Vengeance and Harder Overland

Erickson9610

Did you know that you can get the delve AP buff in Vengeance? I tried it earlier today, and I realized that I had to be much more careful about how many enemies I pulled and the delve boss was challenging for a change. For once, PvE content actually felt more engaging to play. It reminded me of other MMOs where you couldn't mindlessly burn hordes of enemies and melt bosses before they have the chance to speak. Your ability to cleave through enemies has a hard cap, and you're better off whittling down targets one at a time.

I unironically think Harder Overland should be implemented via a toggle that swaps your character into the Vengeance (or similar) ruleset. Not for improving performance, but because the way Vengeance abilities are balanced makes them less powerful. Further, the lack of passive benefits (via Champion Points, equipment, or skill lines) while allowing the Vengeance Perks is a great way to reel in power creep while still offering build options. This is how overland content is made challenging again, and it feels good to play.


Also, I found it amusing that the description for the Soul Gem of Vengeance lists its ability to be used on Companions, when they cannot be brought into Cyrodiil anyway:

LennaTheRussian

It is a nice change of pace for pve but it would definitely need to tuned a bit. I'm not sure what they're planning for harder overland but I just hope it doesn't make everything tedious. I want difficulty but I don't want to spend several minutes killing a small group of mobs.

Major_Mangle

Harder overland is only rewarding if the story/quests and actual rewards are worth it. From my experience that was never the strong part of ESO to begin with. Poorly written characters, shallow lore and quests that felt like Chatgpt could've done a better job writing (a few exceptions do exist, but they're few). Having overland just take "longer" and be more or of a sluggish experience doesn't make it better. If that was the case ZOS would've just increased HP/dmg levels of mobs and everyone would've been happy.

I remember making a new character in Lord of the rings online when they added a difficulty toggle/slider, and it worked in that game because even the most basic fetch-quest have a better backstory than most chapter quests in ESO.

Just making overland harder (without adressing the core issue around lore, quests and world building etc etc) in eso is not the holy grail people make it out to be, that's all I'm saying.

LennaTheRussian

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Harder overland is only rewarding if the story/quests and actual rewards are worth it. From my experience that was never the strong part of ESO to begin with. Poorly written characters, shallow lore and quests that felt like Chatgpt could've done a better job writing (a few exceptions do exist, but they're few). Having overland just take "longer" and be more or of a sluggish experience doesn't make it better. If that was the case ZOS would've just increased HP/dmg levels of mobs and everyone would've been happy.

I remember making a new character in Lord of the rings online when they added a difficulty toggle/slider, and it worked in that game because even the most basic fetch-quest have a better backstory than most chapter quests in ESO.

Just making overland harder (without adressing the core issue around lore, quests and world building etc etc) in eso is not the holy grail people make it out to be, that's all I'm saying.

Currently a decent player can melt mobs like nothing in the matter of seconds. Imo that makes questing even more boring (I agree with the questing take on most of them). It also makes a lot of the big boss moments in the quests feel really bad since a lot of them only have like 100k health and nowadays people do 15-20k per hit with crits.

Gameplay absolutely makes or breaks some people's enjoyment.

SwordOfSagas

you would be fighting for life and a level 10 without it on would demolish everything lol

Tariq9898

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Harder overland is only rewarding if the story/quests and actual rewards are worth it. From my experience that was never the strong part of ESO to begin with. Poorly written characters, shallow lore and quests that felt like Chatgpt could've done a better job writing (a few exceptions do exist, but they're few). Having overland just take "longer" and be more or of a sluggish experience doesn't make it better. If that was the case ZOS would've just increased HP/dmg levels of mobs and everyone would've been happy.

I remember making a new character in Lord of the rings online when they added a difficulty toggle/slider, and it worked in that game because even the most basic fetch-quest have a better backstory than most chapter quests in ESO.

Just making overland harder (without adressing the core issue around lore, quests and world building etc etc) in eso is not the holy grail people make it out to be, that's all I'm saying.

Personally, it’s the opposite for me. I’ve been fighting for overland difficulty toggle and the biggest reason for me doing so is the story, lore and characters.

ESO, in my humble opinion, has some of the best story, lore, and worldbuilding I’ve encountered in any Elder Scrolls game. Whether it’s main quest lines or side quests. It has done far more than any single player game when it comes to actually contributing to the world of Elder Scrolls, maybe even all combined.

