Overland Content Feedback Thread

Hanoan

Something should be done with Overland mobs/bosess difficulty for sure. I enjoyed original ESO questing (including Silver, Gold and Craglorn) very much. I am trying to return to ESO third time already and feeling like going to quit again - questing with no resistance from mobs/bosses is too boring.

CP5

SilverBride wrote: »

SimonThesis wrote: »

Mobs already adjust to your level, I think after max level they should also adjust to your gear. If you're in gold perfected trial and perfected arena sets they should be more challenging. If your just wearing crafted gear they should be easier. Rewards stay the same. This option would please all involved, want a harder experience wear your trial gear, want an easier casual experience just put on whatever.

I am against this because it would force more difficult mobs on players who may not want it.

I was always very casual in my gear and it's only been the past few months that I got more serious and decked my characters out in 2 full sets with the right traits and enchants. I was surprised by just how much stronger I became and I love it. I love being able to solo things I couldn't before. I love that I am stronger and can easily take down mobs I had struggled with before.

I do not want this taken away from me.

Optional. If you want to do a trial but not at vet difficulty, it is optional. If you want to pvp in cyrodiil without champion points enabled, optional. If you want to face a dungeon boss at their most challenging or not, it is all optional. How is, an optional version of overland, "forcing more difficult mobs on players who may not want it?"

The idea of self nerfing is something we can already do. I remember on thread where someone said "if you want to have a challenge, don't use skills, be a stage 4 vampire, put in no cp or attribute points" to which I would add why not just chug damage health potions and spam equilibrium, not a challenge, just tedious.

Enemies in ESO often just waste their own time, on abilities that have no impact on the fight. Fighting against an enemy that isn't even bothering to fight back, intentionally stalling to give the player the best odds of success, is boring. It doesn't matter if it takes 10x as long to kill a mob with the threat of being one shot if all that mob does is blow bubbles.

As ZOS has clearly shown in the past, in dungeons and trials, they can designate mobs to do different things between normal and vet instances, and which instance people go into is their own choice. Enemies not being so incapable is the core of the issue in making overland combat meaningful, the world more threatening to explore, and stories given actual stakes. Self nerfs result in the '5 minute battles against a wolf' that people keep pointing to as a reason for a vet option to not exist.

StevieKingslayer

Stating that "just do veteran dungeons" as an anti potentially more difficult overland solution is not a good idea by the way. I already only queue veteran dungeons. I have mastered almost all of them. Need either more Veteran Dungeon releases, or more overland content that's challenging for that to be an optional workaround. I don't think they could release just "more veteran dungeons", simply because that would then shoehorn in content that doesnt fit lore wise and interfere with upcoming chapter work, so I think that ones out

Dark_Lord_Kuro

The overland is perfectly fine the way it is

Im not opposed to a optional harder variation IF
- the current difficulty stay avaiable in all current and future zones
- the reward arent unite to that mode(ex. A purple gear instead of blue would be fine but not a unique set or motif)
- We do not see a drop in the way content is release(i woulnd feel worth it if we loose a dlc, like with one tamriel)

Either a full on harder instance or a hardmode on instanced boss(like in vet dungeon)

I would most likely quit if the difficulty is raised as my fun in games is to is to listen to the story and lore, i purposely set games to easy to ease that goal. Hard content is detrimental to my personal fun, but as said before in not opposed to other having the option as s long as i dont have to pay for it by loosing what i would otherwise have

AzuraFan

Araxyte wrote: »

You could offer no reward other than a small achievement for doing something.

I wouldn't have a problem with an achievement for completing an area on hard mode.

(Having said that, I'd much rather the devs spend their time on other things. We already have areas for players that want a challenge.)

Tornaad

I can see a powerful reason to address the overland difficulty. For a while my thought was "Why" but just recently as I was mopping through a mob, I realized that I would like to have the option to turn up the difficulty every so often.

I would not want it made permanently harder. I still want the option to just enjoy a relaxing time playing ESO, but to have the option to up the difficulty would be nice.

One thought that I had was the option to choose how many levels above you the enemies are set for.

Additionally, if you allow for the difficulty to be reduced, this could provide a way to allow for story mode dungeons by allowing the difficulty slider to be applied to group dungeons when you are in there without a party. From there, only a few dungeons (due to mechanics) would not be able to be soloed by most players.

vingarmo

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

Increased rewards for completing veteran vs normal are only fair because you already spending more time and effort doing it.

If a player is forced to complete veteran content, as was the case with Cadwell's Silver and Gold, then better rewards would make sense. But that is not what is happening here. Players asking for veteran overland say they find the fights too easy and not engaging and want a more difficult experience to enhance their immersion. This is something they are asking for, not being forced into, and there should not be increased rewards for it. The more immersive experience is the reward.

vingarmo wrote: »

Never mind that developers themselves stated that one of the main reasons they hesitant on doing this experiment, because they are not sure how to incentivize it.

When Rich Lambert was asked about an optional veteran overland he didn't say they were hesitant to try this or that they were even considering it at all. What he said was:

"Would it be an option just to give people the choice? It is not as simple as just flip a switch and make things more difficult. There is a TON of work and then as Lucky mentioned earlier you have to also incentivize that. Like just making something more difficult for no reason, if you’re not going to get anything out of it why do it? The satisfaction's there sure but players are always going to do the thing that is the most efficient and is the least difficult thing for their time."

