Overland Content Feedback Thread

Hexnibbler

back playing the game, and I'm bored again. I'm the guy who made "Gruk", a character that plays without skillpoints, attribute, or even equipement (bare hands everything). and still wins it all. I still have it.
It was 60 pages ago.
I also made a technical study of challenge versus difficulty back then to show the issue is not about difficulty but about the absolute lack of challenge a player is confronted to.

And overland still is left unchallenging. It feels like we are not being heard at all and this thread is specifically made to be ignored.

ADarklore

Hexnibbler wrote: »

back playing the game, and I'm bored again. I'm the guy who made "Gruk", a character that plays without skillpoints, attribute, or even equipement (bare hands everything). and still wins it all. I still have it.
It was 60 pages ago.
I also made a technical study of challenge versus difficulty back then to show the issue is not about difficulty but about the absolute lack of challenge a player is confronted to.

And overland still is left unchallenging. It feels like we are not being heard at all and this thread is specifically made to be ignored.

It's because, overall, you are in the minority. The game is designed for the majority, which are casual players who just want to log on, do their quests, log out... they don't want challenge or increased difficulty. ZOS has said previously they have no intentions of adjusting the open world difficulty but people keep ignoring THEM and what they've already said.

Credible_Joe

ADarklore wrote: »

It's because, overall, you are in the minority. The game is designed for the majority, which are casual players who just want to log on, do their quests, log out... they don't want challenge or increased difficulty. ZOS has said previously they have no intentions of adjusting the open world difficulty but people keep ignoring THEM and what they've already said.

I just went through this on the previous page, but to reiterate, there's no way for anyone to know the demographics of for or against.

It baffles me that people post in a feedback thread just to lobby against petitioning players. Over an over again it's been reiterated that there are ways to address the problem without taking away the current gameplay experience. And yet, every time someone posts the core issue or a suggestion to address it, contrarians pop up just to discourage and minimize engagement.

Telling us that we're a minority or that devs have no current plans to address this doesn't accomplish anything or contribute to the discourse. Not to mention that every time a dev voice has reiterated that there aren't current plans to address this, they've always expressly qualified that feedback is being collected and considered.

Which fundamentally contradicts any and all griefers trying to stifle the discussion with "zos final word, stop posting."

[snip] There's no reason to lobby against this. No one wants to displace the core game experience as it stands now. Implying that we do, or that the petition for this is insignificant, or that addressing this issue will harm your game experience in any way is misleading and dishonest.

[Edited for minor baiting]

SilverBride

Credible_Joe wrote: »

It baffles me that people post in a feedback thread just to lobby against petitioning players.

It is reasonable to advocate against a suggestion that we perceive as being harmful to the game, such as a separate veteran overland. That is feedback that is appropriate for this thread.

Hexnibbler

ADarklore wrote: »

It's because, overall, you are in the minority. The game is designed for the majority, which are casual players who just want to log on, do their quests, log out... they don't want challenge or increased difficulty. ZOS has said previously they have no intentions of adjusting the open world difficulty but people keep ignoring THEM and what they've already said.

point is, I'm just here to give my feedback. Obviously if ZOS had expressed plans to adress this I wouldn't be posting. That's the whole reason this thread exists : we want them to change their mind by sharing feedback that goes well beyond this thread : you have reddits and youtube videos showing why the current balance is detrimental to the game itself.

The more you repeat "they already said" the less it weights because in the meantime the feedback pointing out the issue is steady and true and that alone is a proof that something isn't right in the current state.

Hexnibbler

and here's the video I talk about : it tried to identify the core mechanics that makes or break the difficulty and draw a theory followed by practical examples.

Then there are 2 videos of a run using that theory to succeed at the quest of saving abnur tharn from mannimarco naked.
what matters in that run is that the health bar and the stamina bar are moving. You don't see that often when playing normally.


the lack of challenge is factual.

tokeinskyblu

I just want to add in the fact overland questing and content is soooo boring and easy is why I have not bought the last expansion and will not buy the new one.

If the new expansions where designed for vet players or at least balanced around being level capped I would be more interested in buying it.

