't a walking sim. There is a nominal difficulty level that new player may find a little challenging, but not anything that would actually prevent them from questing.

Exactly. That nominal difficulty level which is set in stone, is waay too low in 2022 for all players. It might've been fine 5 years ago. But not now. Game has changed too much.

Lol I realize now my English is probably not good enough to get my point across. My point is that being able to change that nominal difficulty level is how overland can actually be made for everyone. It's not by stubbornly keeping it very low for all players forever, like how ZoS is doing it now.

The difficulty level is perfect for all players to be able to complete it. It's not great for players to be able to enjoy it though, I agree. I think we need an optional difficulty increase. I understand they already ruled out minor changes. But they should at least throw us all a bone here and give us at least minor changes. Something that is designed for all players to be able to complete is going to be boring by definition for those of us who seek a challenge. If literally everyone can do it, then it's not much of a challenge, now is it?

Daraklus

spartaxoxo wrote: »

"For Everyone" never means tastes, because taste is inherently subjective and it is entirely impossible for anything to be to everyone's tastes,.

Except it does. Personal taste has a lot to do with the "For Everyone" slogan. Or at least, connects to it tightly.
Sure, one could design something "For Everyone" by appealing to the lowest common denominator, but it's highly irresponsible to then say "It doesn't matter if people don't like it, that's not important." If it was not an important factor, we wouldn't have a megathread spanning 110 pages worth of comments, don't you think so?

The term "Anyone can get into things, but not everyone will stick around for it" rings true for just about anything, even ESO.

Lemme tell you a little bit about Elden Ring, the latest hit videogame that came out not too long ago, and people love the game, both new and veteran players. Of course there were also people coming in who were saying that it is "Too hard" and wanted it to be made "For Everyone" by making it easier. I don't need to tell you why a game designed around the idea of a harsh unforgiving world would be a bit shallow if it were to become easier.

And I see just the thing that has happened with ESO: The game was made easier to cater to the lowest common denominator, and has become a hollow experience. And before you bring up dungeons, I just want to remind you that the endgame content is completely disconnected from the base game, that they could easily be their very own thing.

I don't care if you think that personal taste has nothing to do with "For Everyone" (even though it does because if it didn't, people would be loving the Overworld), the simple fact of the matter is, if fresh-faced new players or veteran players emulating a new player go into the world and have absolutely ZERO, NONE struggle with enemies, then the game is a failure when it comes to making people feel engaged.

TL:DR of the post: Personal taste does indeed matter, meaning that for EVERYTHING, something will not be "For everyone", even the things that are being made "For everyone".

spartaxoxo

Daraklus wrote: »

Except it does. Personal taste has a lot to do with the "For Everyone" slogan. Or at least, connects to it tightly.

It's not that people liking things is unimportant. It's that the phrase has nothing to do with taste, because there is no such thing as a product that is liked by everyone. It's simply not what that phrase means, nor how it is being used by the people you are taking issue with using it.

"Overland is designed for everyone" is a statement about the capacity to complete it. You can see this also similarly with movies. When a board rates a movie "E for Everyone" they do not mean everyone will like it. In fact, many, many movies with that rating are unlikely to be all that enjoyable to adults. It's not discussing taste. It is saying that if a kid were to see it, they would not see content that is inappropriate for their age group.

I'm not going to discuss the rest as I refuse to engage in any further discussion about difficulty from the standpoint that I don't know that difficult games are enjoyable and that I don't want an optional difficulty setting. I have been arguing for 7 months and hundreds of posts arguing for a way to increase difficulty. Anyone who comes in here and says I don't want it or speaks to me as if I don't want it will not have that portion of their post entertained.

I do not have to agree with every little thing to want a harder Overland.

"For Everyone" is not a statement of taste. Simple as that. There is no such thing as a product to everyone's tastes.

Elsonso

Daraklus wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

"For Everyone" never means tastes, because taste is inherently subjective and it is entirely impossible for anything to be to everyone's tastes,.

Except it does. Personal taste has a lot to do with the "For Everyone" slogan. Or at least, connects to it tightly.
Sure, one could design something "For Everyone" by appealing to the lowest common denominator, but it's highly irresponsible to then say "It doesn't matter if people don't like it, that's not important." If it was not an important factor, we wouldn't have a megathread spanning 110 pages worth of comments, don't you think so?