So, you know like I said, we went down that route. We built the game with difficulty in mind and 2/3rds of the game was never played by players so we changed it. - Rich Lambert

That is the thing, players was forced into one difficulty in the past to even experience it, no options. People in this threat discussing solutions how to make it acceptable/available for everyone, yet not to make it streamlined experience. Extra rewards for extra time sound only fair to me, what would that “extra” can be is arguable. Looking at dungeons and trials every collectible they added was either for visiting it for the first time or for doing veteran achievements. Obviously, it wouldn’t be ideal compromise for zone achievements so discussing options is important.
Currently overland rewards are at bottom tier as it is and provide no use to experienced or new players. 724 gold and useless overland set piece with bad trait is the best thing you can get there. Spending several hours of doing main zone quest would give you just about the same amount of gold as doing 2 minutes long crafting dailies. So aren’t that side of questing worth improving as well? Speaking of dailies, Blackwood event is over and I have no reason to visit that zone ever again because all the rewards in said dailies tied to motifs, which devalued so much by the event to a point they are barely worth selling. With increased difficulty or not rewards, in my opinion, worth revisiting to add some replay value unless devs vision of the zone DLCs is just another 2 weeks long event area. I can’t say I care about quality of overland sets much because they are vendor trash no matter if they’re green or purple. What I do think would be useful is more XP, so they would be useful for leveling and more substantial rewards (alchemy ingredients, furniture materials, plans, treasure maps tied to zone DLC, etc.), so they would be a good point to start trading.
Personally, I can go ahead and enjoy addition of optional difficulty to questing without extra rewards, which I can compensate by doing other things. But how you would sell that major change as feature to attract even larger part of the player base and extend their time spend there?
Personally, I read his statement as an assumption: if devs would really consider adding something like that into the game than beside overcoming technical difficulties, they would need to add proper incentives for that. So yes, he is hesitant to accept this idea because of the past failures, which he blames on difficulty (of Cadwell zones and Craglorn) and if they would try to do it again it would require more than just buffing enemies to attract players.

SilverBride

vingarmo wrote: »

Currently overland rewards are at bottom tier as it is and provide no use to experienced or new players.

Overland is not supposed to give the best gear... it's there for questing and to tell the story.

vingarmo wrote: »

Personally, I can go ahead and enjoy addition of optional difficulty to questing without extra rewards, which I can compensate by doing other things. But how you would sell that major change as feature to attract even larger part of the player base and extend their time spend there?

Some players think overland is too easy and boring and this breaks their immersion in the story. They want more difficult mobs and quest bosses so they can enjoy overland again. That is the goal, and it should stand on its own merit.

vingarmo

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

Currently overland rewards are at bottom tier as it is and provide no use to experienced or new players.

Overland is not supposed to give the best gear... it's there for questing and to tell the story.

I don’t expect overland to provide trial level BIS sets, but I do think that rewards should be enticing enough to lure players from other in-game activities and compensate appropriately for their time spend there. How giving more reasons to revisit the DLC more than once could be a bad thing?

SilverBride

vingarmo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

Currently overland rewards are at bottom tier as it is and provide no use to experienced or new players.

Overland is not supposed to give the best gear... it's there for questing and to tell the story.

I don’t expect overland to provide trial level BIS sets, but I do think that rewards should be enticing enough to lure players from other in-game activities and compensate appropriately for their time spend there. How giving more reasons to revisit the DLC more than once could be a bad thing?

Why do we need to lure players away from other in game activities to spend time in DLC's? Tamriel is a vast world and players are free to explore it as they wish. Besides there are already plenty of incentives for players to spend time in all the zones, such as farming for patterns and resources and antiquities, doing dailies and World Bosses, surveys and maps, completing achievements, and all the things that players already do.

I don't understand though what any of this has to do with overland difficulty.

Amottica

Aliniel wrote: »

Cadwell's Silver/Gold pre One Tamriel

Regarding Cadwell's Silver and Gold back before the One Tamriel, the zones were empty because there were 3 separate instances of each!

For Daggerfall Covenant:
- DC zones - sub 50
- AD zones - 0-8 VR
- EP zones - 9-14 VR

For Aldmeri Dominion:
- DC zones - 9-14 VR
- AD zones - sub 50
- EP zones - 0-8 VR

For Ebonheart Pact
- DC zones - 0-8 VR
- AD zones - 9-14 VR
- EP zones - sub 50

Therefore, saying the world was empty due to low interest is simply a lie. It was different design back then.
Furthermore, people were kind of burnt out from doing their first zones. I remember finally finishing the end zone in Daggerfall Covenant only to discover I can now do other zones too. I did them, just not right away. I wanted the end-game, awesome Cyrodiil war, not to go back to questing for another month or two.
The game was fairly new then, and people wanted to try different things. Excuse us for not rushing straight back into questing when we finally got to the endgame.

Craglorn

Let's not confuse early Craglorn design with optional overland difficulty increase. Craglorn was designed to be a group zone. You were forced to group-up! That's why majority evaded it. Not because it was hard to solo, but because it was impossible to solo.

Please, let's stop comparing apples and oranges.


The key word is "OPTIONAL"

Please, stop being emotional about how this would ruin the game for you. No one said we want ESO to become the Dark Souls (I read all comments and literally no one said it should be mandatory as to "cull out the weak").
After reading the comments, it is fairly clear everyone who wants it, wants it to be:

• Optional
• No extra reward, or only minor increase (e.g. blue item instead of green, maybe extra xp)
• To affect mainly boss fights - let's be honest, even Disney princesses have more engaging fights with their nemesis than we do in ESO.