Right now I have eso plus and get most of content included. Like above poster when I go questing and exploring overland I run around with no gear, attribute points and no cp just to try and make the game interesting.

Problem is when I want to jump into a battleground or come across a world boss I need to try swap build with armory to get a proper build on.

Aardappelboom

tokeinskyblu wrote: »

I just want to add in the fact overland questing and content is soooo boring and easy is why I have not bought the last expansion and will not buy the new one.

If the new expansions where designed for vet players or at least balanced around being level capped I would be more interested in buying it.

Right now I have eso plus and get most of content included. Like above poster when I go questing and exploring overland I run around with no gear, attribute points and no cp just to try and make the game interesting.

Problem is when I want to jump into a battleground or come across a world boss I need to try swap build with armory to get a proper build on.

I agree, and the story is atually pretty interesting but I just feel like I'd waste a perfectly awesome "first" play-through of the zone when it stays this easy, you can only play through a zone for the first time once. So I also (for the first time) decided to wait for a bit, but I'm not particulary hopeful that more difficult (in whatever form) zone quests are coming any time soon, we'll see what comes up along the year and in the meanwhile it's not too bad to play ESO a bit less, the game isn't going anywhere.

Damico

Removing gear and turning off CP for increased difficulty is not a viable solution. A lot of the fun comes from creating a unique or themed character and that includes the sets and items you choose to put together.

Things I would love to have while questing in overland:
1. All CP and set bonuses to keep a sense of character progression.
2. I want to make use of all the games combat mechanics for smart gameplay where failing to do so has consequences, not dead in one hit consequences, but I should absolutely know when I've made a mistake. I want to feel like a badass during proper combat flow with mistakes reinforcing proper play, not one shotting bosses in an anticlimactic fashion. Combat outside of bosses should also be engaging of course.
3. Difficulty scaling should not be linear, story bosses feeling like world bosses is a good spot, world bosses feeling like raid bosses may be too extreme. Perhaps make world bosses scale to nearby player count up to that of raid bosses.
4. I don't want extra rewards, but I do want rewards balanced around the additional time to kill for the median player so the players time isn't being wasted.
5. I want all this in a separate instance from those who chose to stay in an unmodified overland, which should remain the default. I don't want someone coming over and one shotting my fights, this leads to the same problem. This would also make the reward difference exploitable. I understand that I may run into fewer players, that is fine.

All of this would also make "veteran overland" an excellent co-op experience. I've tried to introduce multiple people to the game and it never really sticks because the only thing they could do in a group at the time were dungeons and we all know how dungeons typically go when we're looking for transmutation crystals. Endless 2 player dungeons don't instill enough intrinsic motivation for me or my play group.

I'll add on if I can think of anything else.

LuxrayFTW

So this thread's been going for years, now, @ZOS_Kevin. Has anything come of this? Is anything going to come of this?

And please don't pull the "We've had conversations" or "Please look forward to an announcement sometime in the interstice between tomorrow and the next decade" or "Your feedback is appreciated and encouraged." Anything? Any kind of clear, discernible line of communication between what people have been sharing and discussing in this thread for years and the ESO dev team? Has a decision been made about fixing overland difficulty? Have no decisions been made about fixing overland difficulty? What's going on, Kevin?

SilverBride

LuxrayFTW wrote: »

So this thread's been going for years, now, @ZOS_Kevin. Has anything come of this? Is anything going to come of this?

And please don't pull the "We've had conversations" or "Please look forward to an announcement sometime in the interstice between tomorrow and the next decade" or "Your feedback is appreciated and encouraged." Anything? Any kind of clear, discernible line of communication between what people have been sharing and discussing in this thread for years and the ESO dev team? Has a decision been made about fixing overland difficulty? Have no decisions been made about fixing overland difficulty? What's going on, Kevin?

There was never a promise of any response from ZoS as this thread was not created to address what some perceive as a problem with overland difficulty. It was created to stop the negative experience that the repeat weekly threads were causing and to keep the conversation in one place.

However an answer has been given and there are no major changes planned for Overland difficulty.

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, as many of you have noted already from Rich's interview, there are no current plans for changing the structure of overland content. It is something we will continue to look at, so constructive feedback is always appreciated.