The term "Anyone can get into things, but not everyone will stick around for it" rings true for just about anything, even ESO.

Lemme tell you a little bit about Elden Ring, the latest hit videogame that came out not too long ago, and people love the game, both new and veteran players. Of course there were also people coming in who were saying that it is "Too hard" and wanted it to be made "For Everyone" by making it easier. I don't need to tell you why a game designed around the idea of a harsh unforgiving world would be a bit shallow if it were to become easier.

And I see just the thing that has happened with ESO: The game was made easier to cater to the lowest common denominator, and has become a hollow experience. And before you bring up dungeons, I just want to remind you that the endgame content is completely disconnected from the base game, that they could easily be their very own thing.

There are different concepts of difficulty in play between Elder Scrolls and Elden Ring.

Elder Scrolls games like ESO and Skyrim are going to be more approachable than a game like Elden Ring or Dark Souls. A portion of the gamer community that gets frustrated with games that are difficult just for the purpose of being difficult will find Elder Scrolls games more approachable, and will be more likely to stick with them.

Breaking it down simply, Elden Ring is pretty, but hard, and it is the pretty that attracts people, and the hard turns them away. It is natural for them to ask for an easy version, so they can enjoy the pretty and avoid the hard. I appreciate a studio that will stick with the experience that they are trying to convey, and stand by the fan base that wants pretty _and_ hard, and not spend time and money trying to cater to every player. They have a good solid game. A good solid hard game. It needs to stay that way.

By that same measure, ZOS has created an approachable, relatively easy to get into, MMO action adventure story game. A game that is not Elden Ring. The combat requires some player skills to master, which is probably the biggest hindrance for adoption. Still, as players master the combat here, they can take on harder and harder content, solo and group, and it is all the same content for everyone. This is a good plan, and I think it needs to stay that way.

That is not to say that this cannot be refined. Tamriel overland is too uniform. I would like to see more dangerous overland _areas_, like world boss locations, but less focused on a boss and more focused on just more challenging pockets of area content. As an example, they could bump overland mobs up from CP160, but not all mobs, and not everywhere, and leave character scaling alone. Another suggestion might be to add more mobs to some areas just to provide more opponents. Sort of a One Tamriel Version 2. No, this would not be veteran level content, just harder content in some areas of overland aimed at getting the lower to middle tier of players more challenging content to do in overland.

Veteran level content needs to stay in dungeons and trials. To that end, they need to rework ALL of the base game dungeons and bring them up to date. Base tier dungeons, like Fungal Grotto I, are not a good new player experience. I am almost to the point where I think they should have maximum level dungeons where Activity Finder will not put a player into a dungeon, or even offer the dungeon, if the player is above a certain level. Almost to that point, mind you. If you have ever watched a new player in FG1 for the first time with a speed runner, you might wonder why ZOS does not have "Dungeon complete, press E to delete ESO from hard drive" just to save the player some time.

Daraklus

Elsonso wrote: »

By that same measure, ZOS has created an approachable, relatively easy to get into, MMO action adventure story game..

Except it wasn't like that in the beginning. I would describe it at the start as a standard Action MMO adventure story game, that got harder the further you got into it. Which I believe was the correct approach.

Compared to then and now, I have completed ZERO quests. Or if I was questing, it felt like torture to me because of how numb my mind was feeling. I would dare to say that it is bad game design to have a game feel like that.
And this isn't just "A veteran player griping about overland being easy", this is someone taking an objective glance [snip]
And I find it very annoying how everyone seems to disregard this.

My comparison to Elden Ring was to show a developer/studio that has a hard game and keeping it hard, while ESO was a game that ranged from easy-medium-hard and was flattened to trivial levels of difficulty.

Elsonso wrote: »

Veteran level content needs to stay in dungeons and trials. To that end, they need to rework ALL of the base game dungeons and bring them up to date. Base tier dungeons, like Fungal Grotto I, are not a good new player experience. I am almost to the point where I think they should have maximum level dungeons where Activity Finder will not put a player into a dungeon, or even offer the dungeon, if the player is above a certain level. Almost to that point, mind you. If you have ever watched a new player in FG1 for the first time with a speed runner, you might wonder why ZOS does not have "Dungeon complete, press E to delete ESO from hard drive" just to save the player some time.