Now that said, are there badly written quests/character? For sure, I am not denying that. However, ESO has more good than bad writing for me.

Edited* As with Vengeance, I would not want that for Overland difficulty toggle. I don’t want my build, my power fantasy, and my way of expression to be limited.

I don’t mind being numerically nerfed (which is probably gonna be the case) when switching to hard mode. But I want to keep my skills.

Ei8htba11

Mob density overland might need to be tweaked in that case, some places are rotten trash mobs (sometimes feels like they've been sprinkled on like confetti :P ). Certain logical areas where you'd expect to find a 'leader' or champion? (starting to sound like a world boss encounter now)

That said, I play overland for skyshards, quests that reward skill points and to just chill, dungeons and trials for a challenge.

I would welcome harder overland, just not.. vengeance.(it's not a bad idea, I have to admit, just don't like it)

Story writing and overland quests? A lot of them are just fetch and carry, they just fill space. Some stories feel like I was herded in a particular direction even though there was some ambiguity that could have been explored (Ithelia and Mora finale.. champion my arse, I was a pawn.. but that's another gripe entirely)

Lord_Hev

Erickson9610 wrote: »

It reminded me of other MMOs where you couldn't mindlessly burn hordes of enemies and melt bosses before they have the chance to speak. Your ability to cleave through enemies has a hard cap, and you're better off whittling down targets one at a time.

You are describing ESO before One Tamriel when it was objectively a great MMORPG. Well, minus the arbitrary aoe cap, but in fundamental principle and feel, it's a nice taste of what it used to be like. Alas.

BXR_Lonestar

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area, and so if you have the beginning area hard, your going to make the game harder to get into for beginner players. In the same breath, you are also going to make that content less replayable and nobody is going to enjoy it. Think the siege camps in Solstice during the Wriggling Wall event. Or Harrowstorm events during Greymore. Even Dragons, which are actually interesting incursion invents. The only reason to do those is for the dragon drops. Otherwise, those, too, would be unplayable content unless you have a decent group put together, and really, what PVE'er wants to go do something hard for a reward that is basically just crafting supplies?

Overland content, IMO should actually be made to be easier. Designed to be done with fresh characters who have little to no benefit from champion points.

If you want hard PVE content: that is what vet dungeons, trials, and arenas are for. There's IA with ramping up difficulty and unique modifiers. That's hard endgame PVE content, and it is put exactly where it needs to be: at the side, only to be engaged with when you are ready for it.

If overland content is made too difficult, then you are just creating more barriers to entry to the game, which is not good for the player base.

INM

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area

That's the problem. Overland content as a whole is a perpetual tutorial area, which fails to engage players that are past beginning stage of the game. I feel that approach of creating as much accessible (easy) overland content as possible for everyone is survivorship bias as it is, many new players are repelled by lack of engagement the current overland provides, and they simply leave the game early on. And don't start this bs "if you seek challenge, you should do raids", it is entirely different experience, which demands you to align your schedule with other people. The game simply severally lacks engaging solo-gameplay aside from 2.5 arenas, and yet the biggest chunk of content each year is unengaging slog. I'll just post this vide once - again of a naked level 3 character straight from the tutorial, it's not "engaging" gameplay. It's not only a matter of difficulty, it is matter of being engaged with the game. I don't know what to say to if you think that the game should be even easier than this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLYwxXFqEZk

P.S. Zones die regardless of their difficulty as people complete them. You don't see outside dragons/harrowstorms either.

Vaqual

I am all on board with harder overland, but I would still like the game to feel like ESO. I am here for the build crafting in the first place, and I don't intend to play PvP or PvE without it.

Tariq9898

Vaqual wrote: »

I am all on board with harder overland, but I would still like the game to feel like ESO. I am here for the build crafting in the first place, and I don't intend to play PvP or PvE without it.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area, and so if you have the beginning area hard, your going to make the game harder to get into for beginner players. In the same breath, you are also going to make that content less replayable and nobody is going to enjoy it. Think the siege camps in Solstice during the Wriggling Wall event. Or Harrowstorm events during Greymore. Even Dragons, which are actually interesting incursion invents. The only reason to do those is for the dragon drops. Otherwise, those, too, would be unplayable content unless you have a decent group put together, and really, what PVE'er wants to go do something hard for a reward that is basically just crafting supplies?

