Overland Content Feedback Thread

TaSheen

Arunei wrote: »

And one more point I keep repeating that no one seems able (or willing) to answer is how hard is hard enough and how hard is too hard? Most people who say the game is too easy seem to be those who are veterans, used to the game and knowing what they're doing. You can get better at a game but aside from health conditions/aging you don't generally get worse or lose the skills you learn.

Exactly. I've inquired myself, as I could manage a small uptick in difficulty (after U35 and U36, and with Oakensoul) - I got a couple of facetious replies, but really no one ever says anything "real".

Arunei

TaSheen wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

And one more point I keep repeating that no one seems able (or willing) to answer is how hard is hard enough and how hard is too hard? Most people who say the game is too easy seem to be those who are veterans, used to the game and knowing what they're doing. You can get better at a game but aside from health conditions/aging you don't generally get worse or lose the skills you learn.

Exactly. I've inquired myself, as I could manage a small uptick in difficulty (after U35 and U36, and with Oakensoul) - I got a couple of facetious replies, but really no one ever says anything "real".

It's a shame because I'm sure a genuine answer about how hard would be fine and how hard would be too much would help the devs figure something out that works for a lot of people (since you can't make everyone happy when it's on a scale this big).

I also don't know if the people wanting Overland, which by design is meant to deliver story and not challenge, to be harder realize that when you do something long enough and get experience, it gets easier. It's what learning is, you know? And that if they do get something that increases difficulty, what they think is going to happen. They're going to eventually get used to the difficulty at that level, but will they be satisfied or will they want the devs to put more time towards making things harder? Because at some point the effort to make things harder won't be worth it, since it'll be too small a number of people wanting harder Overland to justify the time and development resources.

Also, I saw someone posted a whole two screenshots of threads saying the game is too easy, and say "oh so many people claim Overland is too easy", but that person and others need to keep an important fact in mind. Even combining all the users from here, Reddit, and other forums/social media sites, that's going to be a relatively small number of people compared to the actual number of players. People generally won't complain about something if it doesn't bother them and also tend not to bother posting about something they're okay with. When people are bothered by something is when they speak against it. So while you're seeing what looks like a lot of people sharing your view about Overland, what you AREN'T seeing is the number of people who either like it as it is now or simply don't care either way.

With that in mind, people also need to remember that ZOS has access to numbers and information we simply cannot access. We can speculate and assume but in the end it's just that, speculation and assumption. There's every possibility that the devs can see the number of people dissatisfied with the current level of difficulty in Overland compared to those who aren't. It's possible those people are the minority and ZOS can see that. Of course, they also might NOT know anything like that. All we know is for the time being, they're happy with the difficulty (which I will admit dooooesn't really mean much; they're apparently happy with u35 too and we all know how a bunch of people feel about that dumpster fire).

Parasaurolophus

@Arunei

1) In the example of already existing veteran content, especially the last dungeons in a couple of years, we see that no one complains that it is too easy. This means that in this game, ZoS managed to achieve a balance in many points, where the content is interesting to play for both beginners and old veterans. And I don't see any reason why ZoS can't bring that balance to overland as well.

2) Yes. I also think that in principle it is not possible to take something as something representative. However. What do we see in the game itself? Overland is empty. People can't find a party to kill WB. New chapters on release are also empty after one or two days. The only place where there are always a lot of players is craft hubs. The overland resource is very limited. I complete new chapters and dlcs in three or four evenings. In general, I am not satisfied with the approach that overland is just a decoration for three dozen quests without gameplay.

3) I guess it's not a secret that online projects can often demonstrate amazing vitality. Some games that everyone seems to have forgotten about, and it seems that no one plays them anymore, are still alive and even have regular content updates. It is amazing. But the secret is simple. Over time, supporting these games just gets cheaper and cheaper. Even eso is getting smaller and smaller. Remember how many motifs, architectural styles, various other stuff were released in 2017 with the Morrowind? Now look at the high island. Even for the second year in a row there is no new Arena. Eso now lives only by hosting endless events that irregular players return to, just because of fomo.

As a fan of Elder Scrolls, I think that the series should have an online project better than a niche MMO for a couple of evenings. The problem of lazy overland did not gain its strength immediately. While the game was developing, people did not pay attention to it. But now it's one of the signs that the game is stagnating.

tonyblack

Arunei wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

Arunei wrote: »

And one more point I keep repeating that no one seems able (or willing) to answer is how hard is hard enough and how hard is too hard? Most people who say the game is too easy seem to be those who are veterans, used to the game and knowing what they're doing. You can get better at a game but aside from health conditions/aging you don't generally get worse or lose the skills you learn.