That's a problem with the community, not with the dungeon. While the dungeon may be flawed with having a waterfall that lets players just skip half of the dungeon, it's still the players and their "Rush" mentality that's making them do this, but that is a topic for another thread.

[edited for baiting]

Elsonso

Daraklus wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

Veteran level content needs to stay in dungeons and trials. To that end, they need to rework ALL of the base game dungeons and bring them up to date. Base tier dungeons, like Fungal Grotto I, are not a good new player experience. I am almost to the point where I think they should have maximum level dungeons where Activity Finder will not put a player into a dungeon, or even offer the dungeon, if the player is above a certain level. Almost to that point, mind you. If you have ever watched a new player in FG1 for the first time with a speed runner, you might wonder why ZOS does not have "Dungeon complete, press E to delete ESO from hard drive" just to save the player some time.

That's a problem with the community, not with the dungeon. While the dungeon may be flawed with having a waterfall that lets players just skip half of the dungeon, it's still the players and their "Rush" mentality that's making them do this, but that is a topic for another thread.

You can't design a game under the assumption that all players are angels and think of other players ahead of themselves when they play. If there is a shortcut to a reward, there are players that will take it, and Fungal Grotto I has frequently be used as the instrument for that. The game needs to change because they cannot change the players.

I will agree that it is tangential to overland veteran content, but it is related. If players want harder veteran content, the place to start is not overland, but in the dungeons where the veteran content is currently expected to be. This means fixing Fungal Grotto I, and the other base game dungeons. Addressing speed runs in the low end dungeons is a tricky thing, but something that I think should be investigated.

I just saw something from someone that soloed RPB. I get soloing dungeons, and have done it myself, but any dungeon that can be soloed is a dungeon to start with when reviewing the game for harder veteran content. To me, the first indicator of easy content, or too much power creep, is when more and more dungeons can be done solo. Maybe nothing needs to change, but it is a place to start looking.

Once veteran content in dungeons is properly addressed, then assess the state of veteran content again.

adyreonb14_ESO

I'd like to have a setting to change the difficulty of delves, public dungeons, and story bosses. (Normal, Difficult, Hard)

If you have it set to difficult or hard, when you go into a delve, or public dungeon, you go into a separate instance than the normal setting. Something like:

1) Normal - as it is today
2) Difficult - increase difficulty of all mobs in instance by 1 pip* (with max being 3 pips)
3) Hard - increase difficulty of all mobs in instance by 2 pips* (with max being 3 pips)

So a (2) delve would have all the "normal" mobs, be 1 pip mobs instead, with the end boss being a 2 pip instead of a 1 pip like it is today. A (3) delve would have all the "normal" mobs be 2 pip mobs instead, with the end boss being a 3 pip boss.

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

lThis means fixing Fungal Grotto I, and the other base game dungeons. Addressing speed runs in the low end dungeons is a tricky thing, but something that I think should be investigated.

Veteran Content does not need to mean group content, and many people want the stories to be harder so they have something to outside of group content.

The old content doesn't need to be changed. Soloing Vet Dungeons gets progressively harder and harder. So that players new to vet content have something you can have them do before they jump right into something like Vet Mooncaller Keep.

They shouldn't need to "fix" vet Dungeons before they give us more to do in Overland. Overland is extremely easy because it's tuned for everyone. This makes it inherently too easy for seeking a challenge that's engaging and interesting. Overland should have modular difficulty in some way, so that more of the playerbase can enjoy Overland at it's best. Overland should be something that a wider variety of players can enjoy rather than something only suited to new and casual players. Veteran players being in the minority is not a good reason not to do it, because many other groups are also in the minority like housing enthusiasts and PvPers. ZOS tries to entice a lot of different groups of players, so Overland should be designed with a difficulty setting for the different groups.

spartaxoxo

I would dare to say that it is bad game design to have a game feel like that.
And this isn't just "A veteran player griping about overland being easy", this is someone taking an objective glance [snip]
And I find it very annoying how everyone seems to disregard this.

