Overland Content Feedback Thread

SilverBride

Braffin wrote: »

That's why it's especially baffling to see some of the biggest opponents of any changes to overland difficulty demanding nerfs for EA, which was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

Nowhere does it say that the Endless Archive was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

And no one is demanding any EA nerfs. Making requests and suggestions and providing reasons for these is acceptable feedback.

spartaxoxo

Braffin wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

That's why it's especially baffling to see some of the biggest opponents of any changes to overland difficulty demanding nerfs for EA, which was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

Most everyone agrees that something should be done to make the game more enjoyable for vet players (which they are not), and they also want the early arcs for their own enjoyment.

Wanting both changed is pretty consistent philosophy in terms of inclusion.

It's like there's more than one way to cook an egg. Hating omelets is not the same thing as refusing to cook eggs. You can poach them, scramble them, etc.

Same difference between overland difficulty. Not wanting a separate instance is NOT the same thing as wanting nothing to be done.

Sorry, but I have to disagree. That's not what I see when reading the corresponding threads.

I won't cite anyone tho, as that would most probably get snipped anyways.

As a person who has been unfairly painted as not wanting options multiple times, it is something that I am well aware happened. I will remove the names. But here's some examples of some very prominent voices in this thread who have not wanted a separate instance but did support other solutions such as a slider.

I fully support debuff foods or sliders and challenge banners for quest bosses because these affect no one but the player using them. The only things I don't support are increased difficulty for everyone and a separate veteran overland.

And her opinion on EA

I was hoping that the Endless Archive would be for everyone, but it's looking more and more like it's just going to be another elitist playground. If the very first Arc starts like this then a lot of players will only be able to get up to Tho'at and not progress any further.

All we are asking is that this boss be tuned down some for the first few Arcs but others argue against this because they want the difficulty from the start and don't want to be bored getting to the content they enjoy. But what about the rest of us?

Please consider our feedback so more players can enjoy this new feature.

And here's another user. Although this comment is quite old as that user hasn't posted about which options they support in quite some time. Still, I remember them getting lumped into the "Anti" crowd a while back, when their posts were more nuanced than that.

Which is why I suggested the no CP "SWITCH" for overland as the code is already there due to no cp cyrodiil, it would be an easier route. After the devs see if it is used on a regular basis then they could release some resources to make HM banners or some other solution.

This way it would not require much over a code copy/paste/edit to make it possible in overland all while not using a ton of resources that could take away future content from the players.

and their opinion on Endless Archive.

In all honesty this is all I am asking for in Arc 1. Others might still have a hard time with it, but so long as they remove the trial bosses with all the effects and the pedestal sized dragons, I would be good with it. The final boss should be taken out of his small closet too as it seems to be not suitable for such a big boss.

edit: not getting any younger

Here's another user who has posted in this thread more recently and also about EA.

Most of us "casuals" actually support a slider, since it doesn't require splitting the playerbase. Funnily the main people against it are the ones who absolutely want a vet overland.

But let's face it, a vet overland wouldn't really help. You can't turn off experience with playing the game, knowledge of mechanics, etc. So a vet overland, if it got made, would either be obsolete from the beginning or require reworking basically every mob in the game to have new mechanics (or even any mechanics at all) in the vet mode in addition to more health and more damage.
It's no trivial task, no matter how much certain people want it. And even with new mechanics, that mode would soon be obsolete and the cycle of "wanting the game to be harder" would start again.

So yes, a slider like LotRO has would be the better solution.

Age and disability are the main problem in my case, but that's not the point.

Most casual players can't solo a world boss (or many dungeon bosses for that matter) even in the basegame areas for a variety of reasons. If an activity like EA includes them, it shouldn't be advertised as "content for everyone".

And no, I don't want EA to be nerfed. It's no content for me and that's fine, my only gripe is with the way it was originally advertised.

Most of the prominent casual voices in this thread have voiced support for things like debuff sliders, CP systems, and other alternatives. And again, I experienced this myself. My opinion has been consistently misrepresented as being a "no" vote, and that is absolutely not the case.


edit:

Here's my very first post in this thread

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Overland is largely fine as it is, and I certainly would resent having new content being put on hold to overhaul the entire game with a veteran overland experience. I also share the concern with the developers that it would split the playerbase.

However, I do think there are some much lower impact things that could be done to prove the experience for myself personally.

I'd like to see some debuff food or gear (maybe even CP now that we have the armory) that is tailored towards giving negative stat modifiers that makes existing content harder. I know from fighting the crow boss this year on a low level vs the character I'm doing Overland stuff with the difference in power was significant just from using a weaker character, and that resulted in significantly higher difficulty.

