SilverBride wrote: »ShalidorsHeir wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »This is why debuffs, in the forms of toggles, food, alchemy etc. and challenge banners make sense. They provide the individual player the choice of when or how often to choose more difficult content, and are the least disruptive solutions.
When i want to do a dolmen then why should i give myself a debuff when there are 100 people who dont have this debuff and the dolmen is still done within 10 secs and was not even a challenge for me still.
What difference does it make if the other 100 people are using a debuff or not? The fact that a dolmen has other players in it and is done faster than if a player had the dolmen to themselves is just one of the consequences of playing a multiplayer game. The same thing could and would happen in a separate veteran overland. You will still have to deal with other players jumping in and killing mobs you wanted to solo.
I think they opened it to see if it is worth doing something or not - so far what did they get - "I want it for free, because ZOS should cater for all needs" - do you think, that makes them more likely wanting to do something about it? You guy offered nothing and expect a company to do some major work on their systems - not going to happen.
AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »I think they opened it to see if it is worth doing something or not - so far what did they get - "I want it for free, because ZOS should cater for all needs" - do you think, that makes them more likely wanting to do something about it? You guy offered nothing and expect a company to do some major work on their systems - not going to happen.
It's not 'do it for free with zero financial benefit' though. Currently ZOS is putting out two overland-focused content releases a year. One is $40 and one is $20 (in crowns). Sixty dollars every year is on the line. Frankly I can't muster the enthusiasm needed to go through a 20+ hour quest line where I one-shot 99% of all enemy encounters. I'm not exaggerating, that's representative of the overwhelming majority of content being sold to me at this point. Meanwhile every year I become more and more powerful due to the Champion Point system and gear sets, that let's be honest, are getting more and more powerful gear set bonuses.
With some sort of overland difficulty modifier solution in place, I'm not the only one who might be a little more enthusiastic about future overland-focused content releases and you need to consider online communities that have quit the game for one reason or another. This very subject just came up on /r/MMORPG the other day. Many users report the lack of difficulty being the reason why they're not excited about future content and some quit the game entirely because of it.
See for yourselves.
https://old.reddit.com/r/MMORPG/comments/ryfg7m/eso_too_easy_will_it_get_harder/
How anyone could make the argument that there isn't a financial incentive to attract and retain players when this has been such a recurrent discussion within and outside these forums is not just disingenuous, it's revisionism.
ShalidorsHeir wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »ShalidorsHeir wrote: »SilverBride wrote: »This is why debuffs, in the forms of toggles, food, alchemy etc. and challenge banners make sense. They provide the individual player the choice of when or how often to choose more difficult content, and are the least disruptive solutions.
When i want to do a dolmen then why should i give myself a debuff when there are 100 people who dont have this debuff and the dolmen is still done within 10 secs and was not even a challenge for me still.
What difference does it make if the other 100 people are using a debuff or not? The fact that a dolmen has other players in it and is done faster than if a player had the dolmen to themselves is just one of the consequences of playing a multiplayer game. The same thing could and would happen in a separate veteran overland. You will still have to deal with other players jumping in and killing mobs you wanted to solo.
Not at all since vet zones are usually less populated at these points since as you said - you dont do dolmens if not for progress. For the immersion seekers its gonna be perfect. There will always be a noticable difference in the difficulty is higher - see dungeons.
AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »I think they opened it to see if it is worth doing something or not - so far what did they get - "I want it for free, because ZOS should cater for all needs" - do you think, that makes them more likely wanting to do something about it? You guy offered nothing and expect a company to do some major work on their systems - not going to happen.
It's not 'do it for free with zero financial benefit' though. Currently ZOS is putting out two overland-focused content releases a year. One is $40 and one is $20 (in crowns). Sixty dollars every year is on the line. Frankly I can't muster the enthusiasm needed to go through a 20+ hour quest line where I one-shot 99% of all enemy encounters. I'm not exaggerating, that's representative of the overwhelming majority of content being sold to me at this point. Meanwhile every year I become more and more powerful due to the Champion Point system and gear sets, that let's be honest, are getting more and more powerful gear set bonuses.
FlopsyPrince wrote: »This would be a lot of work for a very short play experience for a limited number of people. New content in any MMO is consumed at a fast rate already. Designing content (or updating it) for a smaller subset would take a lot of time to properly tune and then would likely only be interesting for a while, as Harrowstorms and such have shown.
I was hoping to see some notable exceptions to this in past questions I asked, but I did not. (Perhaps I missed them, but I find that unlikely.) Please tell me how this would not be true if you believe it would not.
How would the financial cost of all this work be offset by the benefits if this is true?