Buffing DMG/HP won't fix this

I think this is somewhat wrong.
Right now, we're in a state where we can roll our faces on the keyboard and watch the world burn. OK, maybe a bit of an overstatement. The point is, the majority of the mechanics don't even live to see the light of day. Yes, the cast times are often slow, easy to dodge, etc. But the dmg is so low that even if the projectile hits you, nothing happens. You don't even need to use the shield (shield was my most often used spell back in the day).

Buffing HP will make the fights last longer. This may not be always desired. E.g., when we're farming mats.
Buffing DMG makes the fights more dangerous. We will have to be more careful. E.g., use shield/heal, actually dodge stuff, not pull the all the denizens of Narnia.

This is why I think the adjustable difficulty property debuffs might be a really good start.

Aliniel wrote: »

...

(See my comment on page 1 for more info.)


[edit]: Added section on "HP/DMG increase

"

First of all, the silver areas were Silver VR 1-5 and Gold VR 6-10. There was not a VR 14 when the game launched.

With the addition of the first Craglorn area, the lvl cap became VR 12 and that was increased to VR 14 with the second Craglorn area.

Also, if the population of the veteran zones was low it would be by definition due to low interest which by your actions, your interest in them was low since you have other interests.

BloodyStigmata

All I want is whatever you guys do regarding increased difficulty to be optional.

vingarmo

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

Currently overland rewards are at bottom tier as it is and provide no use to experienced or new players.

Overland is not supposed to give the best gear... it's there for questing and to tell the story.

I don’t expect overland to provide trial level BIS sets, but I do think that rewards should be enticing enough to lure players from other in-game activities and compensate appropriately for their time spend there. How giving more reasons to revisit the DLC more than once could be a bad thing?

Why do we need to lure players away from other in game activities to spend time in DLC's? Tamriel is a vast world and players are free to explore it as they wish. Besides there are already plenty of incentives for players to spend time in all the zones, such as farming for patterns and resources and antiquities, doing dailies and World Bosses, surveys and maps, completing achievements, and all the things that players already do.

I don't understand though what any of this has to do with overland difficulty.

The whole idea of that rework is to make zone DLCs more attractive to larger group of players. As of now questing in such zones provide close to nothing in terms of rewards and dailies last pretty much until first event involving said zone, which devalues anything you can earn from them to oblivion. These are major reasons why such DLCs become a ghost towns in a few months. They simply lack replayability. And if the rewards for beating demigods and saving Tamriel look ridiculously undertuned now then after adding vet difficulty it would be meme worthy. Adding difficulty on it’s own is good but why not address rewards issue while we at it?
As for other incentives you mention, I have hard time believing that.
Farm resources? Starter islands or Hews Bane is the way to go.
Patterns? Events devalued them hard, not that it’s a bad thing, but spending hundreds of hours trying to find the one you need while you can easily farm gold other way and just buy it from guild traders pretty cheap, so why bother? The ones that still hold value are super rare from the start or new. Good chunk of them also sold from rng containers for vouchers.
Antiquities same as quests one time thing only mostly.
Surveys are short activity and have very little to do with the zone itself.
And are there any reasons to do WB in Western Skyrim or Elsweir for example? Last time I was in those zones they was not that popular. Motifs from those dailies are less than 10k, so again why bother?
Just to give an example how it would be an improvement at least for me:
As of now, I complete zone DLCs once and never return to them outside of events to grind tickets.
Addressing difficulty issue would make gameplay more enjoyable so I might replay it 2 more times on other characters.
If rewards are improved and offer something of value, I might consider vising said DLC more often, on more characters and not feel like I missing out on something while doing that thus spending more time in ESO then I spend now.

Amottica

vingarmo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

Currently overland rewards are at bottom tier as it is and provide no use to experienced or new players.

Overland is not supposed to give the best gear... it's there for questing and to tell the story.

I don’t expect overland to provide trial level BIS sets, but I do think that rewards should be enticing enough to lure players from other in-game activities and compensate appropriately for their time spend there. How giving more reasons to revisit the DLC more than once could be a bad thing?

Why do we need to lure players away from other in game activities to spend time in DLC's? Tamriel is a vast world and players are free to explore it as they wish. Besides there are already plenty of incentives for players to spend time in all the zones, such as farming for patterns and resources and antiquities, doing dailies and World Bosses, surveys and maps, completing achievements, and all the things that players already do.

I don't understand though what any of this has to do with overland difficulty.

The whole idea of that rework is to make zone DLCs more attractive to larger group of players. As of now questing in such zones provide close to nothing in terms of rewards and dailies last pretty much until first event involving said zone, which devalues anything you can earn from them to oblivion. These are major reasons why such DLCs become a ghost towns in a few months. They simply lack replayability. And if the rewards for beating demigods and saving Tamriel look ridiculously undertuned now then after adding vet difficulty it would be meme worthy. Adding difficulty on it’s own is good but why not address rewards issue while we at it?