I'd like to see challenge banners for the story bosses moving forward (and maybe old ones too, since that's more limited in scope than overhauling everything) that could upgrade the difficulty for veteran level players. I think something along the easier vet arena bosses would be appropriate in difficulty.

Here is an old pro and con list that I did that elaborated more on my opinions. I would actually make some slight tweaks now, but overall, I still view it similarly.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Here I will do my own one of these

1) No Vet Overland options at all

Pros
Costs literally nothing
Cons
Doesn't address any current concerns

2) Forced Vet Overland

Pros
The players that stick around will have to become better at the game, increasing the quality of groups.

Cons
When Arenanet did this a lot of their players quit and this game would probably also see a large exodus

3) Debuffs

Pros
Unified playerbase
Cheap to implement
Difficulty is customizable to the individual player's needs

Cons
Doesn't leave room for new mechs
Requires micromanagement
Many would find it immersion breaking
No incentives

4) Separate instance

Pros
You can adjust how often mobs attack or create new mechanics
It is highly immersive
More popular
You can push it to a higher difficulty

Cons
Splits the playerbase
Costly time wise for devs
Incentive issue

Edit

5) Challenge Banners

Pros
Makes the big bad of the story an actual threat
Can give new mechanics
Has no impact on anyone that doesn't want to use it
Cons
Only works on bosses and does no address trash packs or non-instanced minibosses

6) Brand New Standalone Zones
Pros
These can be tuned to any vet difficulty
new mechs
Will have the shiny new content feel each year
Can give incentives without the incentive problem of other two main solution

Cons
Few will be able to do it
Significantly less content impacted
Takes away a dungeon
Ton of work

My opinion is a lot more nuanced than "NO to anything for vets" but nonetheless, I did experience having people think that was my opinion. Which is amusing, because I got told off for being an elitist who only cared about vets before too (in other threads). Ultimately, removing nuance from people's opinion and summarizing as just "yes" or "no" often results in inaccurate ideas about another person's POV.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

That's why it's especially baffling to see some of the biggest opponents of any changes to overland difficulty demanding nerfs for EA, which was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

Nowhere does it say that the Endless Archive was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

They actually did imply that last year, before we knew what the major system, they were planning on implementing actually was.

Now that we have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of hours of questing content, enough for four or five regular RPGs, we are hearing from our new players that the sheer number of zones and stories and characters is intimidating. And, on the other hand, our veteran players consistently tell us that they would like more content that isn't played through just once—they would like more content they can enjoy for years; content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay.  

IIRC around the time this was released, it caused people to think vet overland might be coming.

Braffin

@spartaxoxo I have no idea what are you trying to proof with this.

Of course there are people, which are voting for various difficulties in overland as well as EA. I never doubted that.

And there are players which only accept "nerf yourself" as solution to any struggles others have with too easy overland while talking about "gatekeeping" and "elitism" regarding EA.

Deny this reality as much as you want, if you want to simplify this truth by erasing nuance. I honestly don't care, as I don't think anymore you are interested in an open and fair discussion.

spartaxoxo

The people that I posted about are the most prominent people that get labeled as not wanting anything. The point I am making isn't that there are absolutely zero posts that refuse to accept any options. But they are far from the majority, not generally the most prominent, and I know of multiple people who's opinions have been misrepresented in this thread as being anti-any option, myself included.

If I revealed the names of those users, it would be immediately obvious why they were selected when viewing both this thread and the difficulty thread. They are currently, or used to be, prominent voices in both threads.

Edit:

Both "we don't want any options at all" and "we want to force everyone to play on vet" have been consistently painted as post types that occur more often than they do. Those are minority opinions.

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

That's why it's especially baffling to see some of the biggest opponents of any changes to overland difficulty demanding nerfs for EA, which was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

Nowhere does it say that the Endless Archive was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

They actually did imply that last year, before we knew what the major system, they were planning on implementing actually was.

Now that we have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of hours of questing content, enough for four or five regular RPGs, we are hearing from our new players that the sheer number of zones and stories and characters is intimidating. And, on the other hand, our veteran players consistently tell us that they would like more content that isn't played through just once—they would like more content they can enjoy for years; content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay.  

IIRC around the time this was released, it caused people to think vet overland might be coming.

They specifically said that the Bastion Nymics were one answer to overland difficulty, but I never saw anything indicating that the Endless Archive was. The EA does provide content that isn't played through just once but it doesn't say that it was created to address overland difficulty.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

Braffin wrote: »

That's why it's especially baffling to see some of the biggest opponents of any changes to overland difficulty demanding nerfs for EA, which was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

Nowhere does it say that the Endless Archive was specifically made as challenging content for all those unsatisfied with overland.