Why would the community who have been told to shut up and stay in our instanced veteran content since One Tamriel (six years ago) be in the overland in 2021-2022? They're most likely taking the advice of staying in their instanced content running vMA for the 5000th time or not playing the game period (as you can see in the Reddit thread discussing ESO's lack of difficulty above)... Because expecting them to fork out $40 for an expansion where you one-shot mobs for twenty hours is a hard sell even if you're really invested in the lore.The players wanting this may not like Harrowstorms, but that would just reinforce my point. They are very hard content for most of us (really tough in a small group and impossible to solo - for a sizeable group of us). Yet they didn't hold the interest of those who want veteran content (according to posts here at least, and my own experience going by them in game) once they were farmed out
None of us have the data so unfortunately the only thing we can do is observe and speculate. As mentioned above, I would love to see Zenimax Online publish more data so we can see how 'casual' the playerbase actually is because rudimentary observations in the open world illustrate a very different scenario than the rhetoric I see in these threads. It's not the top 1% of players killing stuff before they can even perform their attack animations or getting through quest dialog, it's easily a third of the active playerbase.FlopsyPrince wrote: »That is not sufficient to note. How many of those are not playing now? How many would it retain, even for those 2 costs? How many would it acquire? How many would keep playing past a short bit? Would it really pull $60/year in on all such players?
Those are the numbers to consider, not just how many would like it.
SilverBride wrote: »I agree with Rich when he said "players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time." because the evidence is right before our eyes. Just step foot in Alk'r any time of the day and note the multiple groups powerleveling through the dolmens. Our go to Belkarth in Craglorn and note all the players selling Skyreach runs for powerleveling, and others seeking them. How many veteran end game players will be satisfied slowly leveling and/or farming through veteran overland? How many will just use normal overland for farming and surveys and other daily activities?
This is why debuffs, in the forms of toggles, food, alchemy etc. and challenge banners make sense. They provide the individual player the choice of when or how often to choose more difficult content, and are the least disruptive solutions.
@spartaxoxo proposed a standalone adventure zone that could be very helpful in showing just how many players would utilize it, and if it is what they consider successful could lead to more changes in the future.
AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »None of us have the data so unfortunately the only thing we can do is observe and speculate. As mentioned above, I would love to see Zenimax Online publish more data so we can see how 'casual' the playerbase actually is because rudimentary observations in the open world illustrate a very different scenario than the rhetoric I see in these threads. It's not the top 1% of players killing stuff before they can even perform their attack animations or getting through quest dialog, it's easily a third of the active playerbase.FlopsyPrince wrote: »That is not sufficient to note. How many of those are not playing now? How many would it retain, even for those 2 costs? How many would it acquire? How many would keep playing past a short bit? Would it really pull $60/year in on all such players?
Those are the numbers to consider, not just how many would like it.
Frankly the seams are starting to show for anyone spending a reasonable amount of time in the buy2play game they've already paid for. How much longer will it be sustainable to sell content where a sizable portion of the playerbase is one-shotting enemies throughout a 20-30 hour long chapter?
AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »None of us have the data so unfortunately the only thing we can do is observe and speculate. As mentioned above, I would love to see Zenimax Online publish more data so we can see how 'casual' the playerbase actually is because rudimentary observations in the open world illustrate a very different scenario than the rhetoric I see in these threads. It's not the top 1% of players killing stuff before they can even perform their attack animations or getting through quest dialog, it's easily a third of the active playerbase.FlopsyPrince wrote: »That is not sufficient to note. How many of those are not playing now? How many would it retain, even for those 2 costs? How many would it acquire? How many would keep playing past a short bit? Would it really pull $60/year in on all such players?
Those are the numbers to consider, not just how many would like it.
Frankly the seams are starting to show for anyone spending a reasonable amount of time in the buy2play game they've already paid for. How much longer will it be sustainable to sell content where a sizable portion of the playerbase is one-shotting enemies throughout a 20-30 hour long chapter?
Story content is not about killing stuff, even we have something to kill there as well - I think it is just like Rich Lambert mentioned as well, most do not want a challenge when doing story content - they want to play through the story and enjoy the scenery whilst doing that - a challenge would just hinder them doing it or distract them from doing it. These chapters are mostly story content and new landscape and scenery, certainly there is stuff to kill as well, but that is not the main focus.
Btw I am not saying with it, that there shouldn't be an option to make it harder - I just doubt that many will use it for very long - they might try it out and for a while enjoy playing like this - but then go back to how it was before, because then they can focus on the story instead to grind fighting through it. This kind of content is just the wrong place for seeking a challenge imo.
Chilly-McFreeze wrote: »AlexanderDeLarge wrote: »None of us have the data so unfortunately the only thing we can do is observe and speculate. As mentioned above, I would love to see Zenimax Online publish more data so we can see how 'casual' the playerbase actually is because rudimentary observations in the open world illustrate a very different scenario than the rhetoric I see in these threads. It's not the top 1% of players killing stuff before they can even perform their attack animations or getting through quest dialog, it's easily a third of the active playerbase.FlopsyPrince wrote: »That is not sufficient to note. How many of those are not playing now? How many would it retain, even for those 2 costs? How many would it acquire? How many would keep playing past a short bit? Would it really pull $60/year in on all such players?