As for other incentives you mention, I have hard time believing that.
Farm resources? Starter islands or Hews Bane is the way to go.
Patterns? Events devalued them hard, not that it’s a bad thing, but spending hundreds of hours trying to find the one you need while you can easily farm gold other way and just buy it from guild traders pretty cheap, so why bother? The ones that still hold value are super rare from the start or new. Good chunk of them also sold from rng containers for vouchers.
Antiquities same as quests one time thing only mostly.
Surveys are short activity and have very little to do with the zone itself.
And are there any reasons to do WB in Western Skyrim or Elsweir for example? Last time I was in those zones they was not that popular. Motifs from those dailies are less than 10k, so again why bother?
Just to give an example how it would be an improvement at least for me:
As of now, I complete zone DLCs once and never return to them outside of events to grind tickets.
Addressing difficulty issue would make gameplay more enjoyable so I might replay it 2 more times on other characters.
If rewards are improved and offer something of value, I might consider vising said DLC more often, on more characters and not feel like I missing out on something while doing that thus spending more time in ESO then I spend now.

The real reason, and one that has been proven by MMORPG after MMORPG, that zones become virtual ghost towns is because players have played them to death and move on to whatever is new or whatever their primary interest is. Making it more difficult will not make it a bustling zone for years to come.

It is the same reason why we quickly level up new characters after we have leveled up a few of them. Sure, sometimes we go back through a zone, maybe do the quests we found more interesting but not as a norm. This is the reality of MMORPGs.

SilverBride

vingarmo wrote: »

The whole idea of that rework is to make zone DLCs more attractive to larger group of players.

This thread was started to discuss overland content in one place, because there had been multiple threads asking to increase the difficulty of overland mobs, or create an optional veteran overland. The issue is that some players find overland too easy and feel this breaks immersion in the story and prevents them from enjoying it. There was never any discussion in these threads to make DLC's more attractive to larger groups of players.

vingarmo

SilverBride wrote: »

vingarmo wrote: »

The whole idea of that rework is to make zone DLCs more attractive to larger group of players.

This thread was started to discuss overland content in one place, because there had been multiple threads asking to increase the difficulty of overland mobs, or create an optional veteran overland. The issue is that some players find overland too easy and feel this breaks immersion in the story and prevents them from enjoying it. There was never any discussion in these threads to make DLC's more attractive to larger groups of players.

Hmm, the whole discussion is an assumption that part of player base are not satisfied with quality of provided overland content, where combat encounters are major part of it and improving that part of gameplay should convince more players to buy and invest their time in zone DLCs. However, players’ dissatisfaction in said content are not limited to difficulty only. There are already topics focused on criticizing repetitiveness and predictability of stories, the lack of choices and freedom they provide and I saw 1 poster above commented on that as well, because it is part of feedback about overland content.

Topics of rewards and difficulty come very close to each other, because if content has poor rewards from the start then what is the point of completing it in the first place? And if normal and veteran provide same rewards while you need double the time and effort to do it in latter then satisfaction for beating it become rather small. That is mine opinion of course, but if not incentivized correctly the whole idea about difficulty options would die rather fast.

Hallothiel

, but if not incentivized correctly the whole idea about difficulty options would die rather fast.

But why would it need to be incentivised? Surely the challenge alone would be sufficient, no?

And this is about overland in general, not just dlcs & their quality (or lack of). That is a slightly different discussion.

Ravensilver

Is this about re-populating old zones, or is it about making every fight in the open world a WB-quality one?

Honestly, I wouldn't want to have to fight every wolf and bear in an epic, 5-minute-full-of-mechanics fight every two steps, just because I wanted to pick a flower.

I think it would be a good idea to define what is really meant with "overland is too easy".

- Do you want every single mob in the open world to be an epic opponent?
- Or should it be only the bosses in Delves and Dungeons?
- Is it about the quests being too easy? But then, aren't we supposed to be enjoying the *story*, not the fights?
- Why are you not doing the quests, since they are integral to the story? Do you just want a 'Fight Club' kind of game, where you do nothing but fight and fight and fight all day/night, without actually bothering with the content of the game?
- Vet overland? What does that apply to? Everything that moves? All the quests? Every single step? The endboss?

Perhaps we should try to find a common ground there, before we try to find solutions to something that we can't even really agree on, since everyone is experiencing it differently?

And really... why bother playing ESO - a game *driven* by story and quest content - if you aren't interested in story and questing? Wouldn't an ego shooter address that better?

CP5

Ravensilver wrote: »

Is this about re-populating old zones, or is it about making every fight in the open world a WB-quality one?

Honestly, I wouldn't want to have to fight every wolf and bear in an epic, 5-minute-full-of-mechanics fight every two steps, just because I wanted to pick a flower.

I think it would be a good idea to define what is really meant with "overland is too easy".

- Do you want every single mob in the open world to be an epic opponent?
- Or should it be only the bosses in Delves and Dungeons?
- Is it about the quests being too easy? But then, aren't we supposed to be enjoying the *story*, not the fights?
- Why are you not doing the quests, since they are integral to the story? Do you just want a 'Fight Club' kind of game, where you do nothing but fight and fight and fight all day/night, without actually bothering with the content of the game?
- Vet overland? What does that apply to? Everything that moves? All the quests? Every single step? The endboss?

Perhaps we should try to find a common ground there, before we try to find solutions to something that we can't even really agree on, since everyone is experiencing it differently?

And really... why bother playing ESO - a game *driven* by story and quest content - if you aren't interested in story and questing? Wouldn't an ego shooter address that better?