They actually did imply that last year, before we knew what the major system, they were planning on implementing actually was.

Now that we have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of hours of questing content, enough for four or five regular RPGs, we are hearing from our new players that the sheer number of zones and stories and characters is intimidating. And, on the other hand, our veteran players consistently tell us that they would like more content that isn't played through just once—they would like more content they can enjoy for years; content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay.  

IIRC around the time this was released, it caused people to think vet overland might be coming.

They specifically said that the Bastion Nymics were one answer to overland difficulty, but I never saw anything indicating that the Endless Archive was. The EA does provide content that isn't played through just once but it doesn't say that it was created to address overland difficulty.

In the portion of the letter I was referencing, they mentioned wanting to address it in part by making use of stuff from already existing zones. We didn't know what that means back then, but Endless Archive is the only thing that fits that description that was released in 2023.

Now that we have hundreds and hundreds (and hundreds!) of hours of questing content, enough for four or five regular RPGs, we are hearing from our new players that the sheer number of zones and stories and characters is intimidating. And, on the other hand, our veteran players consistently tell us that they would like more content that isn't played through just once—they would like more content they can enjoy for years; content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay.

They also stated Bastian Nymic was "one of their answers," which to me implies that it's not intended to be their only answer.

But others may interpret those statements differently. It's just how I see those statements given what we know.

edit:

source on the statement about BN being "of their answers."

With that being said, we do recognize a lot of people want increased overland difficulty and the new world events (Bastion Nymics) that are instanced for up to 4 players in Necrom is one of our answers to that.

https://eso-u.com/articles/eso_developer_ama__las_vegas_global_reveal_2023

2022 end of year letter

https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/news/post/63363

SilverBride

spartaxoxo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

They specifically said that the Bastion Nymics were one answer to overland difficulty, but I never saw anything indicating that the Endless Archive was. The EA does provide content that isn't played through just once but it doesn't say that it was created to address overland difficulty.

In the portion of the letter I was referencing, they mentioned wanting to address it in part by making use of stuff from already existing zones. We didn't know what that means back then, but Endless Archive is the only thing that fits that description that was released in 2023.

I agree that it sounds like they are planning more than one thing to address the issue but I don't believe everything new is specifically for that purpose. The Endless Archive provides content that isn't just one and done but that doesn't necessarily mean it's meant to be more difficult and tailored to end game players only.

LunaFlora

"content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay."

is definitely the Endless Archive, but it doesn't sound like they said it would be more challenging or like vet overland.

spartaxoxo

LunaFlora wrote: »

"content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay."

is definitely the Endless Archive, but it doesn't sound like they said it would be more challenging or like vet overland.

I don't think they were speaking to the level of difficulty, so much as who's concerns they were trying to target when they released the content. It's certainly currently balanced that way as well. But, ymmv. These are what I think the statement is implying but they don't explicitly state anything because they were talking about content that hadn't been released yet, at the time. But I can also see how others would interpret this hint differently.

"our veteran players consistently tell us that they would like more content that isn't played through just once—they would like more content they can enjoy for years"

LunaFlora

i really think veteran players refers to players who have been playing eso for several years, but i guess it's possibly referring to players who primarily play veteran content

RaptorRodeoGod

LunaFlora wrote: »

"content that utilizes our already existing zones to add new things to do, and most importantly, introduces some new gameplay."

is definitely the Endless Archive, but it doesn't sound like they said it would be more challenging or like vet overland.

It could've referenced the Arcanist too. You get the opportunity to go through all the old zones with a new playstyle/gameplay, which technically fits the description.

RaptorRodeoGod

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I get wanting more difficult things in the game, it’s not my playstyle but I see why players want it. Here is the issue though, maybe someone brought this up but sorry… not reading all those pages lol.

They already did difficult overland, I get the slider suggestion but I think that’d be too hard to do. At one point back in 2014, the old ZOS devs wanted this game more group/difficult. It really got to the point where a quest boss was as hard as veteran dungeon bosses are now. Problem with that is a they also had a system in place where the only people that could help you, if they could at all, had to be at the same exact point in the quest as you. They had Adventure Zones planned which were exactly like old Craglorn and honestly… that vision failed. No one was ever in the vet zones so no one could help you on that quest boss or world boss or dolmen because they either weren’t at the same point of a quest or the zone was empty.