Overland content, IMO should actually be made to be easier. Designed to be done with fresh characters who have little to no benefit from champion points.

If you want hard PVE content: that is what vet dungeons, trials, and arenas are for. There's IA with ramping up difficulty and unique modifiers. That's hard endgame PVE content, and it is put exactly where it needs to be: at the side, only to be engaged with when you are ready for it.

If overland content is made too difficult, then you are just creating more barriers to entry to the game, which is not good for the player base.

And this is why it’s optional.

I want harder Overland because the gameplay is simply too easy for me to be invested in the narrative. It’s by far my biggest problem with the game and needs immediate addressing. There have been many beginners who quit the game because even they felt the combat was too easy, my friends included.

I’ve played the other Elder Scrolls single player games and I like ES lore. I enjoy playing alone and I hate having to group and fighting repeated waves of enemies, so that’s a no for dungeons, trials, and IA. I want to purely enjoy the Elder Scrolls narrative with a difficulty that is aligned with the stakes.

Majority of ESO players prefer to treat the game as if it’s another single player title. Great, let’s enhance that experience by giving them more optional ways to enjoy the story content.

Don’t know why people are so against something that is optional and not forced to do.

https://youtu.be/DXerFpiCca8?si=KnWDOrVQbKh-XJYH

Attorneyatlawl

Lord_Hev wrote: »

Erickson9610 wrote: »

It reminded me of other MMOs where you couldn't mindlessly burn hordes of enemies and melt bosses before they have the chance to speak. Your ability to cleave through enemies has a hard cap, and you're better off whittling down targets one at a time.

You are describing ESO before One Tamriel when it was objectively a great MMORPG. Well, minus the arbitrary aoe cap, but in fundamental principle and feel, it's a nice taste of what it used to be like. Alas.

Yep... Vet zones and a harder craglorn were so much better. More fun, and taught people to make viable characters to survive and play efficiently. Make 6 packs of welwa in upper craglorn great again!

BXR_Lonestar

INM wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area

That's the problem. Overland content as a whole is a perpetual tutorial area, which fails to engage players that are past beginning stage of the game. I feel that approach of creating as much accessible (easy) overland content as possible for everyone is survivorship bias as it is, many new players are repelled by lack of engagement the current overland provides, and they simply leave the game early on. And don't start this bs "if you seek challenge, you should do raids", it is entirely different experience, which demands you to align your schedule with other people. The game simply severally lacks engaging solo-gameplay aside from 2.5 arenas, and yet the biggest chunk of content each year is unengaging slog. I'll just post this vide once - again of a naked level 3 character straight from the tutorial, it's not "engaging" gameplay. It's not only a matter of difficulty, it is matter of being engaged with the game. I don't know what to say to if you think that the game should be even easier than this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLYwxXFqEZk

P.S. Zones die regardless of their difficulty as people complete them. You don't see outside dragons/harrowstorms either.

Okay, so it seems like you are looking to play this game solo. Just think about that for a second. You're looking to play an MMO RPG SOLO. Why not play Skyrim or Oblivion at that point? Why should the game cater to players like you when the entire selling point of this game was giving you an experience similar to a TES game, except that you can play with your friends?

I understand people have different schedules, but people in my guild (and it's not a large guild) are all over the world - not just the US, and somehow, they still manage to have people to play the content they want to play in this game. Maybe Vet Trials would be the one exception because it requires 12 people, but that still leaves multiple dungeons and arenas. But how many Trials are there now? Maybe 10-12? I haven't counted. And there's a groupfinder now that you can use to run some of the older trials - even on vet - and still complete them without spending half a day in the Trial.

And I realize that Zones will die as players finish the content, but I still go back to Summerset, Vvardenfell, etc. and all the other areas as need be to farm things I need or to farm materials, to pickpocket, etc. In other words, I go back as the game gives me reasons to go back or just because I like to revisit those areas to farm. But if an area is too difficult, then that area is not going to be farmable, and it is just going to be avoided altogether once it is completed, and there will be absolutely nobody going back to play that content. And I'm sure even you - who wants "engaging content" would only go back to play the difficult overland content a time or two before you move on because there is simply no incentive to continue to be there and do dailies, etc., unless you want to gather all the furniture pieces and other collectibles that the zone has to offer. And who is doing that? People whose primary endgame is housing. And all they're going to want is easy farmable dailies, etc. because they'll likely be doing whatever activity is going to produce the items they are looking for 100's if not 1000's of times before it drops.