Because it's not objectively bad game design. And your opinion is inherently subjective. I share your belief that the current way they handle Overland is bad. But we both are just veteran players griping about Overland being easy.

This is the design philosophy of their game. They want a game that is primarily aimed at a more casual audience. They made a lot of money off of it. So it's quite a successful design.

I still think they should increase the difficulty though. They lured in a lot of us with their surprisingly difficult combat rotations, and awesome trial and dungeon design. They have a pretty good amount of players that enjoy the challenge. So they should have more options to get that challenge from their primary game mode. This isn't a TellTale game (not that those are bad games. I love the Batman One and Wolf Among Us), it's not known for having easy content alone. But instead for having a good mix. So that you can "play your way." And the game is better for it. So they should extend that design philosophy to Overland.

Daraklus

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I would dare to say that it is bad game design to have a game feel like that.
And this isn't just "A veteran player griping about overland being easy", this is someone taking an objective glance [snip]
And I find it very annoying how everyone seems to disregard this.

Because it's not objectively bad game design. And your opinion is inherently subjective. I share your belief that the current way they handle Overland is bad. But we both are just veteran players griping about Overland being easy.

This is the design philosophy of their game. They want a game that is primarily aimed at a more casual audience. They made a lot of money off of it. So it's quite a successful design.

I still think they should increase the difficulty though. They lured in a lot of us with their surprisingly difficult combat rotations, and awesome trial and dungeon design. They have a pretty good amount of players that enjoy the challenge. So they should have more options to get that challenge from their primary game mode. This isn't a TellTale game (not that those are bad games. I love the Batman One and Wolf Among Us), it's not known for having easy content alone. But instead for having a good mix. So that you can "play your way." And the game is better for it. So they should extend that design philosophy to Overland.

Your inconsistent comments bother me.

First you go on and defend the game design because "It makes them a lot of money", which I personally consider to be the most depressing thing to make a defense out of (And even moreso when the cost was making the game experience shallow)

And then you go on to say "It needs an increase in difficulty". I don't understand why you keep playing both sides.

spartaxoxo

Daraklus wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

I would dare to say that it is bad game design to have a game feel like that.
And this isn't just "A veteran player griping about overland being easy", this is someone taking an objective glance [snip]
And I find it very annoying how everyone seems to disregard this.

Because it's not objectively bad game design. And your opinion is inherently subjective. I share your belief that the current way they handle Overland is bad. But we both are just veteran players griping about Overland being easy.

This is the design philosophy of their game. They want a game that is primarily aimed at a more casual audience. They made a lot of money off of it. So it's quite a successful design.

I still think they should increase the difficulty though. They lured in a lot of us with their surprisingly difficult combat rotations, and awesome trial and dungeon design. They have a pretty good amount of players that enjoy the challenge. So they should have more options to get that challenge from their primary game mode. This isn't a TellTale game (not that those are bad games. I love the Batman One and Wolf Among Us), it's not known for having easy content alone. But instead for having a good mix. So that you can "play your way." And the game is better for it. So they should extend that design philosophy to Overland.

Your inconsistent comments bother me.

First you go on and defend the game design because "It makes them a lot of money", which I personally consider to be the most depressing thing to make a defense out of (And even moreso when the cost was making the game experience shallow)

And then you go on to say "It needs an increase in difficulty". I don't understand why you keep playing both sides.

Because I don't have a side. I want increased difficulty, but I am also actually also trying to be objective (as much as one can be on a subjective opinion) and acknowledge the pros and cons of my idea. I can also also acknowledge arguments that are both good and bad, imo, from either side.

Just because I agree that Overland should be increased does not mean that it's an idea without cons. There is no such thing as idea without cons. People on both sides of any idea can also make good and bad arguments due to things logically fallacious points, incorrect information, etc.

For example, I don't need to argue that I am in the majority with my opinion that Overland difficulty should be increased. Rich Lambert who is the only person with any data to make an authoritative argument on this matter has already told us we are not. And I know from other MMOs and even single player games, that games that have a mix of difficulties nearly always have the hardest difficulty less played than the normal difficulties. A lot of people who play games do so casually. And the core gamers tend to be a smaller but influential and important crowd. So not only do I have a developer telling me we're in the minority, but industry trends as well. That's as close as a purely objective number as we're going to get.