This model honestly almost killed this game. Craglorn was primarily used for finding people for trials or players grinding to the next VR level, that’s it. Maybe they can add more things in for players who want harder content like maybe they have a completely separate instance… example: when you hit M you’ll see for choices Winterhold (Normal), and then Winterhold (Vet). I picked Winterhold randomly signifying that it should be on a new chapter first because I just think it’d be too tedious to go through the whole game to do this, but putting it as a chapter feature and doing it from then on is easier.

For a slider, literally all you have to do is make it go from 0% to 100% of the Battle Spirit debuff that's already used in PvP. I don't understand what's difficult about that.

I also don't understand why people want a separate vet overland instance. Like why would someone think that's a good use of the limited development resources, when something like a slider, challenge banners, or any of the other suggestions mentioned that would take a lot less resources? Not trying to talk down anout the idea, I just don't see the greater benefit of a vet overland instance vs the other proposed options.

The bare minimum would probably be better than nothing at this point.

Soris

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I get wanting more difficult things in the game, it’s not my playstyle but I see why players want it. Here is the issue though, maybe someone brought this up but sorry… not reading all those pages lol.

They already did difficult overland, I get the slider suggestion but I think that’d be too hard to do. At one point back in 2014, the old ZOS devs wanted this game more group/difficult. It really got to the point where a quest boss was as hard as veteran dungeon bosses are now. Problem with that is a they also had a system in place where the only people that could help you, if they could at all, had to be at the same exact point in the quest as you. They had Adventure Zones planned which were exactly like old Craglorn and honestly… that vision failed. No one was ever in the vet zones so no one could help you on that quest boss or world boss or dolmen because they either weren’t at the same point of a quest or the zone was empty.

This model honestly almost killed this game. Craglorn was primarily used for finding people for trials or players grinding to the next VR level, that’s it. Maybe they can add more things in for players who want harder content like maybe they have a completely separate instance… example: when you hit M you’ll see for choices Winterhold (Normal), and then Winterhold (Vet). I picked Winterhold randomly signifying that it should be on a new chapter first because I just think it’d be too tedious to go through the whole game to do this, but putting it as a chapter feature and doing it from then on is easier.

For a slider, literally all you have to do is make it go from 0% to 100% of the Battle Spirit debuff that's already used in PvP. I don't understand what's difficult about that.

I also don't understand why people want a separate vet overland instance. Like why would someone think that's a good use of the limited development resources, when something like a slider, challenge banners, or any of the other suggestions mentioned that would take a lot less resources? Not trying to talk down anout the idea, I just don't see the greater benefit of a vet overland instance vs the other proposed options.

The bare minimum would probably be better than nothing at this point.

Clever usage of limited resources.. That's what they're doing for 10 years. It's just procrastinating imo. Because neither overland content nor Cyrodiil got any update in the past years. I think they should do it just for the sake of doing it.

LunaFlora

Soris wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I get wanting more difficult things in the game, it’s not my playstyle but I see why players want it. Here is the issue though, maybe someone brought this up but sorry… not reading all those pages lol.

They already did difficult overland, I get the slider suggestion but I think that’d be too hard to do. At one point back in 2014, the old ZOS devs wanted this game more group/difficult. It really got to the point where a quest boss was as hard as veteran dungeon bosses are now. Problem with that is a they also had a system in place where the only people that could help you, if they could at all, had to be at the same exact point in the quest as you. They had Adventure Zones planned which were exactly like old Craglorn and honestly… that vision failed. No one was ever in the vet zones so no one could help you on that quest boss or world boss or dolmen because they either weren’t at the same point of a quest or the zone was empty.

This model honestly almost killed this game. Craglorn was primarily used for finding people for trials or players grinding to the next VR level, that’s it. Maybe they can add more things in for players who want harder content like maybe they have a completely separate instance… example: when you hit M you’ll see for choices Winterhold (Normal), and then Winterhold (Vet). I picked Winterhold randomly signifying that it should be on a new chapter first because I just think it’d be too tedious to go through the whole game to do this, but putting it as a chapter feature and doing it from then on is easier.

For a slider, literally all you have to do is make it go from 0% to 100% of the Battle Spirit debuff that's already used in PvP. I don't understand what's difficult about that.

I also don't understand why people want a separate vet overland instance. Like why would someone think that's a good use of the limited development resources, when something like a slider, challenge banners, or any of the other suggestions mentioned that would take a lot less resources? Not trying to talk down anout the idea, I just don't see the greater benefit of a vet overland instance vs the other proposed options.

The bare minimum would probably be better than nothing at this point.

Clever usage of limited resources.. That's what they're doing for 10 years. It's just procrastinating imo. Because neither overland content nor Cyrodiil got any update in the past years. I think they should do it just for the sake of doing it.

overland gets new content every single year.