Exactly. I've inquired myself, as I could manage a small uptick in difficulty (after U35 and U36, and with Oakensoul) - I got a couple of facetious replies, but really no one ever says anything "real".

It's a shame because I'm sure a genuine answer about how hard would be fine and how hard would be too much would help the devs figure something out that works for a lot of people (since you can't make everyone happy when it's on a scale this big).

I also don't know if the people wanting Overland, which by design is meant to deliver story and not challenge, to be harder realize that when you do something long enough and get experience, it gets easier. It's what learning is, you know? And that if they do get something that increases difficulty, what they think is going to happen. They're going to eventually get used to the difficulty at that level, but will they be satisfied or will they want the devs to put more time towards making things harder? Because at some point the effort to make things harder won't be worth it, since it'll be too small a number of people wanting harder Overland to justify the time and development resources.

This question was answered by many in this thread, everyone has different idea what difficulty of quests would be ideal for own playstyle. There couldn’t be universal answer.

Personally, i agree with spartaxo (who I remember stated something similar) that if anything “veteran” should be implemented it should provide a challenge, at least comparable to veteran arenas. If it would be something like public dungeons it would be small, but barely noticeable improvement as those powercreeped and barely challenging, same with current difficulty of craglorn. The difficulty needs to account for all the buffs, companions and overpowered sets that were made available in recent years.

It irrelevant how long I played if the difficulty tuned to a point where player input doesn’t matter . Currently, i can slap oakensoul, 2 decent stat sets on sorcerer or warden with pets, summon companion and they easily finish most delve or public dungeon bosses while i’m afk or breeze through quests without any input on my end other than moving and skipping dialogues. That’s how bad it is. Dungeons, trials, arenas or even wb weren’t trivialized to that point so I don’t think it’s a fair claim that harder difficulty settings could not be determined.

Also, I saw someone posted a whole two screenshots of threads saying the game is too easy, and say "oh so many people claim Overland is too easy", but that person and others need to keep an important fact in mind. Even combining all the users from here, Reddit, and other forums/social media sites, that's going to be a relatively small number of people compared to the actual number of players. People generally won't complain about something if it doesn't bother them and also tend not to bother posting about something they're okay with. When people are bothered by something is when they speak against it. So while you're seeing what looks like a lot of people sharing your view about Overland, what you AREN'T seeing is the number of people who either like it as it is now or simply don't care either way.

With that in mind, people also need to remember that ZOS has access to numbers and information we simply cannot access. We can speculate and assume but in the end it's just that, speculation and assumption. There's every possibility that the devs can see the number of people dissatisfied with the current level of difficulty in Overland compared to those who aren't. It's possible those people are the minority and ZOS can see that. Of course, they also might NOT know anything like that. All we know is for the time being, they're happy with the difficulty (which I will admit dooooesn't really mean much; they're apparently happy with u35 too and we all know how a bunch of people feel about that dumpster fire).

You could also say that about any discussion that took place here or anywhere else. Update 35? AWA? Hybridization? Class nerfs? All of them impacted certain groups but overall everything stayed the same. Does it mean that ignoring those complaints is justified and nothing should be done?

Franchise408

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why should I or anyone else take that sort of statement at face value when the Cadwell Silver/Gold comment itself is ridiculous?

Because Rich is the one that said it and it's him you need to convince.

Actually, it's *us* that Rich needs to convince. We are the customers. He needs to convince *us* that his product is worth spending money on. And right now, it is not.

SilverBride

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why should I or anyone else take that sort of statement at face value when the Cadwell Silver/Gold comment itself is ridiculous?

Because Rich is the one that said it and it's him you need to convince.

Actually, it's *us* that Rich needs to convince. We are the customers. He needs to convince *us* that his product is worth spending money on. And right now, it is not.

I believe it is, as do many others.

spartaxoxo

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why should I or anyone else take that sort of statement at face value when the Cadwell Silver/Gold comment itself is ridiculous?

Because Rich is the one that said it and it's him you need to convince.

Actually, it's *us* that Rich needs to convince. We are the customers. He needs to convince *us* that his product is worth spending money on. And right now, it is not.

Nope. In this case, it's a group of players that want him to make a change. The game itself is already selling. It's a change being requested by players for a game that's already one of the most lucrative games on the market. Not a change the directors are trying to sell (which is what would make it his job to try to convince us). You are of course free to play something else, as are all of us. But, the game itself is already successful and he's already successfully sold all the changes he's wanted to make. He's already convinced people to purchase millions of accounts, 20 million, based off his and his team's vision of the game. Time will tell if current and future changes they come up with will also be met with success.