It isn't about '5min wolf fights,' if we took the advice of people who suggest to just self nerf that would be the case. Things like tank mobs doing things like chaining and buffing rather than leaping into the sky to abandon their allies, enemy archers that actually try to put arrows down range to be a sensible threat rather than taking an age to get off a single shot, bosses who are tough enough to finish their monologue and with fights that are worth remembering for not being a disappointment.

The stories are supported by the gameplay. When we're told "X guy is a threat to the world and leads an unstoppable army" and we avoid fighting their army because its tedious, not engaging, and the big bad falls over like a sack of potatoes, the praise the npcs give after the fact feels fake, like, why didn't any of you throw a rock at him? That would have cleared the problem up much quicker.

Because of that all quest devolve into go from A→B then listen to a bad guy yack while behind an invisible wall or to a friendly npc harp on about how it's the end of the world. Because of that second point, we know full well this is all padding before we can get the quest over with. It isn't satisfying to do a quest when victory is assured, so long as you can wait through the mobs stalling you.

And given the fate of many of these threads, a common ground is hard to outline, as many people against the idea refuse to even accept an optional instance, which is a majority of the suggestions, citing things like 'dividing the player base' or 'this being a guise to farm stuff away from others.' ESO has fun and engaging gameplay in an interesting and diverse world, but because of how lacking the gameplay is for some, that prevents them from enjoying the content as much as they could.

CP5

Decided I would throw this relic back up since I had written this out before, the thread got locked because the other discussion was active, and will leave it here for those interested. This is my suggestion as to what vet overland would be, how it would work (roughly), and the issues I currently take. If you are against the idea, please don't just say "No," that doesn't lead the conversation anywhere.

CP5 wrote: »

First are the issues' people like me currently have with overland and questing content.

• Enemies intentionally using abilities that waste their own time or are counterproductive to the fight. This is things like tank npcs leaping out of fights to leave their allies to die, or conjurer mobs summoning literal bubbles that do so little I still don't know their purpose. Many enemy types have abilities like these that take forever to go off and result in nothing if they do, fireworks to make the fight seem more intense without contributing to the fight.
  
• Enemies blending together. Having jumped around several other games lately, and having played games before ESO, it is amazing how little the type of enemy you're fighting matters. An npc dual wielding daggers vs a npc in heavy armor with a sword and shield both fight the same, same hp, same armor, same damage output, with the main factor between the two being which one will pick the 'waste their own time' ability first in a fight.
  
  This makes almost any fight feel exactly the same, and to any player who understands that using an ability that hits multiple targets at once for its full damage, (carve, arrow spray, impulse, exc.) you can kill any group of 3 mobs no matter the composition without even recognizing who you fought. It would make the fights forgettable, but they would have to be remembered first to be forgotten, and they aren't worth that.
  
• Held punches. In the tutorial you are forced to do several things, blocking heavy attacks, bashing to interrupt, cc breaking. Add in something like moving out of red aoe's and these make the core gameplay tools all players have access to. Now, for vet content these skills are used often, more so in pvp, but in overland when do these matter? What mobs aside from world bosses hit hard enough to warrant a block? Which enemies channel spells dangerous enough to be worth your time to interrupt? Which aoe attacks are even big enough for you to find yourself caught in if you actively move during a fight?
  
  Without engaging these core gameplay tools, overland fails to teach players how to use them and fails to engage players who are already used to content that demands this level of interaction. ESO is a fun game to play, but when the standard fights don't even try to ask anything of you in these areas, I could get a similar or better experience elsewhere.
  
• Forgettable bosses. With the One Tamriel update, every zone in the game was brought onto the same level. This is great, since before with zone's being tiered to level ranges if you out-leveled a zone you enjoyed then you had to leave to keep leveling, but not too fast else you enter a zone above your level and hit the artificial difficulty of enemies dodging attacks. The draw back is every zone could be someone's first zone.
  
  But after clearing their first, or second, or third zone, amassing many skills and decent gear, many players would expect the challenges they face to become more difficult to match their expanding skills. Here your only option is to do group content, solo group content, or do solo arena's. Every zone's story is delivered as if to a new player each time, leaving those who already know what kind of path the plot will take with nothing, since the fights don't engage the player beyond 'deal damage and maybe heal some.'

Now, there is nothing wrong with ESO's current overland. The game goes strong because a large enough part of the population enjoys it, and there is a reason why ZOS keeps putting it out as the largest bit of content. But for both long time players who are looking to do something beyond dungeons and trials, and for new players both looking for a challenge, or looking to practice their abilities outside of group content, overland offers nothing. Self gimping doesn't solve the issue of enemies refusing to fight back, it doesn't matter if the enemy type who does that whole 'backup then throw knife' routine takes 10s to kill or 10min, or if his knife one-shots if it lands or just snares. The simple fact is that enemy is a one note challenge that once overcome does nothing to engage a player despite what satisfaction you could gain by waiting next to him for the last second of his throw channel to approach only to interrupt him and leave him in the dirt. The goal of vet overland would be to let the overland content take advantage of all the game has to offer to provide more memorable and meaningful encounters.

Now to get this bit out of the way now, rewards. Many people against this idea point to "you just want better loot" as a counterargument. Some ideas have been thrown around by others with varying degrees of commitment that helped fuel these responses, so here is my offer. Slain enemies award more exp to the same ratio that they do between normal and veteran dungeons (compensating for the longer time to kill them, which isn't even enough as is since people would rather farm normal Blackrose for exp rather than vet), and loot dropped by slain enemies or world events would drop one tier higher (green to blue, blue to purple, purple stays purple), and despite the better quality loot people would still farm normal overland for gear because more chances at a drop are better than fewer unless you only need jewelry.