SilverBride

I'm a veteran player. I started playing in beta. I'm one of the few players that completed Cadwell's Silver and Cadwell's Gold back then. I took a break after Craglorn was introduced because it was so difficult it was next to impossible to quest and level without a full group. I came back with the Elsweyr chapter and have no plans on leaving any time soon.

I have done every quest in every zone on 4 of my 7 characters and am working on this on the other 3. It's taking me longer though because I've gotten into some end game content. I have completed every base game dungeon on normal and veteran. I have completed every DLC dungeon on normal and am working on completing them on veteran now. I've done 3 arenas on normal and 1 on veteran. The only thing I haven't done is trials mostly because of not wanting to be tied to a schedule.

So I am a veteran player and I like having content such as the Endless Archive that changes every time we encounter it. But this has nothing to do with overland difficulty which has been complained about by not just veterans but also those stating their friends new to ESO are unhappy with.

These are 2 separate concerns brought up by 2 separate groups of players with 2 separate solutions.

Elsonso

SilverBride wrote: »

They specifically said that the Bastion Nymics were one answer to overland difficulty, but I never saw anything indicating that the Endless Archive was. The EA does provide content that isn't played through just once but it doesn't say that it was created to address overland difficulty.

I don't think that it did anything about "overland" at all. To me, it just seems like more instanced content where they normally put the harder content, plus wandering world bosses, like in Deadlands. Endless Archive is the same, with no overland wandering bosses.

If Endless Archive has shown me anything at all about the subject of harder overland content, it is that it won't be possible to satisfy the people who want harder overland content by making overland content harder through use of options, sliders, and parallel zones.

What I think Endless Archive is showing is that the overland difficulty has very little to do with the character at all. It is about the player. There is no slider that ZOS can add to the game, or zone that ZOS can create, that can change the player. Everything ZOS can do to make overland harder can be countered by the player, making the additional difficulty moot, after a time. It will always be too easy for a portion of the player population.

Well... ok... there is a slider they can add. They can make the performance of the game reflect the skill of the player. A slider can be set to make the game more unpredictable. Add a random performance degradation. Delays in game response, like movement and skill usage, shorter or random length telegraphs for enemies, and such things will mess with player "muscle memory" and make the game harder to master. No more "1-2-3 dodge". That, coupled with increased mob HP, damage, and resistances, would likely find the challenge a lot may be looking for. Or... it might just add frustration and rage quits as people try to master a game where that may not be possible.

I am not sure if anyone has suggested "make the game perform worse" as a possible solution to overland difficulty.

OtarTheMad

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I get wanting more difficult things in the game, it’s not my playstyle but I see why players want it. Here is the issue though, maybe someone brought this up but sorry… not reading all those pages lol.

They already did difficult overland, I get the slider suggestion but I think that’d be too hard to do. At one point back in 2014, the old ZOS devs wanted this game more group/difficult. It really got to the point where a quest boss was as hard as veteran dungeon bosses are now. Problem with that is a they also had a system in place where the only people that could help you, if they could at all, had to be at the same exact point in the quest as you. They had Adventure Zones planned which were exactly like old Craglorn and honestly… that vision failed. No one was ever in the vet zones so no one could help you on that quest boss or world boss or dolmen because they either weren’t at the same point of a quest or the zone was empty.

This model honestly almost killed this game. Craglorn was primarily used for finding people for trials or players grinding to the next VR level, that’s it. Maybe they can add more things in for players who want harder content like maybe they have a completely separate instance… example: when you hit M you’ll see for choices Winterhold (Normal), and then Winterhold (Vet). I picked Winterhold randomly signifying that it should be on a new chapter first because I just think it’d be too tedious to go through the whole game to do this, but putting it as a chapter feature and doing it from then on is easier.

For a slider, literally all you have to do is make it go from 0% to 100% of the Battle Spirit debuff that's already used in PvP. I don't understand what's difficult about that.

I also don't understand why people want a separate vet overland instance. Like why would someone think that's a good use of the limited development resources, when something like a slider, challenge banners, or any of the other suggestions mentioned that would take a lot less resources? Not trying to talk down anout the idea, I just don't see the greater benefit of a vet overland instance vs the other proposed options.

The bare minimum would probably be better than nothing at this point.

That depends on how the slider works. You said 0% to 100%. Okay, so is that literally you can go up 1% each time or are there set stops like 5% then 25% then 50% etc? If you have it be 1% each time then surely someone at 33% can’t be in the same zone instance as a 35%. So instead of just taking one instance, because from my understanding of the zones we don’t have just one Auridon we actually have a few, so instead of taking one of those instances and just make it hard you’d rather have ZOS make 100 more or 4-5 more depending?