Blackbird_V

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why should I or anyone else take that sort of statement at face value when the Cadwell Silver/Gold comment itself is ridiculous?

Because Rich is the one that said it and it's him you need to convince.

Actually, it's *us* that Rich needs to convince. We are the customers. He needs to convince *us* that his product is worth spending money on. And right now, it is not.

Nope. In this case, it's a group of players that want him to make a change. The game itself is already selling. It's a change being requested by players for a game that's already one of the most lucrative games on the market. Not a change the directors are trying to sell (which is what would make it his job to try to convince us). You are of course free to play something else, as are all of us. But, the game itself is already successful and he's already successfully sold all the changes he's wanted to make. He's already convinced people to purchase millions of accounts, 20 million, based off his and his team's vision of the game. Time will tell if current and future changes they come up with will also be met with success.

20 million accounts. How many are bots, how many were made as alt accounts and how many were made on free to play weekends and are left unused? And need to ask how many have been inactive for years, like 5+?

SilverBride

Blackbird_V wrote: »

20 million accounts. How many are bots, how many were made as alt accounts and how many were made on free to play weekends and are left unused? And need to ask how many have been inactive for years, like 5+?

How many are end game players who want a veteran overland?

Regardless, @spartaxoxo is right that the ones asking for a change are the ones that needs to convince those who have the ability to make the change, not the other way around.

I still believe it would be completely unfair to the playerbase as a whole to have the entire base game altered to fit the wants of one playstyle.

Franchise408

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why should I or anyone else take that sort of statement at face value when the Cadwell Silver/Gold comment itself is ridiculous?

Because Rich is the one that said it and it's him you need to convince.

Actually, it's *us* that Rich needs to convince. We are the customers. He needs to convince *us* that his product is worth spending money on. And right now, it is not.

Nope. In this case, it's a group of players that want him to make a change. The game itself is already selling. It's a change being requested by players for a game that's already one of the most lucrative games on the market. Not a change the directors are trying to sell (which is what would make it his job to try to convince us). You are of course free to play something else, as are all of us. But, the game itself is already successful and he's already successfully sold all the changes he's wanted to make. He's already convinced people to purchase millions of accounts, 20 million, based off his and his team's vision of the game. Time will tell if current and future changes they come up with will also be met with success.

It's never the customer's job to convince the product maker. It's up to the product maker to convince the customer to buy.

As of now, I have been deconvinced to buy. The maker of the product is not making a product that is worth my money, so they are not getting my money.

Seeing that #'s seem to be declining indicates that I'm not alone.

SilverBride

Franchise408 wrote: »

It's never the customer's job to convince the product maker. It's up to the product maker to convince the customer to buy.

As of now, I have been deconvinced to buy. The maker of the product is not making a product that is worth my money, so they are not getting my money.

Seeing that #'s seem to be declining indicates that I'm not alone.

There is no proof that numbers are declining. Steam charts are not indicative of the majority of players who do not play through Steam. Nor do their "declining" numbers take into account those players who still play but just stopped using Steam to launch the game.

Also, overland has been this way for 6 years now. It is not suddenly losing mass players because of it.

spartaxoxo

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Why should I or anyone else take that sort of statement at face value when the Cadwell Silver/Gold comment itself is ridiculous?

Because Rich is the one that said it and it's him you need to convince.

Actually, it's *us* that Rich needs to convince. We are the customers. He needs to convince *us* that his product is worth spending money on. And right now, it is not.

Nope. In this case, it's a group of players that want him to make a change. The game itself is already selling. It's a change being requested by players for a game that's already one of the most lucrative games on the market. Not a change the directors are trying to sell (which is what would make it his job to try to convince us). You are of course free to play something else, as are all of us. But, the game itself is already successful and he's already successfully sold all the changes he's wanted to make. He's already convinced people to purchase millions of accounts, 20 million, based off his and his team's vision of the game. Time will tell if current and future changes they come up with will also be met with success.

It's never the customer's job to convince the product maker.

It's the customer job when making a feature request, which is what this is. I personally am in favor of it. So, I hope that he changes his mind and he implements a change to make overland more interesting. I think new adventure zones or a toggle and some challenge banners would be the best solution. It worked out really well for LOTRO and didn't split players away from each other. The older zones can hurt for people, so I feel that's important.

Regardless though, the devs have made changes based off well thought out and argued requests in the past. They just extended their mask drop because of people making good arguments about the holidays. And I remember those of us who argued that the login rewards only rewarded new players and they should remove some of the useless potions in favor of small amounts of currency and upgrade mats were similarly listened to. Players make great suggestions on this board all the time. As with anytime one is trying to make a persuasive argument, tailoring the response to the person you're trying to convince is key.