Those are the numbers to consider, not just how many would like it.
Frankly the seams are starting to show for anyone spending a reasonable amount of time in the buy2play game they've already paid for. How much longer will it be sustainable to sell content where a sizable portion of the playerbase is one-shotting enemies throughout a 20-30 hour long chapter?
Story content is not about killing stuff, even we have something to kill there as well - I think it is just like Rich Lambert mentioned as well, most do not want a challenge when doing story content - they want to play through the story and enjoy the scenery whilst doing that - a challenge would just hinder them doing it or distract them from doing it. These chapters are mostly story content and new landscape and scenery, certainly there is stuff to kill as well, but that is not the main focus.
Btw I am not saying with it, that there shouldn't be an option to make it harder - I just doubt that many will use it for very long - they might try it out and for a while enjoy playing like this - but then go back to how it was before, because then they can focus on the story instead to grind fighting through it. This kind of content is just the wrong place for seeking a challenge imo.
At this point, why not publish quests as graphic novel instead?
Games are also about challenging yourself, even when a story gives reason to do so - I think it is just like many players mentioned as well, most do not want to faceroll when doing story content - they want to play through the story in an engaging way - enjoying the scenery is a bonus on top that neither hinders nor distracts from enjoying the game as a whole. These chapters are mostly sotry content and with it's current design philosophy driving of many players, because they are not the main focus (or any focus at all).
Btw I am not saying with it, that there shouldn't be an option to have it easy - I just doubt that many will be satisfied for very long - they might start in it and for a while enjoy playing like this - but then grow out of it, because one-shotting opponents turns even an intersting story into a chore. This kind of content should be more than just a sight seeing tour for hobby screentshotters.
See what I did there?
Sylvermynx wrote: »Eh, the absolute LAST thing I want in a game is challenge.... *sigh*
spartaxoxo wrote: »Sylvermynx wrote: »Eh, the absolute LAST thing I want in a game is challenge.... *sigh*
Me personally, I'm a mixed bag. It depends on how I feel that day both in terms of preference and health.
Sylvermynx wrote: »spartaxoxo wrote: »Sylvermynx wrote: »Eh, the absolute LAST thing I want in a game is challenge.... *sigh*
Me personally, I'm a mixed bag. It depends on how I feel that day both in terms of preference and health.
Yes, I get that. I just have enough challenge IRL right now that I don't want it in game at all - the world itself, husband's age and health.... about the only thing that's gone well lately is paying off the mortgage....
Iron_Warrior wrote: »Rich in one of his streams said the devs check the forums for maybe 30min per day and i doubt they would waste it on reading pointless back and forths
holy.... 67 pages!
Iron_Warrior wrote: »I Decided to check this thread after a month and holy.... 67 pages!
Rich in one of his streams said the devs check the forums for maybe 30min per day and i doubt they would waste it on reading pointless back and forths.
I said it in provbably 40 pages ago and i will say it again. If you really want to gather "feedbacks" from the players then make a new thread and only allow feedbacks there and remove everything else. But if you only want to give the illusion of listening to players then keep this one going.
Iron_Warrior wrote: »Rich in one of his streams said the devs check the forums for maybe 30min per day and i doubt they would waste it on reading pointless back and forths
holy.... 67 pages!
you answered to yourself. They may not read it, but see this thread growing, so players want from devs to do something with overland.
SilverBride wrote: »Iron_Warrior wrote: »I Decided to check this thread after a month and holy.... 67 pages!
Rich in one of his streams said the devs check the forums for maybe 30min per day and i doubt they would waste it on reading pointless back and forths.
I said it in provbably 40 pages ago and i will say it again. If you really want to gather "feedbacks" from the players then make a new thread and only allow feedbacks there and remove everything else. But if you only want to give the illusion of listening to players then keep this one going.
Making a new thread would only start the process from square one again.
@ZOS_Kevin @ZOS_GinaBruno May we please get some insight into ZoS's stand on this topic, whether any of the suggestions are currently under consideration or may be in the future, so we can put this thread to rest?
Thanks for tagging me, SilverBride.
Several of us have been keeping tabs on and reading this forum post over the last several weeks since starting it up. We will be going through this thread to build out a report specifically on this topic and sharing that with the team at large for their consideration in the future. We think this thread will be helpful to get to the root of player concern on various sides of this conversation of overland difficulty. So thank you all of the time put into having lively discourse around the topic.
Beyond that, nothing to report now, but we will be working toward having a more detailed answer regarding overland content in the future.
Thanks for tagging me, SilverBride.
Several of us have been keeping tabs on and reading this forum post over the last several weeks since starting it up. We will be going through this thread to build out a report specifically on this topic and sharing that with the team at large for their consideration in the future. We think this thread will be helpful to get to the root of player concern on various sides of this conversation of overland difficulty. So thank you all of the time put into having lively discourse around the topic.
Beyond that, nothing to report now, but we will be working toward having a more detailed answer regarding overland content in the future.