Now before you say “they can just be in the same zone but using different difficulty percentage.” How will that work? The boss hits me for 10k but you got 15k? Also, doing it this way could lead to exploiting where you have people in a group on “harder percentage” but the group leader is on the lowest so they still breeze through.

But again it all depends on how the slider works, if it affects your damage output or the incoming damage and even then I think it would be hard to have players on different % quest together which means instead of having just one harder instance we will have many more which means more coding.

Edit- or it could mean something similar to what we have now which is the zone levels with you so the difficulty/slider would be based on CP and keep going up to 3600.

LunaFlora

OtarTheMad wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I get wanting more difficult things in the game, it’s not my playstyle but I see why players want it. Here is the issue though, maybe someone brought this up but sorry… not reading all those pages lol.

They already did difficult overland, I get the slider suggestion but I think that’d be too hard to do. At one point back in 2014, the old ZOS devs wanted this game more group/difficult. It really got to the point where a quest boss was as hard as veteran dungeon bosses are now. Problem with that is a they also had a system in place where the only people that could help you, if they could at all, had to be at the same exact point in the quest as you. They had Adventure Zones planned which were exactly like old Craglorn and honestly… that vision failed. No one was ever in the vet zones so no one could help you on that quest boss or world boss or dolmen because they either weren’t at the same point of a quest or the zone was empty.

This model honestly almost killed this game. Craglorn was primarily used for finding people for trials or players grinding to the next VR level, that’s it. Maybe they can add more things in for players who want harder content like maybe they have a completely separate instance… example: when you hit M you’ll see for choices Winterhold (Normal), and then Winterhold (Vet). I picked Winterhold randomly signifying that it should be on a new chapter first because I just think it’d be too tedious to go through the whole game to do this, but putting it as a chapter feature and doing it from then on is easier.

For a slider, literally all you have to do is make it go from 0% to 100% of the Battle Spirit debuff that's already used in PvP. I don't understand what's difficult about that.

I also don't understand why people want a separate vet overland instance. Like why would someone think that's a good use of the limited development resources, when something like a slider, challenge banners, or any of the other suggestions mentioned that would take a lot less resources? Not trying to talk down anout the idea, I just don't see the greater benefit of a vet overland instance vs the other proposed options.

The bare minimum would probably be better than nothing at this point.

That depends on how the slider works. You said 0% to 100%. Okay, so is that literally you can go up 1% each time or are there set stops like 5% then 25% then 50% etc? If you have it be 1% each time then surely someone at 33% can’t be in the same zone instance as a 35%. So instead of just taking one instance, because from my understanding of the zones we don’t have just one Auridon we actually have a few, so instead of taking one of those instances and just make it hard you’d rather have ZOS make 100 more or 4-5 more depending?

Now before you say “they can just be in the same zone but using different difficulty percentage.” How will that work? The boss hits me for 10k but you got 15k? Also, doing it this way could lead to exploiting where you have people in a group on “harder percentage” but the group leader is on the lowest so they still breeze through.

But again it all depends on how the slider works, if it affects your damage output or the incoming damage and even then I think it would be hard to have players on different % quest together which means instead of having just one harder instance we will have many more which means more coding.

a debuff slider would only affect you,
your damage, your health, your resistances,
nobody else would be affected.
people who want to struggle get their debuffs and others don't.
and it wouldn't require more instances.


a veteran mode of zones would require more instances as they'd actually be different versions of zones.
which would split the playerbase.
which is why people want a debuff slider instead.

edit: they actually they'd be different → they'd actually be different.
a veteran mode of for zones → a veteran mode of zones.

spartaxoxo

OtarTheMad wrote: »

But again it all depends on how the slider works, if it affects your damage output or the incoming damage and even then I think it would be hard to have players on different % quest together which means instead of having just one harder instance we will have many more which means more coding.

It just does things like decrease the damage you deal and increases the damage you take. It's not a problem for people of differing power levels to be in the same zone. It is already the case. That's a natural part of multiplayer gaming.

OtarTheMad

Thanks LunaFlora and Sparta for clarifying.

RaptorRodeoGod

OtarTheMad wrote: »

RaptorRodeoGod wrote: »

OtarTheMad wrote: »

I get wanting more difficult things in the game, it’s not my playstyle but I see why players want it. Here is the issue though, maybe someone brought this up but sorry… not reading all those pages lol.

