Overland Content Feedback Thread

Tannus15

How big does a thread have to be before ZoS will acknowledge it is a problem and they should be looking for a solution instead of just pretending it's all fine?

spartaxoxo

Tannus15 wrote: »

How big does a thread have to be before ZoS will acknowledge it is a problem and they should be looking for a solution instead of just pretending it's all fine?

They did acknowledge it and offered a solution. Bastian Nymics, Infinite Archive and forced difficulty increases. But only very minor ones.

So, gave us pretty much the opposite of what was asked.

TaSheen

And the "forced difficulty increases" mean I can no longer do the content I prefer. Good thing I still have a lot of stuff I CAN do....

SilverBride

TaSheen wrote: »

And the "forced difficulty increases" mean I can no longer do the content I prefer. Good thing I still have a lot of stuff I CAN do....

I hope they take your experience and feedback into consideration and do something to reverse this so you can once again play through the content you enjoyed for so long.

TaSheen

SilverBride wrote: »

TaSheen wrote: »

And the "forced difficulty increases" mean I can no longer do the content I prefer. Good thing I still have a lot of stuff I CAN do....

I hope they take your experience and feedback into consideration and do something to reverse this so you can once again play through the content you enjoyed for so long.

So do I. But I'm not expecting that - because as I said to friends on another forum just a few minutes ago.... ESO is a living world - which is definitely one of the reasons I play it as I played both WoW and RIFT years back. But as with those other MMOs, there does come a point where I realize that things aren't ideal, or even fun any more.

With WoW and RIFT it was the games moving in directions that.... just weren't fun for me. So I canceled subs and simply never logged in again. I'm kind of a "if it's not fun it's done" person, so those games went to that particular "eh, done that, not fun now, not playing any more" area.

The issue with ESO is that it's a living world, and I do love the fact that it's ALIVE in a way that Skyrim and Oblivion aren't. I love both of them; I play them alongside ESO - but, even with the massive amount of player-created mods, they are not living growing worlds. They are static; they do not evolve - because they are limited by their "bounds" - the actual boundaries of the games themselves - you can do only so much in them, depending on the limits of those boundaries, not only physical but environmental.

Note, I'm not really complaining. I love the games. But I guess I wish there weren't solid boundaries. I remember that book where the game was universe-wide....

I'm not actually able to really articulate my issues here. I apologize if this comes across as.... um. I don't even know what to call it....

Franchise408

Tannus15 wrote: »

How big does a thread have to be before ZoS will acknowledge it is a problem and they should be looking for a solution instead of just pretending it's all fine?

Honestly, I've given up on an actual solution coming to game anymore. For some reason, this thread is still appealing to me, hence my participation, but at this point, I've long since stopped playing ESO in any sort of regular capacity, and it's reached a point that I'm not even sure there's anything ZOS can do to get me back full time at this point. Overland is really just one symptom of the overall problem with the game's design philosophy.

colossalvoids

Franchise408 wrote: »

Tannus15 wrote: »

How big does a thread have to be before ZoS will acknowledge it is a problem and they should be looking for a solution instead of just pretending it's all fine?

Honestly, I've given up on an actual solution coming to game anymore. For some reason, this thread is still appealing to me, hence my participation, but at this point, I've long since stopped playing ESO in any sort of regular capacity, and it's reached a point that I'm not even sure there's anything ZOS can do to get me back full time at this point. Overland is really just one symptom of the overall problem with the game's design philosophy.

Can only agree here. Just glad that Tamriel isn't the last good fantasy universe out there, luckily.

spartaxoxo

We did it guys and gals!

2025 will see as of yet unexplained experiment for making overland content harder

🎇🥳 🥂✨🍾🎆🎉🎊🏆🏅🙌🏾🪄🪩🩷🪇🎂🎄🤶🏾🎅🏿

mocap

Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat

Well, it looks like this thread can be closed. All those who wanted to make overland more challenging, you've somehow got it.

spartaxoxo

https://forums.elderscrollsonline.com/en/discussion/670691/studio-director-s-letter-2025-beyond

Here's a snipped quote from the letter with only the part's relevant to this thread.

Matt Firor's End of Year Letter wrote:

........We have already started on some ideas that will be tested in 2025. These systems and ideas will be clearly marked as "experiments" in patch notes and are ideas that may or may not be fleshed out into full game systems......Here are some of the ideas that we are working on, some of which you may see on the live servers as tests in 2025 and beyond......

Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat

Improving the overall feel of combat with animation, FX, and potentially audio work

Experimenting with more zones like Craglorn (although not as large in area or scope), created exclusively for high-end group and soft-group content with associated gear chase

Read the whole thing to see the full quote and full letter.

spartaxoxo

mocap wrote: »

Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat

Well, it looks like this thread can be closed. All those who wanted to make overland more challenging, you've somehow got it.

Nah. Before closure we got to see how it's implemented. But I'm quite glad it's coming

TaSheen

Well.... I'm not.

colossalvoids

It is still overland content feedback thread, so it's valid as long as there's overland in the game imo.

I'm hopeful mostly because other things in the statement indicate they've been paying attention and are not afraid of changes, which is the right mindset if they want to improve upon. Seems like they've getting to decide finally what they want the game to be instead of aimlessly shot at the darts board until something sticks.

Probably would be the first time in years to again download PTS.

spartaxoxo

TaSheen wrote: »

Well.... I'm not.

They mentioned it with new systems that will be experimental so I'm optimistic it will be optional.

ZOS_Kevin

mocap wrote: »

Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat

Well, it looks like this thread can be closed. All those who wanted to make overland more challenging, you've somehow got it.

We will keep the thread open as we haven't implemented overland changes yet. But we will monitor and follow up when relevant information on overland is shared.

SilverBride

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert

I love this game and have subscribed for years but this will completely ruin the relaxing questing experience for me. I really don't understand why they would go back to something that came very close to killing this game, especially when it's a small minority asking for it. I'm stunned by this.

The very least they could have done is make a difficulty slider so those of us that do not want more difficulty in the story wouldn't have our experience ruined. Especially when we were supporting sliders to enhance the enjoyment of those that wanted more difficulty, even though we didn't want it ourselves. It didn't have to be just one way or the other.

This is the most disappointed I have ever felt in all my years of playing.

CoolBlast3

Thanks for the overland difficulty ZOS, plenty of us have been asking for it for a long while!
Having said that, I don't think sharding overland between "normal" and "vet" to keep everyone as happy as possible would be a bad idea either!

Credible_Joe

SilverBride wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert

I love this game and have subscribed for years but this will completely ruin the relaxing questing experience for me. I really don't understand why they would go back to something that came very close to killing this game, especially when it's a small minority asking for it. To say I'm stunned is a gross understatement.

The very least they could have done is make a difficulty slider so those of us that do not want more difficulty in the story wouldn't have our experience ruined. Especially when we were supporting sliders to enhance the enjoyment of those that wanted more difficulty, even though we didn't want it ourselves. It didn't have to be just one way or the other.

This is the most disappointed I have ever felt in all my years of playing. I worry what will happen to this game now.

You don't know how they're going to implement it or what the scope will be yet. This is catastrophizing of the highest degree and completely uncalled for.

ZOS_Kevin

SilverBride wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert

I love this game and have subscribed for years but this will completely ruin the relaxing questing experience for me. I really don't understand why they would go back to something that came very close to killing this game, especially when it's a small minority asking for it. To say I'm stunned is a gross understatement.

The very least they could have done is make a difficulty slider so those of us that do not want more difficulty in the story wouldn't have our experience ruined. Especially when we were supporting sliders to enhance the enjoyment of those that wanted more difficulty, even though we didn't want it ourselves. It didn't have to be just one way or the other.

This is the most disappointed I have ever felt in all my years of playing.

So we should note that we haven't announced what overland changes are yet. We'll have more information to share next year. We wanted to just note that there will be changes to overland difficulty generally. What form that takes will be shared next year.

terrible1fi

SilverBride wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert

I love this game and have subscribed for years but this will completely ruin the relaxing questing experience for me. I really don't understand why they would go back to something that came very close to killing this game, especially when it's a small minority asking for it. I'm stunned by this.

The very least they could have done is make a difficulty slider so those of us that do not want more difficulty in the story wouldn't have our experience ruined. Especially when we were supporting sliders to enhance the enjoyment of those that wanted more difficulty, even though we didn't want it ourselves. It didn't have to be just one way or the other.

This is the most disappointed I have ever felt in all my years of playing.

I’m sure there will be options to keep it at low difficulty, or to increase it for those that find the low difficulty too braindead easy. Worst comes to worst, you can always group up with others, which imo is the whole point of playing an mmo.

spartaxoxo wrote: »

We did it guys and gals!