The purpose of this thread is to collect constructive feedback so if there is an opportunity to make changes, we have feedback from players to possibly incorporate. However, if the conversation continues to be users arguing with each other, we will lock this thread. We understand not everyone will agree with the statement. However, you can disagree and voice it without pushing the buttons of other forum users.

As always, please follow the community guidelines.

IKYMI: Rich's Quote on Overland Content
"That's a difficult one because difficulty is definitely subjective. We have millions of players that play The Elder Scrolls Online, and a large portion of them find the game hard and the Overland content challenging, especially as a new player when you don't have gold, all the gear, and Champion Points. Ultimately it comes down to, if we make the game harder, what are the incentives for players to play it at the harder level? That opens up a whole huge can of worms. I also look back and remember we had harder Overland content. We had Cadwell Silver, we had Cadwell Gold, and players really didn't like it. It was too hard for them, and when we did One Tamriel, we ripped all that out based on player feedback. Like, nobody did it. So it's a challenging subject and a difficult question to answer. All I can really say is we're definitely looking at it, but we don't have any major changes planned for the Overland difficulty."

Credible_Joe

SilverBride wrote: »

There was never a promise of any response from ZoS as this thread was not created to address what some perceive as a problem with overland difficulty. It was created to stop the negative experience that the repeat weekly threads were causing and to keep the conversation in one place.

However an answer has been given and there are no major changes planned for Overland difficulty.

That quote was almost a full year ago, and definitely doesn't preclude the possibility of a solution. Not to mention that once again, you're ignoring the qualifier that they're accepting feedback and looking at the system critically. Specifically:

So it's a challenging subject and a difficult question to answer. All I can really say is we're definitely looking at it, but we don't have any major changes planned for the Overland difficulty."

For the third time, stifling discourse is not constructive or helpful. You don't want overland to change, fine. We can talk about ways to address the problem while keeping your core gameplay experience intact. I even submit a suggestion a few pages back that does exactly that.

But belaying everyone and anyone that is dissatisfied with overland is not arguing in good faith. It contributes nothing to discourse, and just brings people down who wanted to engage with the thread.

LuxrayFTW

SilverBride wrote: »

There was never a promise of any response from ZoS as this thread was not created to address what some perceive as a problem with overland difficulty. It was created to stop the negative experience that the repeat weekly threads were causing and to keep the conversation in one place.

However an answer has been given and there are no major changes planned for Overland difficulty.

That's... disheartening.

Kendaric

LuxrayFTW wrote: »

Has a decision been made about fixing overland difficulty? Have no decisions been made about fixing overland difficulty? What's going on, Kevin?

There's nothing to fix, overland difficulty is fine as is. This may not be what you want to hear, of course, but a lot of people like overland content to stay the way it is.

And it's highly unlikely ZOS will invest resources in some "Veteran" overland that likely won't be utilized much and will only split the playerbase.

Damico

Kendaric wrote: »

LuxrayFTW wrote: »

Has a decision been made about fixing overland difficulty? Have no decisions been made about fixing overland difficulty? What's going on, Kevin?

There's nothing to fix, overland difficulty is fine as is. This may not be what you want to hear, of course, but a lot of people like overland content to stay the way it is.

And it's highly unlikely ZOS will invest resources in some "Veteran" overland that likely won't be utilized much and will only split the playerbase.

There is much to improve on overland difficulty and there are also a lot of people that would like to see a change.

The playerbase is already split, you are not playing alongside people that don't enjoy the current state of overland available. If anything, allowing people to enjoy the type of content they want actually increases your chance of seeing them in other game modes adding to the playerbase.

spartaxoxo

Damico wrote: »

Kendaric wrote: »

LuxrayFTW wrote: »

Has a decision been made about fixing overland difficulty? Have no decisions been made about fixing overland difficulty? What's going on, Kevin?

There's nothing to fix, overland difficulty is fine as is. This may not be what you want to hear, of course, but a lot of people like overland content to stay the way it is.

And it's highly unlikely ZOS will invest resources in some "Veteran" overland that likely won't be utilized much and will only split the playerbase.