They already did difficult overland, I get the slider suggestion but I think that’d be too hard to do. At one point back in 2014, the old ZOS devs wanted this game more group/difficult. It really got to the point where a quest boss was as hard as veteran dungeon bosses are now. Problem with that is a they also had a system in place where the only people that could help you, if they could at all, had to be at the same exact point in the quest as you. They had Adventure Zones planned which were exactly like old Craglorn and honestly… that vision failed. No one was ever in the vet zones so no one could help you on that quest boss or world boss or dolmen because they either weren’t at the same point of a quest or the zone was empty.

This model honestly almost killed this game. Craglorn was primarily used for finding people for trials or players grinding to the next VR level, that’s it. Maybe they can add more things in for players who want harder content like maybe they have a completely separate instance… example: when you hit M you’ll see for choices Winterhold (Normal), and then Winterhold (Vet). I picked Winterhold randomly signifying that it should be on a new chapter first because I just think it’d be too tedious to go through the whole game to do this, but putting it as a chapter feature and doing it from then on is easier.

For a slider, literally all you have to do is make it go from 0% to 100% of the Battle Spirit debuff that's already used in PvP. I don't understand what's difficult about that.

I also don't understand why people want a separate vet overland instance. Like why would someone think that's a good use of the limited development resources, when something like a slider, challenge banners, or any of the other suggestions mentioned that would take a lot less resources? Not trying to talk down anout the idea, I just don't see the greater benefit of a vet overland instance vs the other proposed options.

The bare minimum would probably be better than nothing at this point.

That depends on how the slider works. You said 0% to 100%. Okay, so is that literally you can go up 1% each time or are there set stops like 5% then 25% then 50% etc? If you have it be 1% each time then surely someone at 33% can’t be in the same zone instance as a 35%. So instead of just taking one instance, because from my understanding of the zones we don’t have just one Auridon we actually have a few, so instead of taking one of those instances and just make it hard you’d rather have ZOS make 100 more or 4-5 more depending?

Now before you say “they can just be in the same zone but using different difficulty percentage.” How will that work? The boss hits me for 10k but you got 15k? Also, doing it this way could lead to exploiting where you have people in a group on “harder percentage” but the group leader is on the lowest so they still breeze through.

But again it all depends on how the slider works, if it affects your damage output or the incoming damage and even then I think it would be hard to have players on different % quest together which means instead of having just one harder instance we will have many more which means more coding.

Edit- or it could mean something similar to what we have now which is the zone levels with you so the difficulty/slider would be based on CP and keep going up to 3600.

I imagine it would work like how level scaling, but in reverse. All the enemies in overland are the same/one instance, and the individual characters lvl 1-50 are "leveled" to the environment through whatever their leveling buff system is.

The "difficulty" debuff slider would just scale how much of the difficulty debuff you have on yourself, i.e. damage done/taken, healing done/taken, etc. No need to touch the environment, I'm sure the mechanics on enemies that already exist in overland are good enough if you debuff the player character enough.

So you wouldn't be touching the instance at all, its just a scalable debuff on the player character, and if they choose to play with someone on a different "difficulty" slider level, then they can, and each person could tailor their desired difficulty level.

The devs can just set the "difficulty" points to whatever level of the debuff they want, cause I'm sure they wouldn't listen to players about specific numbers anyways.

RaptorRodeoGod

OtarTheMad wrote: »

Thanks LunaFlora and Sparta for clarifying.

They said it a bit more concise than I did 😅 but yeah basically what they said.

Dahveed

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ultimately, removing nuance from people's opinion and summarizing as just "yes" or "no" often results in inaccurate ideas about another person's POV.

You're not wrong, but try to keep in mind the sheer enormity of this thread! Nobody can possibly be expected to read everything that is said here, so it stands to reason that sometimes your comments will be taken out of context.

RaptorRodeoGod

Dahveed wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ultimately, removing nuance from people's opinion and summarizing as just "yes" or "no" often results in inaccurate ideas about another person's POV.

You're not wrong, but try to keep in mind the sheer enormity of this thread! Nobody can possibly be expected to read everything that is said here, so it stands to reason that sometimes your comments will be taken out of context.

You're not allowed to post about the subject anywhere else, but nobody wants to read through this thread either lol

spartaxoxo

Dahveed wrote: »

spartaxoxo wrote: »

Ultimately, removing nuance from people's opinion and summarizing as just "yes" or "no" often results in inaccurate ideas about another person's POV.

You're not wrong, but try to keep in mind the sheer enormity of this thread! Nobody can possibly be expected to read everything that is said here, so it stands to reason that sometimes your comments will be taken out of context.

Oh. I know. Which is why I described it as 'inaccurate" so as to not ascribe malice to someone who gets another person's POV wrong. There's a lot to read in here. Way too much to really expect anyone to have read it all. And on top of that, a lot of posts are conversational in nature. This means someone's individual post in here could fairly be summarized as "no" or "just remove CP" or other such things. Not because that's the totality of their view, but because they were responding to someone else's point. So, that individual post was focused as reply, but their overall posting tells the full story.