So, the issues are that fights are forgettable, generally seen as a waste of time and avoided, with enemies who don't stand out from one another and with bosses that leave entire year long stories falling flat for some players with anti-climatic endings. I know this would take time to implement, that time is resources, but if they did this then it could be implemented to every zone both present and future and would help people engage with content they wouldn't otherwise ever think to do. So here are some of the steps to do this.

• Implement an option in some menu to enter "vet overland." On toggle, you would be sent to the nearest wayshrine in a vet instance of your current zone and would be free to turn it off at any time. Note that resource nodes, chest, quest, and the like, all wouldn't award more. Just enemies killed, since they are the only place where difficulty would be altered.
• A slight buff to mobs health and damage, enough to make them survive long enough to act and hurt enough to be worth notice.
• Remove worthless skills from enemies.
  
  Don't have tanks leave the fight and let their allies die, only to return a few seconds later to be killed off themselves. Instead, let them use guard more, and chains and roots, plus a healthy amount of armor to make people actually understand why armor pen is a thing.
  
  Take the literally worthless conjurer bubble and replace it with any other summon.
  
  Have necromancers raise multiple undead at once then use an aoe buff rather than a single target one. That would make any fight with multiple necromancers more interesting, more so if there are already some undead in the area.
  
  Have npc healers actually heal. Give the standard healers the same aoe heal some elite mobs have, like the ones in White Gold Tower. Let them use the single target heal without cooldown unless interrupted so they don't waste time trying to do pitiful damage.
  
  Let fire mages summon large fields of fire that deal more damage, encouraging players to work around the hazard rather than just being amused with the fire puddle placed on a random crate away from the fight.
  
  Give frost mage shields the same trait that the druid totems in Selene's web have, encouraging ranged mobs to stack behind it for protection. The AI doesn't need to be overhauled, just passive synergy would be enough.
• The equally challenging part would be tweaking bosses. Wouldn't be nearly as impressive as what we see in dungeons, where the dev's have plenty of time to script out each fight, but they wouldn't need to. Finding interesting combinations of mobs plus a boss with an ability that plays to those mobs strengths, or finding a set of abilities that synergize in an interesting way, would be enough to at least make these encounters memorable. Like, say, a necromancer boss that endlessly summons mobs, so their necromancer minions can buff them. Or a frost mage boss summoning spikes of ice that also have the 'projectile shield' ability, providing their minions' protection. If mobs would fit a boss that doesn't have any to begin with, then a simple ability that triggers at the beginning of a fight to summon them in would be enough, no need to even modify the world space. Things of that nature.

Like I said, I understand this is a tired subject and many have already made their call on which side they are on. But please understand, it is fine if people enjoy the content as it is, it is fine if people would like to see it improved, this is how I would see the option added for those interested so that they may enjoy more of the game, and I leave it to the forums to do whatever with.

JJOtterBear

As long as its optional and does NOT include better rewards, then I say go for it. if people want it for better rewards, then the issue isn't about difficulty, its about reward quality. and as long as One Tamriel isn't rolled back either.

* however, if they did want better rewards, then the way to prevent advantage is that those better rewards could ONLY be used in the vet mode/instance. so if there are vet sets, those sets could not be used in "normal" mode.

basically this can exist, as long as it doesn't change anything for the larger amount of people who enjoy the game the way it already is.

my question though, is what will happen when the people who want this, eventually overcome the difficulty with new sets and power creep, and it becomes to easy for them? because you know it will happen. do we then have to listen to demands for a "nightmare mode" too? where will the line be?

and to be completely honest, i know this is controversial, but I actually really like the idea of casuals and "vets" being separated in their own instances. i don't have fun with people who are not okay with dying. who are obsessed with DPS, who want to speed run everything. let them play together if they want, and let the rest of us just be chill.

And also, since we're talking about things small percentage of playerbase wants so everyone can have fun, and splitting the base isn't a concern, lets talk about adding a PvE instance of Cyrodiil.

CP5

JJOtterBear wrote: »

As long as its optional and does NOT include better rewards, then I say go for it. if people want it for better rewards, then the issue isn't about difficulty, its about reward quality. and as long as One Tamriel isn't rolled back either.

* however, if they did want better rewards, then the way to prevent advantage is that those better rewards could ONLY be used in the vet mode/instance. so if there are vet sets, those sets could not be used in "normal" mode.

basically this can exist, as long as it doesn't change anything for the larger amount of people who enjoy the game the way it already is.

my question though, is what will happen when the people who want this, eventually overcome the difficulty with new sets and power creep, and it becomes to easy for them? because you know it will happen. do we then have to listen to demands for a "nightmare mode" too? where will the line be?

and to be completely honest, i know this is controversial, but I actually really like the idea of casuals and "vets" being separated in their own instances. i don't have fun with people who are not okay with dying. who are obsessed with DPS, who want to speed run everything. let them play together if they want, and let the rest of us just be chill.

It isn't about the overland being super hard with a major fight every few steps. It's about having enemies matter, where engaging a group of enemies includes me taking time to note who I'm fighting, where I'm fighting them, and reacting accordingly. So long as the enemies don't die so fast that they can't do anything, and they maintain enough damage to be a threat, then they would be able to provide more meaningful encounters, which is the core of the issue I feel.