There is much to improve on overland difficulty and there are also a lot of people that would like to see a change.

The playerbase is already split, you are not playing alongside people that don't enjoy the current state of overland available. If anything, allowing people to enjoy the type of content they want actually increases your chance of seeing them in other game modes adding to the playerbase.

There's also a lot of players like myself who both enjoy the current difficulty and would like to see a harder one. I am playing and enjoying current overland. I also enjoy a challenge.

This is one reason why I think they should handle this like another MMO handled it. They used a debuff slider so people who do need more challenge (and the lack of challenge is a real issue) gets to enjoy it, and people who wanted it to stay casual are unaffected because they can play alongside each other.

ZOS_Phoenix

Greetings,

As we've had to remove a few non-constructive comments due to baiting, please remember that while it’s all right to disagree or even debate with each other, provoking conflict, baiting, inciting, mocking, etc. is never acceptable in the official The Elder Scrolls Online community.

While we completely understand everyone has their own opinions, thoughts, feelings and even frustrations, we want the forums to be a civil and constructive platform for the game and its community as a whole.

ZOS_Kevin

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Blackbird_V

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

May I recommend that in the next ESO survey, an option for feedback on Overland Difficulty is added? Or maybe a poll to garner where people lie with its difficulty? That'd be better data than a back and forth forum debate.

---

ZOS_Kevin

@Blackbird_V That is a fair point for a wider reach. We'll pass that feedback on.

Credible_Joe

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

@Blackbird_V That is a fair point for a wider reach. We'll pass that feedback on.

How / when are these surveys announced, and how do we participate? Search results are mostly about crafting survey rewards from daily writs.

Also, is there a better medium to submit suggestions regarding this? Any proposed solutions tend to get lost in the back and forth fairly quickly.

Kendaric

In the past these surveys went out to randomly chosen players if I recall correctly.

As for a better medium for feedback/suggestions... you could always use the ingame feedback system.

spartaxoxo

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future! I hope you guys do that survey soon! I know it's not a guarantee but I think an official survey would just be so helpful!

Elsonso

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

spartaxoxo

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

Hopefully it wouldn't be anything where that's necessary because it would be something new rather than rebalancing the old.

vsrs_au

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

Agreed. Whether it's promoted as "new" or "re-balanced", we need advance notice of it, because it may have a major impact on how we play the game.

TaSheen

vsrs_au wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

Agreed. Whether it's promoted as "new" or "re-balanced", we need advance notice of it, because it may have a major impact on how we play the game.

Or IF some of us do.

vsrs_au

TaSheen wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

Agreed. Whether it's promoted as "new" or "re-balanced", we need advance notice of it, because it may have a major impact on how we play the game.

Or IF some of us do.

Sorry, I don't understand.

TaSheen

vsrs_au wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

Agreed. Whether it's promoted as "new" or "re-balanced", we need advance notice of it, because it may have a major impact on how we play the game.

Or IF some of us do.

Well, if they don't do "optional" I'll just quit playing. Which means they don't get 3 annual subs.

Not that they care.

Elsonso

TaSheen wrote: »

vsrs_au wrote: »

Elsonso wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

Hi All, wanted to follow up here. We don't have any changes to announce at this time for Overland Difficulty. Rich's last statement is the current stance. But we wanted to make sure to have a thread that players over time can add feedback and thoughts to. We have internal discussions all the time about feedback and what we can do to address feedback for ESO overall. Having feedback for overland content is helpful for those conversations as they arise.

Thanks Kevin! It's good to know that Rich's last statement is still the official position. Although I hope they change their mind in the future!

If they do change things, I hope they give more advance notice and more advance detail than they did for AwA.

Agreed. Whether it's promoted as "new" or "re-balanced", we need advance notice of it, because it may have a major impact on how we play the game.

Or IF some of us do.

Well, if they don't do "optional" I'll just quit playing. Which means they don't get 3 annual subs.

Not that they care.

My thinking is that if they don't do a "debuff potion/scroll/spell/curse" then they won't do anything. I am not expecting that they would do separate zones, sliders, or anything more complicated due to development cost, age of the game, etc.