E.G

Person 1: There's no way to experience a better overland right now
Person 2: You could remove your gear

Also Person 2 much later: I think they should make a separate instance, so long as it's optional. This way it can be normal and vet like other content in the game!

If you were to only read person 2's first post, you might think that user didn't want anybody to have any options. But they were just responding to the idea that there is nothing anyone could do in the the moment with a suggestion of what they thought could help in the meantime. They are actually supportive of separate instance. This is not a real example, but it is illustrative of the type of misunderstandings that happened frequently here.

If you're curious about another person's overall POV, you can always use the search function for key words. Or just ask them "are there any changes to the game you would support to help vets?" And see what they say.

But we should try to use the most charitable reading of each other's post, and not leap to conclusions about a person's overall stance if they don't like a particular idea.

Not everyone who hates the idea of a slider and is really vocal about it wants to force difficulty on others. And not everyone who is vocal about hating a separate vet overland is against other difficulty options for vet players. In fact, most users on here do support the idea of difficulty options.

The primary arguments have actually stemmed from people who have different ideas about how to solve things. But both groups generally agree that any solution should be optional, and that a solution would be a benefit to the game.

ElvenOverlord

Anifaas wrote: »

I think the overland difficulty is perfect where it is.

Keeping the difficult game-play mostly behind closed doors (vet dungeons/trials/PvP) ensures that people who are not interested or ready for that content are kept out of harms way. Those wanting more difficult content need only enter one of the many systems in this game which provides such.

In MMOs like WoW you don't get to feel like you're achieving much unless you play the difficult content. In MMOs like Star Trek Online the only real endgame is dress up your space barbie. No difficulty at all.

On the other hand ZOS took the ambitious route of appeasing both groups and everyone else in between and I think that is what makes ESO so special. Overland in ESO is like good movie script: designed for everyone but with hidden thought-provoking/challenging components everywhere for those with the appetite to go searching.

Never thought of it in those terms but you make excellent points. ZOS has managed to achieve a balance that pleases both casual players and those who desire difficult content. Well written.

Foxtrot39

Wouldn't mind more areas like Craglorn, you can still solo it but its a much bigger challenge compared to what overland usualy offers

unless your a meta vet, then nothign changes really

Blackbird_V

Anifaas wrote: »

I think the overland difficulty is perfect where it is.

Keeping the difficult game-play mostly behind closed doors (vet dungeons/trials/PvP) ensures that people who are not interested or ready for that content are kept out of harms way. Those wanting more difficult content need only enter one of the many systems in this game which provides such.

In MMOs like WoW you don't get to feel like you're achieving much unless you play the difficult content. In MMOs like Star Trek Online the only real endgame is dress up your space barbie. No difficulty at all.

On the other hand ZOS took the ambitious route of appeasing both groups and everyone else in between and I think that is what makes ESO so special. Overland in ESO is like good movie script: designed for everyone but with hidden thought-provoking/challenging components everywhere for those with the appetite to go searching.

It's not like a "good movie script" at all. It'd be the equivalent of Doctor Strange just teleporting behind Thanos, using 1 meteor then doing /lute afking taking literally no damage and killing him in that 1 ability.

If ESO was like a movie script, then that movie would be a flop and boring as hell. ESO overland is not designed for everyone: it's designed for casuals.

RaptorRodeoGod

Blackbird_V wrote: »

Anifaas wrote: »

I think the overland difficulty is perfect where it is.

Keeping the difficult game-play mostly behind closed doors (vet dungeons/trials/PvP) ensures that people who are not interested or ready for that content are kept out of harms way. Those wanting more difficult content need only enter one of the many systems in this game which provides such.

In MMOs like WoW you don't get to feel like you're achieving much unless you play the difficult content. In MMOs like Star Trek Online the only real endgame is dress up your space barbie. No difficulty at all.

On the other hand ZOS took the ambitious route of appeasing both groups and everyone else in between and I think that is what makes ESO so special. Overland in ESO is like good movie script: designed for everyone but with hidden thought-provoking/challenging components everywhere for those with the appetite to go searching.

It's not like a "good movie script" at all. It'd be the equivalent of Doctor Strange just teleporting behind Thanos, using 1 meteor then doing /lute afking taking literally no damage and killing him in that 1 ability.

If ESO was like a movie script, then that movie would be a flop and boring as hell. ESO overland is not designed for everyone: it's designed for casuals.

Your signature is phenomenal and on point lol

So is your post too