JJOtterBear

CP5 wrote: »

JJOtterBear wrote: »

As long as its optional and does NOT include better rewards, then I say go for it. if people want it for better rewards, then the issue isn't about difficulty, its about reward quality. and as long as One Tamriel isn't rolled back either.

* however, if they did want better rewards, then the way to prevent advantage is that those better rewards could ONLY be used in the vet mode/instance. so if there are vet sets, those sets could not be used in "normal" mode.

basically this can exist, as long as it doesn't change anything for the larger amount of people who enjoy the game the way it already is.

my question though, is what will happen when the people who want this, eventually overcome the difficulty with new sets and power creep, and it becomes to easy for them? because you know it will happen. do we then have to listen to demands for a "nightmare mode" too? where will the line be?

and to be completely honest, i know this is controversial, but I actually really like the idea of casuals and "vets" being separated in their own instances. i don't have fun with people who are not okay with dying. who are obsessed with DPS, who want to speed run everything. let them play together if they want, and let the rest of us just be chill.

It isn't about the overland being super hard with a major fight every few steps. It's about having enemies matter, where engaging a group of enemies includes me taking time to note who I'm fighting, where I'm fighting them, and reacting accordingly. So long as the enemies don't die so fast that they can't do anything, and they maintain enough damage to be a threat, then they would be able to provide more meaningful encounters, which is the core of the issue I feel.

yes and once you analyze it and figure how to kill them each and every time, and gear accordingly to where they are no longer a threat, then what? we are right back at square one with everything being too easy lol. its a valid question to raise here. because the only reason vet overland is being asked for is because people became too powerful for it. that will happen again, then it'll just come full circle.

Amottica

Hallothiel wrote: »

, but if not incentivized correctly the whole idea about difficulty options would die rather fast.

But why would it need to be incentivised? Surely the challenge alone would be sufficient, no?

And this is about overland in general, not just dlcs & their quality (or lack of). That is a slightly different discussion.

@Hallothiel

If you go through the collection of threads clamoring for more difficult overland you will find some threads suggesting there should also be greater rewards. Also, player behavior demonstrates the masses of an MMORPG will not do more challenging content if there is not an appropriate reward for it.

JJOtterBear

Amottica wrote: »

Hallothiel wrote: »

, but if not incentivized correctly the whole idea about difficulty options would die rather fast.

But why would it need to be incentivised? Surely the challenge alone would be sufficient, no?

And this is about overland in general, not just dlcs & their quality (or lack of). That is a slightly different discussion.

@Hallothiel

If you go through the collection of threads clamoring for more difficult overland you will find some threads suggesting there should also be greater rewards. Also, player behavior demonstrates the masses of an MMORPG will not do more challenging content if there is not an appropriate reward for it.

then the issue is not wanting more challenging content, people just want better stuff and are trying to disguise it as a difficulty issue. which then just makes the whole pro-vet argument disingenuous.

Expecting better rewards for the demanded harder content is called being entitled.

Hallothiel

Ravensilver wrote: »

Is this about re-populating old zones, or is it about making every fight in the open world a WB-quality one?

Honestly, I wouldn't want to have to fight every wolf and bear in an epic, 5-minute-full-of-mechanics fight every two steps, just because I wanted to pick a flower.

I think it would be a good idea to define what is really meant with "overland is too easy".

- Do you want every single mob in the open world to be an epic opponent?
- Or should it be only the bosses in Delves and Dungeons?
- Is it about the quests being too easy? But then, aren't we supposed to be enjoying the *story*, not the fights?
- Why are you not doing the quests, since they are integral to the story? Do you just want a 'Fight Club' kind of game, where you do nothing but fight and fight and fight all day/night, without actually bothering with the content of the game?
- Vet overland? What does that apply to? Everything that moves? All the quests? Every single step? The endboss?

Perhaps we should try to find a common ground there, before we try to find solutions to something that we can't even really agree on, since everyone is experiencing it differently?

And really... why bother playing ESO - a game *driven* by story and quest content - if you aren't interested in story and questing? Wouldn't an ego shooter address that better?

This.

Those that want a harder overland appear to want different things. Some want all overland to be harder, some just main quest bosses. Some would support a toggle, some want a separate instance. Some want better rewards (of course), some just happy with the challenge.

There seems to be consensus on only one thing - that this is optional.

There does also appear to be lot of support for an optional harder instance for the last boss (big bad) on a questline, not just here but in other threads.

But for the rest, no consensus.

No real idea about just how this could be implemented without taking devs time away from main game.

Or what happens when people start to find the ‘new hard’ as easy as they find stuff now? And they will - of course they will due to power creep.

Maya_Nur

I'm happy to see so many great ideas for vet overland here! I just wish to add a little bit more facets to those diamonds, so there are variants of how vOL can be implemented:

1. Much love edition:
— Overland HAS NO difficulty toggle BUT there are various types of mobs, from weak wolves to deadly mosters; from moderately dangerous bandits to high-skilled and well-geared criminal masterminds; from single enemies along the road to packs of dozens in lairs.
— Smart enemies who WISH to kill you or at least desperately trying not to die.
— Instaned delves (either solo or with party)
— Progressive difficulty to the story quests chain with its climax in final battle.
— Hard story bosses, for ex. Dagon in smaller form (like in the CGI) BUT do deadly blows, summons elite mobs, floods ground with deadly AOEs etc.
— Great rewards. More gold for quests (5k-50k as the story progresses), coffers (blue, purple), houseguests/companions (characters who have participated in the story), furniture pieces, accessories etc.