2025 will see as of yet unexplained experiment for making overland content harder

🎇🥳 🥂✨🍾🎆🎉🎊🏆🏅🙌🏾🪄🪩🩷🪇🎂🎄🤶🏾🎅🏿

Finally!!! I can’t wait to try it out!! 🙌🏼👏👏

VixxVexx

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

... We wanted to just note that there will be changes to overland difficulty generally. ...

Please don't just change overland difficulty without touching loot. It's your reward structure that makes overland menial and boring. An enemy can be as weak as a diablo 4 white mob and still be fun grinding, as long as there are potential drops. Here we get 5 gold and a piece of armor we already have.

SilverBride

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

@ZOS_GinaBruno @ZOS_JessicaFolsom @ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_MattFiror @ZOS_RichLambert

I love this game and have subscribed for years but this will completely ruin the relaxing questing experience for me. I really don't understand why they would go back to something that came very close to killing this game, especially when it's a small minority asking for it. To say I'm stunned is a gross understatement.

The very least they could have done is make a difficulty slider so those of us that do not want more difficulty in the story wouldn't have our experience ruined. Especially when we were supporting sliders to enhance the enjoyment of those that wanted more difficulty, even though we didn't want it ourselves. It didn't have to be just one way or the other.

This is the most disappointed I have ever felt in all my years of playing.

So we should note that we haven't announced what overland changes are yet. We'll have more information to share next year. We wanted to just note that there will be changes to overland difficulty generally. What form that takes will be shared next year.

Are you saying that increased difficulty may be optional? Because that is the only thing I want to hear.

SilverBride

terrible1fi wrote: »

Worst comes to worst, you can always group up with others, which imo is the whole point of playing an mmo.

Being forced to group for everything when Craglorn was introduced, and no longer having any way to solo quest is why I quit before and didn't return until One Tamriel changed that.

And MMO doesn't mean group for every single thing.

spartaxoxo

ZOS_Kevin wrote: »

So we should note that we haven't announced what overland changes are yet. We'll have more information to share next year. We wanted to just note that there will be changes to overland difficulty generally. What form that takes will be shared next year.

I'm so excited and looking forward to it. ZOS has given us an early Christmas present.

Also, please announce stuff in THIS thread. We've kept this going for years with passion through all sorts of ups and downs. I'm glad to finally see some ZOS communication in here. I hope that continues. I think we deserve some communication on overland with those of us who have pushed for this change most passionately. It's been awful having to hunt it down all over the place and rely only on each other to keep updated.

I know you all have been looking for more ways to communicate. Separate announcements threads/interviews and linking those comments to the biggest threads on a given topic go a long way in making players feel heard.

Kyip

So we should note that we haven't announced what overland changes are yet. We'll have more information to share next year. We wanted to just note that there will be changes to overland difficulty generally. What form that takes will be shared next year.

@ZOS_Kevin

Increasing the difficulty of standard overworld combat

This will be the worst possible change the devs could possibly make. This game already has lots of challenging content for the people who want it. I cannot express strong enough how much this would make the game worse. Please leave this alone for all the people who enjoy it. Most of us like the ease of solo gameplay in overland zones.

Franchise408

If there is going to be an increased difficulty in overland, then that's enough for me to at least check it out and see how it plays out.

colossalvoids

Christmas came early this year indeed

SilverBride

Don't forget those of us that supported optional difficulty even though we didn't want to use it ourselves. We are still here and will be negatively affected if there is an across the board difficulty increase.

spartaxoxo

SilverBride wrote: »

Don't forget those of us that supported optional difficulty even though we didn't want to use it ourselves. We are still here and will be negatively affected if there is an across the board difficulty increase.

I'll worry about that if it actually happens, which I currently don't have a reason to believe because stuff listed under systems category is usually opt-in. There's some concern it was systems and ideas but it was also described as experimental.

For now, I'm going to just be happy that we have finally been listened to after so many years. Because that's literally the only piece of information we have.

Nukluk

I've been playing ESO solid since pre-launch, so many years. It's the only game I've played all these years.

Due to time constraints and general preferences in my gaming, I play solo, and only do overland content. I have 18 characters on the NA server with 'final' gear setups. I've felt lately I can finally just sit back and play the game.

I play to relax, as my life and my career have enough stress already. If the difficulty of most/all overland content is increased enough that it becomes stressful to play solo, requires grouping to be successful, or requires me to grind new gear to be competitive... I will finally call it quits.