Ugrak

I'm not sure overland content is the real problem. At least not entirely.

Some struggle with it. Others effortlessly one-shot their way through it.

Thus, the resistance the content offers should probably be centered on the player, not the content (barring "tiers" such as overland vs dungeons, vs vet, etc).

As I understand it, while leveling: the game already adjusts each player individually against the content. This seems like it should be within range of being turned into an individual difficulty slider.

Alternatively there are status effects such as the vampire vulnerability to fire damage taking effect before all other stats are applied. Something like these could be used to individually adjust the incoming and outgoing damage a player experiences, depending on their selected stage.

Avoranti

I feel like there should be more enemies scattered around in overland zones.

AlexanderDeLarge

Not a fan of the idea that because the game is selling, the game is perfect as-is and our feedback doesn't matter. The sentiment of overland difficulty being pathetic was overwhelming enough to justify pinning a thread to the top of the biggest section for the past 13 months. It's not just a handful of neckbeards on the forums that are notoriously difficult to register and post on. Go take a look at any social media and you'll see the same things being discussed. Lack of overland difficulty and weaving are frequently cited as being the reason why someone quit or never started the game.

I'm glad that they're selling a bunch of copies for $5.99 during every Steam sale but eventually they're going to run out of new players and of the new players they get, only a small fraction stick around. Those that do will be saying the same thing about overland difficulty within a couple months of casual play. Completely unsustainable.

From a business perspective
Endlessly chasing new players that statistically don't stick around trying to sell a $5.99 copy of The Elder Scrolls Online
versus
Doing the bare minimum level of upkeep to retain or bring back veteran-level players that will spend significantly more and add value to the in-game economy and community. Makes sense to me to throw the latter a bone once in a while.

AlexanderDeLarge

If money is the only incentive for a company to maintain upkeep for players they've already sold a buy2play game to, good news, because there's plenty of financial incentive attempting to get them to return or keep around. Those of us who are unhappy with the overland difficulty likely aren't buying chapters or DLCs period. I know I'm not and I have a huge backlog of content I could buy and play through.

I'm not going to until we get some sort of veteran overland/difficulty scaling feature that makes it so I'm not instantly killing mobs within a second of the encounter starting. I'm not spending money on an armory slot to remove my Champion Points and I'm not taking off all my gear. This is power creep that ZOS is responsible for and it's ridiculous to suggest that players gimp themselves just to make the game enjoyable in the slightest. Fix the overland difficulty and we'll start buying the chapters and DLCs we've missed out on. There's good money in that.

spartaxoxo

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

Not a fan of the idea that because the game is selling, the game is perfect as-is and our feedback doesn't matter.

That was not at all the sentiment expressed in the last few posts. Someone said it is not on customers to make a persuasive argument as to why a feature should be implemented when making a feature request, it is on the seller to convince people to buy their game. And I said the burden of proof of a feature request in particular, does fall on the person making the request. And as to the seller's burden of selling copies of the game, ZoS has already succeeded at that. The feature request in this case being, of course, vet overland. I hope that clarifies things.

I would agree with you that it's important to keep current customers happy and not just only chase new players. I also requested a difficulty slider in that same post, after all.

Parasaurolophus

Avoranti wrote: »

I feel like there should be more enemies scattered around in overland zones.

I don't know if you're talking about all zones or not, but ZoS took the trend of significantly reducing mobs in the area with the release of Blackwood. That is, it means that ZoS are well aware that encounters with enemies in overland do not carry any interesting experience and are just annoying.

SilverBride

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

The sentiment of overland difficulty being pathetic was overwhelming enough to justify pinning a thread to the top of the biggest section for the past 13 months.

That wasn't the reason for the pinned thread. It was created because every week a new thread would appear complaining that overland was too easy. Within a few days the thread would devolve and be locked only to be replaced by another. This was causing a negative experience for a lot of forum posters so this thread was created to keep the discussion in one place.

CapsuleCorpZ

Overland content just annoys me. I know it won't change but it's not fun and just a hassle. Increased difficulty would make me pay attention , maybe.

WiseSky

AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »

This is power creep that ZOS is responsible for and it's ridiculous to suggest that players gimp themselves just to make the game enjoyable in the slightest.

I understand you point, I also have a different point of view.

It's not ridiculous for me to change my playstyle, if it will bring enjoyment to me in the end.

If the End Goal for me is to Enjoy the Difficulty of the overland mobs and someone suggests to gimp myself and it works that is great, in the End I got what I wanted and I am the winner.