2. Love edition:
— Overland HAS a difficulty toggle.
— Smart enemies who WISH to kill you or at least desperately trying not to die.
— Hard story bosses, for ex. Dagon in smaller form (like in the CGI) BUT do deadly blows, summons elite mobs, floods ground with deadly AOEs etc.
— Better rewards. More gold for quests (5k-50k as the story progresses), coffers (blue, purple).

3. At least something edition:
— Overland HAS a difficulty toggle.
— Buff enemies with HP and/or strength, same for story bosses.

4. Better not to do edition:
— Debuff player.

Sylvermynx

Hallothiel wrote: »

Or what happens when people start to find the ‘new hard’ as easy as they find stuff now? And they will - of course they will due to power creep.

I'm not sure it's all due to power creep - I think part of it's that the min/max 1% are always going to be better players than the rest of us, because that's really their idea of fun: get the best gear, gold it out, spend a lot of time running content over and over until they know exactly how to do that content in the least amount of time while wiping the floor with the bosses in said content, and then go on to the next trial, arena, whatever.

And what happens at that point is they'll do this whole thing over again....

CP5

JJOtterBear wrote: »

CP5 wrote: »

JJOtterBear wrote: »

As long as its optional and does NOT include better rewards, then I say go for it. if people want it for better rewards, then the issue isn't about difficulty, its about reward quality. and as long as One Tamriel isn't rolled back either.

* however, if they did want better rewards, then the way to prevent advantage is that those better rewards could ONLY be used in the vet mode/instance. so if there are vet sets, those sets could not be used in "normal" mode.

basically this can exist, as long as it doesn't change anything for the larger amount of people who enjoy the game the way it already is.

my question though, is what will happen when the people who want this, eventually overcome the difficulty with new sets and power creep, and it becomes to easy for them? because you know it will happen. do we then have to listen to demands for a "nightmare mode" too? where will the line be?

and to be completely honest, i know this is controversial, but I actually really like the idea of casuals and "vets" being separated in their own instances. i don't have fun with people who are not okay with dying. who are obsessed with DPS, who want to speed run everything. let them play together if they want, and let the rest of us just be chill.

It isn't about the overland being super hard with a major fight every few steps. It's about having enemies matter, where engaging a group of enemies includes me taking time to note who I'm fighting, where I'm fighting them, and reacting accordingly. So long as the enemies don't die so fast that they can't do anything, and they maintain enough damage to be a threat, then they would be able to provide more meaningful encounters, which is the core of the issue I feel.

yes and once you analyze it and figure how to kill them each and every time, and gear accordingly to where they are no longer a threat, then what? we are right back at square one with everything being too easy lol. its a valid question to raise here. because the only reason vet overland is being asked for is because people became too powerful for it. that will happen again, then it'll just come full circle.

Good question. I've been playing another game lately, Risk of Rain 2, bit of a 3rd person action rogue-like, and I feel the first level in that game gives a pretty good example of what I'm talking about. You face 4 different types of basic enemies on the first level, a weak floating enemy that shoots accurate but low damage attacks, a lizard person who erratically darts on the ground lobbing higher damage fireballs, beetles that, while durable, are very slow and easy to dodge the attacks of, and golems that shoot high damage lasers from range and do a slow but very powerful melee attack, once they get close.

Taking any combination of these 4 enemies makes for very different combat situations. Each one attacks differently, demanding the player to respond accordingly to avoid damage, and each one's impact on the fight matters. Wisp, the weak floating enemy, you can probably get away with ignoring them on some characters, but on a squishier character the hard to avoid attack they put out can make it a higher priority to aim for weaker targets even when a golem is in your face. Beetles may be weak, but ignore them for long enough, and you may eventually just find yourself swarmed.

Each enemy is, on their own, not a real threat, but when combined they make for unique encounters, even without bringing the location of the fight or who you're fighting as into the equation. It doesn't matter that these enemies are the weakest in the game, they are able to do what they need to for them to matter in a fight and different enough from one another that who you're fighting is important. In ESO all overland enemies fall into the melee or ranged category for me and all it takes to beat any group is figuring out where to stand to hit them all with arrow spray.

Amottica

JJOtterBear wrote: »

Amottica wrote: »

Hallothiel wrote: »

, but if not incentivized correctly the whole idea about difficulty options would die rather fast.

But why would it need to be incentivised? Surely the challenge alone would be sufficient, no?

And this is about overland in general, not just dlcs & their quality (or lack of). That is a slightly different discussion.

@Hallothiel

If you go through the collection of threads clamoring for more difficult overland you will find some threads suggesting there should also be greater rewards. Also, player behavior demonstrates the masses of an MMORPG will not do more challenging content if there is not an appropriate reward for it.

then the issue is not wanting more challenging content, people just want better stuff and are trying to disguise it as a difficulty issue. which then just makes the whole pro-vet argument disingenuous.

Expecting better rewards for the demanded harder content is called being entitled.

Very much the opposite if they would not do the more challenging content unless there is a better reward. We can argue about what came first, the chicken or the egg, but the fact is Zenimax sees it this way and has stated as much.