So instead of going "That's inconvenient to my side so I'm just gonna ignore it and insist over and over that it's not true because all my friends agree with me.'" I'm going to instead shift my argument to "Being in the minority should mean nothing. PvPers are in the minority and they are getting a whole server architecture. Housing is in the minority and they get a lot of new content every major update. Etc. Etc. The developers are the ones that made all of this challenging group content and encouraged us to come play their game. We're not too small of a minority to throw us a trial once a year so they can take our money. So why should be excluded from being able to actually enjoy the majority of the game?"

Being able to acknowledge fair points from the other side or stuff that's not convenient to my opinion does not mean I have to cease support of my opinion. My argument can easily be modified to acknowledge that information without compromising my core stance.

And that stance is that Overland should have an optional way to increase it's difficulty.

vsrs_au

Elsonso wrote: »

That is not to say that this cannot be refined. Tamriel overland is too uniform. I would like to see more dangerous overland _areas_, like world boss locations, but less focused on a boss and more focused on just more challenging pockets of area content. As an example, they could bump overland mobs up from CP160, but not all mobs, and not everywhere, and leave character scaling alone. Another suggestion might be to add more mobs to some areas just to provide more opponents. Sort of a One Tamriel Version 2. No, this would not be veteran level content, just harder content in some areas of overland aimed at getting the lower to middle tier of players more challenging content to do in overland.

That's what I proposed much earlier in this thread: dangerous and/or more numerous mobs in relatively unused areas within zones. A major advantage of this is it requires no change to the game's structure, just adding some more NPCs, so very little effort by the devs I think. Various people disagreed with this proposal, though, the overwhelming opinion seems to be in favour of difficulty sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

SilverBride

vsrs_au wrote: »

...the overwhelming opinion seems to be difficult sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

Not if the slider affected the player rather than the world around them. Debuffing the player wouldn't change the game's structure any more than buff foods and potions do now.

vsrs_au

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

...the overwhelming opinion seems to be difficult sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

Not if the slider affected the player rather than the world around them. Debuffing the player wouldn't change the game's structure any more than buff foods and potions do now.

That would still change the game's structure, i.e. it would require code development for the slider to affect various player [de]buffs.

SilverBride

vsrs_au wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

...the overwhelming opinion seems to be difficult sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

Not if the slider affected the player rather than the world around them. Debuffing the player wouldn't change the game's structure any more than buff foods and potions do now.

That would still change the game's structure, i.e. it would require code development for the slider to affect various player [de]buffs.

It would only affect the player, not the mobs or any other part of the base game.

vsrs_au

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

...the overwhelming opinion seems to be difficult sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

Not if the slider affected the player rather than the world around them. Debuffing the player wouldn't change the game's structure any more than buff foods and potions do now.

That would still change the game's structure, i.e. it would require code development for the slider to affect various player [de]buffs.

It would only affect the player, not the mobs or any other part of the base game.

We'll just have to disagree, then. I think implementing these debuffs on the player would involve changing the game, and you disagree, so be it.

SilverBride

vsrs_au wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

...the overwhelming opinion seems to be difficult sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

Not if the slider affected the player rather than the world around them. Debuffing the player wouldn't change the game's structure any more than buff foods and potions do now.

That would still change the game's structure, i.e. it would require code development for the slider to affect various player [de]buffs.

It would only affect the player, not the mobs or any other part of the base game.

We'll just have to disagree, then. I think implementing these debuffs on the player would involve changing the game, and you disagree, so be it.

I guess we won't know unless they tell us.

Elsonso

vsrs_au wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

...the overwhelming opinion seems to be difficult sliders, even though this *would* require changing the game's structure.

Not if the slider affected the player rather than the world around them. Debuffing the player wouldn't change the game's structure any more than buff foods and potions do now.

That would still change the game's structure, i.e. it would require code development for the slider to affect various player [de]buffs.