It's the same principle for harder content, when you get posts about people not being able to finish VMA, some people suggest playing differently with different builds for them to stop getting frustrated about that content.

I think the community has normalized getting super prepped up and going above and beyond to be ready to enjoy harder content.

For example to join any serious progression group you need:

• High Enough DPS
• Right Sets and EQ
• Voice on Discord
• The correct Addons for the encounters
• Reading and Learning the mechanics of the said content before hand entering
• Only play that content when the Trail lead has set the time for it

Possibly other stuff too

All of that is expected of you just to Start to enjoy the hardest content.

Now when it comes down to enjoying the overland content, it seams we already have some people that enjoy it already.

The trick is figuring out how do they do it, and sadly there Isn't yet 1 Guide that talks about it.

But we have 20 guides minimum for each trail or dungeon.

There is this one forum post:
Fourm Post about Self Imposed Rules for playing

I made a List of Immersive Addon that may enhance the gameplay Immersion Addon List and Settings

Can the overland be made by zos to be "better" for "my" taste yes it can.

Can I make the overland extremely enjoyable with my own Immersive Custom Gimping Gameplay yes it can.

It takes effort for some to enjoy harder content and it takes effort for some to enjoy overland content.

In the end I reap what I sow.

zaria

SilverBride wrote: »

Franchise408 wrote: »

It's never the customer's job to convince the product maker. It's up to the product maker to convince the customer to buy.

As of now, I have been deconvinced to buy. The maker of the product is not making a product that is worth my money, so they are not getting my money.

Seeing that #'s seem to be declining indicates that I'm not alone.

There is no proof that numbers are declining. Steam charts are not indicative of the majority of players who do not play through Steam. Nor do their "declining" numbers take into account those players who still play but just stopped using Steam to launch the game.

Also, overland has been this way for 6 years now. It is not suddenly losing mass players because of it.

Agree now the U35 nerfs and the U36 bugs has done damage, add the obvious end of Covid isolation who increased all online games participation but probably also burned many out.

And overland dificulty has been this way all the way since one Tamriel in the current form.
Now I agree that quest bosses should have more health, so you know you fought an boss, not just an an troll style enemy.
DLC from Elsweyr quest bosses does an decent job here and its getting better.
For major quest bosses one tricks to help weaker players is to have an npc helper who keep the boss in combat so they can resurrect and continue.
Also group challenges are more like easy normal dungeon end bosses.
Useful is that they tell players to improve and group up or just wait for others.

For general mobs they could be buffed a bit, but not much, currently redoing all the quests in the game, is halfway trough Cadwell silver now, doing it slowly, reading everything and talks to non other npc, much harder mobs would just slow stuff down. So many quests I don't remember as I did them back in 2014
Its faster now even if going slower, and better loot, no have the sets, xp has enough so just relevant for leveling companions.

Smackosynthesis

I agree the game is too easy. I don't really know what Overland is but yeah, everything does so fast especially with companions. Borderlands figured out how to balance levels for enemies for players spaced out in level. Could ESO do that? And then we'd have the best of both worlds?

I wish there were more zones like craglorn too tbh

Parasaurolophus

Well... I think we're on the right way now.

Cireous

Is it ...... HAPPENING?!?! [no jinx]

colossalvoids

Echoed like this but I'd leave any hopes outside and just wait, as it easily can be another disappointing year in a row, just with more promising letter attached.

SilverBride

Parasaurolophus wrote: »

Well... I think we're on the right way now.

What are you referring to? Because the last feedback I saw was from Rich Lambert stating that there are no major changes planned for overland difficulty.

spartaxoxo

I suspect that this is coming too. Returning to older zone, much requested feature, new system will be in Q4 instead of a story dlc? Probably vet overland imo.

SilverBride

I don't see anything referring to a veteran overland. Why would they customize the entire base game to one small fraction of the player population, especially when more difficult overland failed before?

spartaxoxo

It's nothing explicit yet. We only have hints.

We know it's...

1. Highly requested by specifically vet players for years (so we can rule out common casual requests).

2. Adds new gameplay to existing zones

3. Not a new system

4. Whatever it is required them to cut the amount of content in half

5. It's repeatable

It could be a number of things, and the repeatable part doesn't fit into it being vet overland. But I can't think of anything else that fits better.

ETA

It's very possible they made all of the quests repeatable to solve the rewards problem. It was always a major stumbling block. You can't give vet quests better rewards so long as they remain one and done. But, if you make them repeatable with choosable difficulty, then you can give better rewards. This way someone doesn't screw their character up by doing the quest the normal way.