INM

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

Okay, so it seems like you are looking to play this game solo. Just think about that for a second. You're looking to play an MMO RPG SOLO. Why not play Skyrim or Oblivion at that point? Why should the game cater to players like you when the entire selling point of this game was giving you an experience similar to a TES game, except that you can play with your friends?

What do you mean? The game IS catering the solo players, to CASUAL SOLO PLAYERS. The majority of content every year IS designed for solo players. People do not group for overland story content, because it doesn't work half of the time. They have removed mandatory grouping from the ONLY zone that required it.

I've been hardcordly raiding in this game for YEARS. Aligning your schedule with 11 other players and dedicating multiple evenings every week for months, where atmosphere can be extremely tense is not the same as playing with friends. The game barely has a middle ground between "You play by a schedule" and "You don't have to turn on your brain at all". Unlucky for you if you want to play the biggest chunk of yearly content in an enjoyable manner, because instead you should be dedicating 10 hours weekly for raiding the same trial over and over again!
P.S. DLC dungeons are the best content they've been putting, but you're still bound to 3 other people, but aligning yourself with 3 other people is not always easy.

And also, I don't think that people are advocating for harder overland for everyone. (Well, I think it would be better for long-time health of the game), just give people an option to play in a veteran instance of the overland, you'll be still able to collect your plans in normal instance of the overland.

Lord_Hev

.

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

INM wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area

That's the problem. Overland content as a whole is a perpetual tutorial area, which fails to engage players that are past beginning stage of the game. I feel that approach of creating as much accessible (easy) overland content as possible for everyone is survivorship bias as it is, many new players are repelled by lack of engagement the current overland provides, and they simply leave the game early on. And don't start this bs "if you seek challenge, you should do raids", it is entirely different experience, which demands you to align your schedule with other people. The game simply severally lacks engaging solo-gameplay aside from 2.5 arenas, and yet the biggest chunk of content each year is unengaging slog. I'll just post this vide once - again of a naked level 3 character straight from the tutorial, it's not "engaging" gameplay. It's not only a matter of difficulty, it is matter of being engaged with the game. I don't know what to say to if you think that the game should be even easier than this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLYwxXFqEZk

P.S. Zones die regardless of their difficulty as people complete them. You don't see outside dragons/harrowstorms either.

Okay, so it seems like you are looking to play this game solo. Just think about that for a second. You're looking to play an MMO RPG SOLO. Why not play Skyrim or Oblivion at that point? Why should the game cater to players like you when the entire selling point of this game was giving you an experience similar to a TES game, except that you can play with your friends?

Yet this is the exact mindset that led to a trivial perpetual "tutorial zone" for the ENTIRE overland with zero progression. What is the point of a game if there is no progression. All the defenders of tutorial overland in perpetuity almost unanimously cite some form of self-interest in terms of "I don't want things to inconvenience me while I'm mindlessly skipping through stuff for X or Y and then log off."

Deserrick

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area, and so if you have the beginning area hard, your going to make the game harder to get into for beginner players. In the same breath, you are also going to make that content less replayable and nobody is going to enjoy it. Think the siege camps in Solstice during the Wriggling Wall event. Or Harrowstorm events during Greymore. Even Dragons, which are actually interesting incursion invents. The only reason to do those is for the dragon drops. Otherwise, those, too, would be unplayable content unless you have a decent group put together, and really, what PVE'er wants to go do something hard for a reward that is basically just crafting supplies?

Overland content, IMO should actually be made to be easier. Designed to be done with fresh characters who have little to no benefit from champion points.

If you want hard PVE content: that is what vet dungeons, trials, and arenas are for. There's IA with ramping up difficulty and unique modifiers. That's hard endgame PVE content, and it is put exactly where it needs to be: at the side, only to be engaged with when you are ready for it.

If overland content is made too difficult, then you are just creating more barriers to entry to the game, which is not good for the player base.