Technically, this is already present in the form of the buff that lower level characters get to get them to CP 160 so they are in parity with the world. This adjustment goes away, but it could be implemented as a debuff on players. Not for free, mind you, as it is probably not designed to work that way.

The bigger consideration is whether it is worth the development time and effort to put something into the game that makes characters weaker. How many will use it? My estimation is that it won't be very many, as players can get that today by not allocating attribute and skill points, slotting only a single skill, wearing no armor, etc, and I don't see that happening.

spartaxoxo

You cannot get what you can get out of a debuff slider by unequipping gear. For one, unequipping your gear removes progression. For another, they can be stronger than what you currently get from unequipping gear. In addition they also can add unique mob attacks that only work on characters that are debuffed or unique environmental effects.

LOTROs debuff slider does that and it's widely used and celebrated by it's playerbase

According to Vastin, “The difficulty mostly works by making you more vulnerable to monster attacks, and reducing your damage — so that it won’t interact too badly when other players who may not be at the same difficulty are present. There are a few enrage buffs that you can trigger on an enemy when you are in higher difficulties that other players would notice, but these shouldn’t be too much of a hindrance for players running around at normal difficulty even if they do encounter them directly.”

You would think at this point nobody would still be suggesting we unequip gear like it's a real solution, but if you'd like to understand why most of us dislike that as a solution than you should do a search in this thread of the many responses against that.

ETA
Unequipping gear and not using skills is a horrible idea, that's why nobody does it. It completely kills progression and disallows builds and using your skills for fun. It's honestly such a bad solution it borders on the offensive imo. Might as well be saying we shouldn't play the game imo, since so much of an rpg is about progression.

Elsonso

spartaxoxo wrote: »

You cannot get what you can get out of a debuff slider by unequipping gear. For one, unequipping your gear removes progression. For another, they can be stronger than what you currently get from unequipping gear. In addition they also can add unique mob attacks that only work on characters that are debuffed or unique environmental effects.

ETA
Unequipping gear and not using skills is a horrible idea, that's why nobody does it. It completely kills progression and disallows builds and using your skills for fun. It's honestly such a bad solution it borders on the offensive imo. Might as well be saying we shouldn't play the game imo, since so much of an rpg is about progression.

I always suggest that people debuff themselves because that increases the challenge. There are lots of ways to make the game harder, but the player has to do it. The first step is not using anything remotely close to an optimal build. It is something a player can do today, without waiting around for ZOS to decide whether they want to make overland harder. "Horrible" is in the eye of the beholder.

I know self-debuff happens. I don't see this happening a lot. This tells me that debuff is not what is _really_ being asked for. What I think is being asked for is a mode where players can have the optimal builds and do godly DPS and have the game present a challenge that is worthy of that character. That is certainly what I would want in true veteran play, and I can't imagine that I am alone. I honestly can't see that lots players would want a 100k DPS build that has a slider that gives them 50k DPS in overland, because that is the net effect of the debuffs.

I think the only _real_ answer is to buff the game, not debuff the character.

SilverBride

They have already stated that they aren't planning any major changes to overland. This could change in the future but I don't believe it's likely because it's not in line with the direction the game has been going since One Tamriel.

spartaxoxo

No. They absolutely don't have to make it so that a 100k dps player would only have 50k dps. A debuff slider can be more than that, and it's something that has worked in other games. I think evaluating any of these ideas in good faith means we should be discussing the best versions of these things. So something much more substantial like what LOTRO has for debuff sliders. And for separate instances, something that isn't just some Caldwell's Silver and Gold all over again.

Debuffs can get pretty extreme, to match the extreme numbers other players are dishing out.

A player unequipping their gear is absolutely not the same thing as what's implemented in LOTRO, there are special attacks unleashed there and everything. Totally disingenuous comparison.

Elsonso

SilverBride wrote: »

They have already stated that they aren't planning any major changes to overland. This could change in the future but I don't believe it's likely because it's not in line with the direction the game has been going since One Tamriel.

Yup. This is a forum discussion of different thoughts. We are not voting, there is no reason to debate, and no "winner" will come from this. When ZOS does do something, if they do anything, it will be what ZOS wants to do. At best, anything in here that resembles what ZOS might do is a "good guess".