Exactly. Whatever difficulty options are implemented should go both ways so that events don't become unplayable due to lack of interest from other players.

scrappy1342

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Harder overland is only rewarding if the story/quests and actual rewards are worth it.

exactly. because we all currently have the option to make things more difficult IF WE REALLY WANT TO. you can take points out of your cp. you can take away your morphs and skills. you can wear lesser gear. we even have the option with the armory system these days to save builds so this could be done with the click of a button... but there's not a lot of point to it

Erickson9610

scrappy1342 wrote: »

Major_Mangle wrote: »

Harder overland is only rewarding if the story/quests and actual rewards are worth it.

exactly. because we all currently have the option to make things more difficult IF WE REALLY WANT TO. you can take points out of your cp. you can take away your morphs and skills. you can wear lesser gear. we even have the option with the armory system these days to save builds so this could be done with the click of a button... but there's not a lot of point to it

I think a big part of the appeal of Harder Overland is the idea that players want to optimize their build as much as they can, while still being offered a challenge.

That is to say that I doubt anyone wants to nerf themselves just for a challenge. Why run something painfully suboptimal if you know you can do better? That's why I think a Harder Overland option should make content harder for even the players who are running optimal builds. Players should strive to be the best they can be while still having some semblance of a challenge to overcome.

In the case of this suggestion, the "optimal builds" in question become whatever the Vengeance meta for your Class is. And as it turns out, standard enemies are more challenging even when running that sort of meta. Thus, this is one way to allow people with optimal builds to experience a challenge, without just telling them to nerf themselves.

scrappy1342

Erickson9610 wrote: »

I think a big part of the appeal of Harder Overland is the idea that players want to optimize their build as much as they can, while still being offered a challenge.

That is to say that I doubt anyone wants to nerf themselves just for a challenge. Why run something painfully suboptimal if you know you can do better? That's why I think a Harder Overland option should make content harder for even the players who are running optimal builds. Players should strive to be the best they can be while still having some semblance of a challenge to overcome.

In the case of this suggestion, the "optimal builds" in question become whatever the Vengeance meta for your Class is. And as it turns out, standard enemies are more challenging even when running that sort of meta. Thus, this is one way to allow people with optimal builds to experience a challenge, without just telling them to nerf themselves.

but in this scenario, using vengeance rules for overland to make things more difficult, you aren't using "optimized" builds. because as i understand it currently, there are no pure classes that are considered on par with anything that uses subclassing, right?

i would think that trials/arenas are where ppl would push their builds for a challenge. in other games that i do worry about stats/gear/etc, i don't go out into overland to test those things. i would use a dummy or a hard dungeon/trial/raid. maybe those things aren't challenging enough here either. i don't know because i don't mess with them. but it sounds like using a white set of your preferred build gear would be closer to this than using vengeance rules.

Saga286b14_ESO

I can't stand people that argue against an option that doesn't affect them. It's an option you don't have to use. You like the easy Overland difficulty? Then leave it that way.

Ermiq

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

INM wrote: »

BXR_Lonestar wrote: »

I don't know what the obsession is with having hard overland content. The way that I see it, overland content is basically a beginner area

That's the problem. Overland content as a whole is a perpetual tutorial area, which fails to engage players that are past beginning stage of the game. I feel that approach of creating as much accessible (easy) overland content as possible for everyone is survivorship bias as it is, many new players are repelled by lack of engagement the current overland provides, and they simply leave the game early on. And don't start this bs "if you seek challenge, you should do raids", it is entirely different experience, which demands you to align your schedule with other people. The game simply severally lacks engaging solo-gameplay aside from 2.5 arenas, and yet the biggest chunk of content each year is unengaging slog. I'll just post this vide once - again of a naked level 3 character straight from the tutorial, it's not "engaging" gameplay. It's not only a matter of difficulty, it is matter of being engaged with the game. I don't know what to say to if you think that the game should be even easier than this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLYwxXFqEZk

P.S. Zones die regardless of their difficulty as people complete them. You don't see outside dragons/harrowstorms either.

Okay, so it seems like you are looking to play this game solo. Just think about that for a second. You're looking to play an MMO RPG SOLO. Why not play Skyrim or Oblivion at that point?

Because they really suck in combat and level design. ESO is miles ahead of any other TES game in this aspects.